Final seven recovered

The remains of all sixteen of the missing from Cougar 91 have been recovered and returned to St. John’s.

Only one person on board the flight survived.  He remains in hospital but is reportedly making a steady recovery.

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Do they have anything of value to contribute?

Please. Someone. Explain this:

[St. John.s city councillor Tom] Hann admitted he didn’t know enough about search and rescue to say whether or not a faster response would have made a difference to the outcome of last week’s crash.

“I can’t answer that question,” he said. “That’s an issue for the experts. But the only issue that I see is that, you know, I think it’s needed. Everybody says it is needed, but nothing has been done.”

The guy says he doesn’t know enough to anything of consequence at all and yet he makes a proposal to do something to deal with a situation about which he admits his own fundamental ignorance.

On top of that, he claims the idea of having a search and rescue unit in St. John’s is an issue best left to “experts” but at the same time, he wants to push this idea because “everybody” says it is needed.

So who are the experts he’s talking about?

Here’s a thought:  maybe Tom can get together with Scott Simms and discuss relocating the search and rescue unit in Scott’s riding to St. John’s.

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Tom, don’t expect to get a job with Sikorsky sales update:  Just listening to Tom Hann on a night-time talk show doing an excellent job of demonstrating what he doesn’t know.  Tom is familiar with these subjects since  - as Tom put it  - “I’ve flown the Cormorant.”  Flown one or flown in one? 

Anyway.

Newsflash, Tom -  Both the Cormorant (EH-101) and the S-92 are built to fly search and rescue as well as transport and other missions. Next time you get a chance to talk to anyone federally you might ask about the new navy helicopter, the Cyclone, which is…wait for it…the S-92 in another guise.  When it comes in service, it will be providing SAR back-up for the Cormorants.

Makes you wonder where Tom stood on the cancellation of the EH-101s in 1993?  It’s a bit like listening to Scott Simms asking where the Cormorant back-up was while the entire squadron from Gander conducted a squadron full deployment exercise last week. 

The back up was provided by Cougar. Here’s some video of a Cougar SAR training mission. You’ll find a few other vids of this from different angles.

Once this is all over, Rick Burt and the people at Cougar need to take Tom and his friends up for a spin and introduce them to the superlative staff flying SAR missions for the company.

This won’t be pretty

Funny yes, but not pretty.

Is that you, Bas? is a new  blog dedicated to local talk radio callers.

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And speaking of funny, not pretty…

nottawa’s observations on one local talk radio host.

 

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When tragedy becomes abuse

Not surprisingly, an e-mail showed up on Thursday ranting about what the writer – a former journalist – called “asshole questions.”

It wasn’t surprising because more than a few people have been appalled since Thursday last week at an entire line of innuendo drawn by one reporter at a news conference on the Cougar helicopter crash and then turned into a self-referential pile of garbage that evening on a VOCM call-in show.

Self-referential refers to the arrogant tendency of both the reporter and the call-in show host to talk about how hard this whole tragedy at sea has been for them. They didn’t lose anyone on the ill-fated Cougar helicopter flight nor did they know anyone personally, apparently.  Their grief came from having to cover the story.  The pair led off the Sunday evening edition with the same self-pity bull.

Then they turned to justifying their comments about search and rescue and what they seem to believe was the lack of search and rescue response “on Newfoundland ground.”  That’s the phrase the reporter in question likes to use. He used it, too, in that news conference not to establish the search and rescue response but to focus on the military search and rescue.

All that blather – as well as the call right afterwards from one of their former colleagues at the twice defunct newspaper The Independent - was a clue that the pair have been under some pressure  likely from their colleagues in the local journalist community for a string of not only what the e-mail correspondent aptly described but the commentary that flowed from the questions.

The details of this incident were known on the day of the crash. One of the details known from the outset is that a search and rescue helicopter was available at the time of the crash and responded to the scene.  According to the timeline produced in the Telegram from the rescue co-ordination centre in Halifax, the helicopter arrived on scene 72 minutes after the ditching and recovered the one survivor in the water.

One must wonder on what basis anyone would morph the simple facts as established clearly and unequivocally into some sort of line of inquiry about the CH-149s. 

The only obvious reason to do so would be if there was any indication that this had an impact on events, but that doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny. With the information presented at the third news conference on the day of the crash – the one at which the string of questions on the Cormorants started – it was pretty clear that none but the two bodies (one fatality and one survivor) identified were spotted by the very first aircraft on scene.  That PAL King Air arrived some 25 minutes after impact, more than 40 minutes before the first search and rescue helicopter  - from COUGAR search and rescue (SAR)  - arrived on the scene.

With that established – as it was from the outset - there is no legitimate reason to persist in the blatant misrepresentations that have taken place since Thursday.

Search and rescue aircraft were available immediately at the time of the crash.  The others – Cormorants belonging not to  coast guard but to the Department of National Defence – were on a training exercise. They were pulled off the exercise and despatched to the crash site.  They arrived on the scene 18 minutes after the COUGAR SAR flight. [Corrected:  original stated difference in time as 38 mins.  Cougar on scene 1110 hrs.  Cormorant on scene 1128 hrs local]

This entire thread cannot be blithely dismissed as part of the normal hard work done by responsible journalists.  Responsible journalists did their jobs on Thursday and they have done it since then on this story.  They asked hard questions but they asked relevant questions based on the information readily available. They didn’t get into the Cormorant angle, one suspects, because the unspeakable truth of this incident was evident to them all from the outset.

Responsible journalists didn’t use the questions and answers to create an entirely false impression, as it evidently has, in a group of people who have been misled in their grief.  One of those people, the mayor of a town hit hard by the tragedy, turned up on national radio repeating the false information he had received and trusted.

Even as hideous as all that is, the self-referential pair can’t be held responsible for another despicable crowd who have taken the false information – no search and rescue helicopters in Newfoundland at the time of the crash – and put it to some more demented purpose. Far too many people have taken this false information and turned it  into part of their political agenda. One of those callers turned up just now on the same call-in show spewing his particular brand of venom.  Not once did the host try and sort the fellow out.

People who know how news conferences work know how information can change in an unfolding event such as this one. They can note, for example, how some details change.  In the second newser, some locator beacons were detected initially.  In the third one, it sounds like none at all were detected.  The correct detail will emerge.

That’s not what we are looking at in the case of the thread about SAR response. The details were already clear from the outset.  Some people have misrepresented them, inexplicably and disgustingly.

This sort of misrepresentation amounts to an abuse. 

It tortures the families of the victims of the crash by suggesting a hope which is false. 

This attack – and that’s what it amounts to – tortures the men and women of the search and rescue services.  103 Search and Rescue Squadron flies twice the national average in SAR missions.  Hercules from 413 Squadron join them far out to sea.  They all train hard and fly hard and risk their lives in weather when the rest of us are huddled by a fire safe at home. They do it to save the souls whose lives are at risk in the harsh North Atlantic. When lives are lost, as in this case, they will inevitably search their souls to ensure that all that could be done was done.

This attack abuses the men and women of Cougar. The company has an exemplary safety record.  The company has such a record because every single employee is committed to safe service.  Over 48,000 accident free flying hours don’t happen without such a level of personal commitment. The company’s crews also fly search and rescue services every bit as good and every bit as dangerous as the work done by 103 and its sister squadrons.

These misrepresentations abuse the members of the public who are shocked by the tragedy and who share in the grief of those who have lost loved ones. They are misled into believing things which are not true.

In a time of tragedy, it is hard to imagine more monstrous abuses. The tortures will continue until someone decides to put an end to them. Maybe a wise editorial hand needs to rest on someone’s shoulder.

In the meantime,  all that the rest of us can do is hope that somewhere in the midst of their self-absorption, the perpetrators of the abuse can realize the harm they are doing.

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Atlantic Osprey

Background information, including a photograph of the vessel and last reported position, via marinetraffic,com.

The position appears to be current and shows the vessel anchored after circling the crash site.

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Partial list of crash victims released

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police released a partial list of names of victims of the Cougar S-92 crash. 

Raw video of the RCMP newser is available from cbc.ca/nl.

Of the 17 victims, 12 names were released.  The other five have not been released at the request of the families. There are available at cbc.ca/nl and at The Telegram website.

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“Hard landing”: Cougar S-92 crash chronology

Adapted from The Telegram:  [BP notes in square brackets.]

Here's a brief timeline of the events of March 12 when Cougar Helicopters flight 91 crashed into the ocean. [The tick tock on this incident was pretty well established by mid-afternoon on the day of the crash, based on official sources.  Initial timings were converted from ZULU to Atlantic time in error but the sequence and other details were known publicly.  Times below are Newfoundland Daylight Savings Time (Universal Time/ZULU less 3.5), presented in 24 hour format.]

0940 local- Mayday call from the Cougar Helicopters flight. [According to the COUGAR website this scheduled flight launched at 0900 with destination given as “SRF-HIB”.  That translates as Seas Rose FPSO and Hibernia.   According to a company spokesperson on Friday, the pilot had indication of “zero oil pressure” in the main rotor gearbox and immediately began a return to base.

MAYDAY is a call indicated an emergency with imminent or immediate threat to the aircraft.  The fact that the pilot declared a MAYDAY reflects the seriousness of the issue and also may reflect the tight safety protocols of the company.  Were the issue of less significance, the pilot would have likely declared PAN PAN PAN which denotes a major issue but not one carrying an imminent or immediate threat.]

0948 local  - Helicopter ditches in the Atlantic 55 kilometres east of St. John's. [Position given in the CAPORS report filed the day of the crash shows it as approximately that distance from St. John’s.]

1000 local - Transportation Safety Board notified.

1012 local - Provincial Airlines ice patrol plane arrived and saw the helicopter inverted in the water. [This is a significant point to bear in mind for all subsequent discussion. The PAL aircraft  - directed to the scene as part of the SAR effort – arrived within 25 mins of ditching and reported one or two life rafts deployed, two survival suits in the water and an inverted aircraft.  Local weather has been reported as winds 20 knots with two to three metre seas.

Globe and Mail: “Of the two [people] in the water, one was observed face down. They saw no sign of flares or smoke or anyone waving from the life rafts,” he [PAL chairman Thomas Collingwood] said. “What we've learned from our crew is that they definitely had a hard landing.”

This suggests very strongly that contrary to initial rumour, the aircraft did not remain upright in the water for very long if at all.  The NTSB investigation including an analysis of flight data recorders will give a much more accurate picture, however, the initial details reported by credible observers seems clear in its implications. This also bears on questions that have been raised about the personal location transponders which reportedly did not activate.]

1034 local - Canadian Forces C-130 Hercules airplane arrived at the scene. [ From 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron, 14 Wing Greenwood Nova Scotia.]

1110 local - Cougar 61 arrived on scene, and shortly after hoisted survivor Robert Decker out of the water. Cougar flight 91 was no longer in sight. [COUGAR provides search and rescue (SAR) services.  According to official comment reported in local media, COUGAR was already tasked to provide back-up to 103 Squadron Gander while the squadron conducted training exercises near Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Even if 103 had been in Gander on 12 Mar 09, its aircraft would have been 30 mins flying time to St. John’s plus the time from St. John’s to the crash location.  COUGAR SAR was closest and arrived on scene 72 mins after ditching, if this timeline is correct.]

1128 local - The first Cormorant [CH-149] rescue helicopter arrived at the crash scene.

[Telegram] Source: Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre

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News release: C-NLOPB REACTS TO LOSS OF COUGAR FLIGHT 491

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), issued the following statement in relation to the loss of Cougar’s Flight 491 and its fifteen passengers and two crew on route from St. John’s to the Hibernia Platform and the Sea Rose FPSO.

The C-NLOPB Board and staff wish to express deepest sympathies to the families, friends and co-workers of the passengers and crew aboard Cougar’s Flight 491. This tragedy affects all who work in the offshore oil and gas sector and all of us as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Our hearts and prayers go out to them.

The C-NLOPB has been working very closely with responding agencies since the incident occurred and monitoring search and rescue efforts. The ditching of Cougar’s Flight 491 is an air accident and the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are the lead agencies in the investigation of this incident. The C-NLOPB will fully cooperate with these agencies in the investigation.

The C-NLOPB will also be an observer during the recovery operation. If there are lessons to be learned from this event for the C-NLOPB, we will ensure those lessons are implemented. T

he C-NLOPB has regulatory responsibility for safety on oil and gas facilities operating in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area. The C-NLOPB verifies that operators have appropriate safety plans in place. The guidelines for the development of the Safety Plan are on the Board’s website .

The basic safety requirements for working on an offshore oil and gas facility include:

• Successful completion of a medical exam

• Completion of a basic offshore survival course

• Personnel must use certified personal protective equipment and apparel when working offshore

• Also, personnel are provided with a flight suit which must be worn during transport.

The C-NLOPB is committed to overseeing offshore oil and gas activities to verify that safety is the first priority in offshore operations.

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S-92 crash links

For those looking to keep track of the reporting on this story, here are the two best local sources:

1.  CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

• Raw video
• Comprehensive web page, including links to raw video, others news coverage, a live feed of the news conferences associated with the incident and a live online forum.

2.  The Telegram: the province’s largest daily newspaper has been updating regularly with short snippets in the daily news section [rss link]. They also have some of their “Top Story” coverage available as well online [rss link].  There is also some coverage in the “Local News” section [rss link]

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Bullshit

Williams has been in contact with the Prime Minister and the province's federal representative Peter MacKay keeping them up to date on what's happening on the ground.

Extract from a voice of the cabinet minister “news” report

The search and rescue resources from Greenwood, Nova Scotia and Gander, Newfoundland currently deployed in response to the Cougar S-92 crash are from the Department of National Defence.

The Minister of National Defence is Peter MacKay.

He receives a daily briefing from the Canadian Forces on these sorts of things and can be briefed more often as necessary from people in direct contact with the pilots in the planes.  Heck, Pete can speak to them himself from his desk as they fly above the ocean if he wants.

The coast guard, transport department and all the other entirely federal agencies working on this tragedy report to – wait for it – the federal government.

The defence minister and the prime minister have access to detailed information on this incident in far greater detail and in a far broader scope than just about anyone else.

So what exactly did the Premier have to say that would keep the people with all the information first hand “up to date” with what’s happening on the ground?

Maybe the reporter(s) curious about the water depth at 47 26 05N 51 56 58W might add that to their list of questions to pose. Either that or someone could ask VOCM to check their understanding again of what the Premier actually said.

Either way, one of them is full of it.

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Upright in a hurricane

This is raw video of what appears to be a sales demonstration of the S-92 for a Hungarian audience. This one is in military configuration, hence the H-92 reference.

At about the 2:41 mark, there is reference to flotation equipment on the aircraft both at the tail and the nose which is designed to keep the aircraft upright in a ditching.  The pilot (?) makes a comment about keeping the aircraft upright even in a hurricane.

The internal configuration for this aircraft is for military use.  Hence the demonstration refers to a crew of four and emphasises the ease with which the internal arrangement can be switched out to accommodate a purely cargo mission.

The civilian passenger configuration provides 19 seats in rows of three, set up with two on one side and one on the other. Passengers face forward, whereas in this military configuration, anyone in the main cabin sits with his or her back to the fuselage wall.

Reported weather conditions at the site at the time of crash were  two to three metre seas and winds at 20 knots.

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Gearbox oil pressure implicated in S-92 crash

Cougar official Rick Burt, interviewed by CBC Radio the morning after the crash, indicated the aircraft commander declared a MAYDAY after getting a gauge indication of  “zero oil pressure” in the main gearbox.

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Related:

1.  CADOR excerpt on CHI91 incident.

2.  Previous S-92 airworthiness directives involving the main gearbox and oil pressure issues.

CADORS 2009A0212

From the Transport Canada’s incident report on the Cougar S-92 crash:

CHI91, S92, enroute from St. John’s (CYYT) to the Hibernia Oil Platform at 12:15Z, declared MAYDAY due to a main gear box oil pressure problem and requested to return to St. John’s. Air Traffic Control cleared the flight as requested. At 12:25Z aircraft ditched at position 472605N515658W.

The time reported here for the MAYDAY is 0945 hrs local, not 0910 hrs as reported in an evening media briefing. The ditching time is given as 0955 hrs local.

This is an initial report and may be subject to change.

Timeshift update:  The ZULU times are apparently correct.  Initial reports came from the SAR co-ordination centre based in Halifax which initially converted ZULU to Atlantic time out of habit.

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If a little knowledge…

is a dangerous thing, reporter Brian Callahan’s comments this evening about search and rescue response to the Cougar S-92 accident is proving what you get from complete ignorance.

Morning after update:  Asking questions is one thing.  Making accusations directly or by innuendo is quite another.

Questions about search and rescue in the aftermath of the crash aren’t confined to Callahan.  One caller to CBC Radio yesterday afternoon and again the morning and a radio talk show host on another network tried to turn SAR into some kind of  “us” versus “them”, Newfoundland versus the mainland political racket.

“Irresponsible” would be the most polite word for these sorts of ill-informed or ill-considered comments.  Obnoxious might be a better word for it.

The North Atlantic is a cruel and difficult place.  Working offshore in any industry is inherently dangerous and even with good training and excellent standards and equipment tragedies will occur. That doesn’t mean we accept the tragedies;  it merely means we have to always bear in mind that reality.

The people who work SAR – private sector, coast guard and the air force – are highly trained and they work tirelessly to provide the very best search and rescue service that is humanly possible.

The ones I know are anything but as cavalier and irresponsible as the people making the comments about SAR over the past 24 hours. 

 

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Sikorsky S-92

1.  Australia:  Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/4 dated 2/2007 re: tail gearbox.

2. Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/3 dated 2/2007 re: main rotor gearbox. Mandates replacement of main gearbox housing at 2700 hours time-in-service.

3.  Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/2: “This AD requires replacing the MGB lubrication/scavenge pump vespel spline adapters before further flight, and thereafter, replacing them at certain intervals”.

4.  Sikorsky signs gearbox maintenance deal with VIHAG, Cougar parent.

5.  The S-92 was a candidate to replace the Sea King in the role of Marine Corps presidential helicopter transport.  it lost out to the Merlin/Cormorant under the designation US-101.

6.  The Canadian defence department selected the S-92 to replace the aging Sea King fleet.  The program is behind schedule.

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Government pollster misses more interesting story

Here’s a great comment attributed to the provincial government’s pollster, CRA’s Don Mills, by voice of the cabinet minister:

Mills says Williams draws support from all pockets of the province, regardless of the party voters normally support.

That’s a really interesting claim for Mills to make given that he has absolutely no data on which to base it. 

Firstly, in his quarterly survey CRA doesn’t ask people which party they “normally” support. Heck, they don’t even provide demographic or geographic data so that we could all get a better understanding of what is going on out there among potential voters.  They could be polling 100% on George Street on Saturday night or – less facetiously – polling overwhelmingly in the traditional Tory base of support in and around St. John ‘s for all we would know.

Secondly, given that Mills’ polling is wildly out of whack with the results of the last provincial election, he really should wonder whether or not he could even infer “normal” party support from his polling.

Third, even if he possibly could draw that conclusion reasonably by inference, the CRA data  - presented as CRA presents it suggests a much more interesting story about a drop in support for his client.

Mills doesn’t talk about that aspect of his client’s numbers, though. In fact he’s been known to issue news releases making claims his own data doesn’t really support, once you take out the distorting of discussing only decideds.

One of the things to notice about the November 2008 poll is that it showed the lowest PC party numbers in recent times and also happens to be considerably more accurate (as a function of margin of error) than any poll Mills has done recently.  The one just released had a margin of error almost double the one from November.

Fourth, if you wanted to do some longer term analysis, even accepting CRA poll results as presented as being valid, you can get something a lot more interesting than just saying “He’s more popular than Jesus.” Incidentally, the Alex Marland quoted in the VOCM story that started this is the same guy mentioned in that link. Take note too of the frequency of CRA polls with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.

Even with CRA’s own release you see an interesting couple of things that Mills won’t mention.  Rather than use his own data and generate some interesting news, he seems to favour stroking the client in public.

Since February last year support for the Provincial Conservatives has dropped eight percentage points.  It’s an unmistakeable trend. That’s roughly a 10% drop, for what it’s worth.

At the same time, and given that the poll just taken shows the lowest level of undecideds in the past 12 months, the Liberal party support has gone up by eight percentage points, nine if you include the drop in the second quarter of 2008. Soaring economy, bags of money and public support for the ruling party goes down.  A rump opposition party with a temporary leader picks up steadily.

Not only that but this is best performance by the Liberal party since November of 2005.

That trending comes despite the current governing party holding onto the kind of popular satisfaction numbers you’d only see in North Korea.

Yep.  Even as crude an instrument as a CRA quarterly poll can yield way more interesting stuff than what gets reported if you just look.  Part of seeing that would be to look past the old story of popularity or saying stuff for which there is no data to support and actually analysing the information that you do have.

Would that get government’s pollster a nasty phone call one wonders?

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Dysfunction and disconnect

How many times does a government get to do and say completely contradictory or unfounded things before people wonder about the competence of the people involved?

1.  "The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is unable to support this at this time on the basis of very genuine concerns that our province’s issues [shrimp tariff, seal hunt, custodial management] may not be safeguarded or dealt with in an appropriate way by the Federal Government."  Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, February 20, 2009.

2.   “It is clear that the efforts of our government, in collaboration with those of the Government of Canada and industry, are indeed paying off,” continued Minister Rideout.”  Major progress made on European Union shrimp tariff, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, July 11, 2007.

3.   "That's how things have worked for us over the years, and we've got shafted as a result of it," he said, claiming that Newfoundland fish stocks have been traded off by the feds. Danny Williams, comments to reporters, quoted in “Williams ponders own deal with EU”, The Telegram, March 7, 2009. [Not on line] This is a commonly held belief of some people in the province but there is no evidence to that such trades ever occurred.

4. "We strongly endorse your commitment for bilateral agreements and look forward to working with the federal government to achieve a bilateral agreement with the EU." Innovation minister Trevor Taylor,  August 11, 2008, letter to then federal international trade minister Michael Fortier, quoted in “Province backed trade talks: 2008 letter”, The Telegram, March 10, 2009.

5.  “If that means that there's an agreement between Canada and 12 jurisdictions, and there has to be a separate agreement negotiated with Newfoundland and Labrador, then I'm fine with that." Williams, quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

Williams reportedly conveyed his concerns to Quebec premier jean Charest in the latter’s capacity as chairman of the council of provincial premiers.  Charest has been one of the driers of the EU trade deal since he first proposed it after the annual economic conference in Davos, 2007.

6.  "The EU doesn't negotiate trade agreements with provinces or federations," MUN's Steven Wolinetz said. “Prof puzzled by premier’s call for own EU trade deal”, The Telegram, March 9, 2009.

7.   "I do understand from behind the scenes that this is actually causing some very, very serious concerns from people in the EU," Williams said. quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

8.  “It would have been ideal if all provinces had joined” in Friday’s pro-trade declaration, [EU official] Jan Sliva said in a statement. “But in our view those provinces and territories that did join represent the majority of Canada’s trade and investment potential.” quoted in “N.L. won’t stop Canada-Europe trade talks: EU”, CanWest, March 10, 2009.

Given all that, it would seem logical to conclude that the provincial government actually isn’t interested in resolving its three big issues.  After all, they cannot be resolved if the provincial government refuses to address them or has no means to address them given its refusal to work on an obvious mechanism to resolve them.

And hey, it’s not like Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a significant interest in expanded trade with the European Union.  After the United States, the EU is Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest foreign trade partner.

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The poll numbers – first quarter 2009

We’ve bashed the Corporate Research Associates polling around in these parts for quite some time. 

Since since it’s the only game in town, however, it’s what we have to work with.

Here are some quickie observations on the most recent poll:

1.  The margin of error for the most recent poll is plus or minus 4.9%.  For November, 2008, the MoE was 2.8% and for the ones before that, it was 3.5%. Bear that in mind as you go through media coverage that talks about things being where they were.

2.  The chart at left adjusts the CRA numbers to present them as a percentage of respondents rather than adjusting  them as a percentage of decideds.

3.  If we accept that the undecideds dropped seven percentage points from November, note that both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives picked up equally from that.  The extra point came from the New Democrats.

4.  The most accurate of all CRA polls  - measured in terms of the margin of error - was the one in November.  The MoE was plus or minus 2.8%.

5.  There’s something slightly counter-intuitive about these numbers. At a time of growing economic uncertainty – including some sharp blows in this province – one wouldn’t expect party choice for the governing party to go up. Ditto for the satisfaction numbers which remain at astronomical levels. Look at the satisfaction numbers and it doesn’t get any less curious; you just wouldn’t expect 88% of people in the province to be mostly or completely satisfied with government giving all that’s gone on.

Doesn’t matter the party.  Doesn’t matter the leader.  When things are bad or going bad, there just isn’t as much generosity toward government. 10,000 ticked off  nurses and their families should amount for something, shouldn’t they?  How about a 1,000 paper workers?  Apparently not.

6. Poll goosing.  CRA was in the field beginning on February 9.  They stopped polling on February 28th. Oddly enough, when asked about it by a talk show host on February 19, the premier knew CRA had started polling the week before.

He also offered the view that if he was going to goose the poll he would have started goosing the week before polling started.

Interesting.

The Equalization racket started in late January even though by all indications the provincial government had the numbers on Equalization and offsets from early November onwards.  Anyone else find that news conference in the middle of the night thing odd, especially since government had already planned to scrum the finance minister the day after the federal budget came down?

Notice all the feisty, fighting talk running into that first week of February.  Take that as sort of the background noise to the month.  Nothing like a racket with Ottawa to get the juices flowing in polling season.

Then there’s the Lower Churchill project.  The infeed to Soldier’s Pond – an integral part of the project – is shaved off for some inexplicable reason and submitted to its own environmental review process starting on January 30. On top of that there were two more major Lower Churchill announcements in February, one of which was merely to say the Crown corporation had solicited six expressions of interest;  not received:  asked for.

Government decided to try playing nice with the nurses.  They did it very publicly in February a week into polling.

Let’s not forget the “historic” infrastructure announcement made – you guessed it – right smack in the middle of polling. That was followed by a few speeches to give the thing a few legs.

Overall, though, February was a very busy month for the provincial cabinet.  Lots of good news and happy talk.  Marinas, fur farms, air ambulances, all announced in February.

7.  Rolling Stones Update:  Can’t get no satisfaction? We’ve had some issues with CRA polling before and the tendency to generate results that leaving you scratching your head.

One of those would be “satisfaction”.

Let’s leave aside entirely the problem with the question -   what exactly is the difference between “mostly” and completely”? – and look at the relationship between the satisfaction number on the one hand and the party support number on the other.

Without any prompting one might suspect that satisfaction goes with support.  If you are mostly or completely satisfied with government performance, then you’d be inclined to support the government party.

Not so, according to CRA.  In Nova Scotia, for example, people are very happy with Rodney’s government but they plan to vote for the Grits or Dippers.

We are not talking small numbers.  The Liberal and NDP vote numbers here are running fairly steadily at a combined 64% of decideds for the past three quarters.  The satisfaction numbers have been running in the 50s.  So if you believe CRA, a majority of Nova Scotians like their Tory government but a larger number wants them out of office.

Huh?

It gets fruitier when you look at the Tories coming in second or – in the latest poll – third place among parties.  People are happy with the job government is doing but they don’t want to vote for the government party.

Those odd numbers don’t just apply to Nova Scotia.  Satisfaction with Roger Grimes was decently in the 50s pretty much right up until the end.  Take a gander at CRA’s polling and there’s a good likelihood you’ll find lots of examples of this completely incomprehensible correlation.  According to CRA, Nova Scotians like the job a government is doing but want to throw the bums out.

Doesn’t make sense.

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Baby Talk

A news release on Tuesday from the provincial government agency that collects and analyses health statistics showed the number of live births in the province in 2008 at 4905, the highest number “in any year since 1999”.

That’s true but more than a few people wondered why the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information took the arbitrary year 1999 aside from the fact it is convenient to measure by decade. The other thing people wondered is why the agency would editorialise with the claim that “[t]his increase in the number of births is a positive step toward population growth for our province.”

The analysts at NLCHI ought to know that the number of live births is just one factor in population trending.  In addition, they would need to understand the cause for the increase, year over year, to see if this is actually something other than an anomaly in what has otherwise been a fairly steady decline in the number of live births to mothers whose residence is Newfoundland and Labrador.

A look at NLCHI figures on live births going back to 1995 (chart, left) shows the long term trending.

The number of births has been declining for some time.

The number for 2008 is the highest number of births over the past decade, except for 1999.  There were more than 5,000 live births that year.

The figures for 2006 and 2007 aren’t available, apparently. NLCHI didn’t release any data and only described the 2008 figures as being more than 300 higher than 2007.  Statistics Canada figures cover the period up to 2006 and they are the same as the NLCHI figures.

It’s not hard to understand the declining number of births in the 1990s.  Outmigration in the late 1990s took about 70,000 people out of the population, most of them in their child-bearing years.

The increase over the last four years is most likely due to a general improvement in the economy.  The population continued to decline annually throughout the period and only showed an overall increase within the past year or so.

A look at the crude birth rate (live births per thousand of population) gives another perspective. The birth rate declined precipitously as the population dropped among people of child-bearing age.

After the major outmigration ended, the rate stabilized again and until the economy really started to surge the rate stayed relatively low.

One of the things to bear in mind when looking at these numbers is the inherent lag in births from time of conception. That sounds like a penetrating insight into the obvious but since some people are undoubtedly going to credit the government’s pro-natal policy for the increase the time lag has to be factored in.

Children born in late 2008 reflect parental decisions (even allowing for surprises) taken in the early part of the year.  Children born in the first few months of 2008 were conceived before the bootie call announcement in September 2007.  That time lag is the reason why the overall economic climate might have more of an impact on the decision to have children than a cash bounty of $1,000 for each live birth and $100 per month per child for the first year after birth.

Statistics Update:  The number crunching labradore picks up on the decline thingy.  He points out that the number of births in the province has been declining every year since 1956 or so.  There have been periodic upticks but the trend is decidedly downward.

Skeptics update: To go with that, there’s a Bond Papers post from February that discusses some comments the finance minister made to Voice of the Cabinet Minister during polling season.

At that time, we were skeptical that the 4900 figure was real.  We are still a little curious about the number and the timing of the release.

Halfway through 2008 and the preliminary figures showed everything on track to deliver about 4500.  That’s an even more curious figure since the cash allocated by government for the program – which includes adoptions not accounted for in all the live birth numbers – works out to be 4500 children annually. 

But as for 2008, even allowing for season variation and the nine month time lag, that would mean all the extra kiddies were hatched in the second half of the year. Makes you scratch your head a bit.

And if all that weren’t enough, consider this line from the provincial government’s main statistics agency:

The number of births has been trending downward for four decades because of declining fertility rates and, more recently, a decline in the number of women of child-bearing age.

That pretty much says it all.  The population of people willing and able to have babies has been getting relatively smaller in this province. We’d have to go into a more detailed demographic breakout to see if there is an echo generation showing up.  That’s the offspring of a previous boom suddenly showing up having children.  It happened about 20-odd years ago as the children of baby boomers started reaching child-bearing age. We might be just at the leading edge of time when the baby-boomers’ grandchildren are starting to have babies.

As labradore noted at the time, since the population in child-bearing age has been going on, a baby crop of 4900 would mean that fewer people are having more children.

Sorta runs against what you’d expect.

 

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God save us…

From mainlanders who spent a bit of time in St. John’s at some point and think they understand Newfoundland.

For the most part, the only thing worth saying about Senator George Baker’s comments is that they have been matched in their shallowness by the editorial commentary in some of the country’s newspapers.

If Dan Leger actually knew anything about Newfoundland – and maybe even Labrador – he’d realise that Senator Baker is largely the pre-occupation of the mainlanders. 

Outside of the local crowd that stand eternally ready to promote their fantasy of victimisation, the rest of us had better things to do than sweat the rise of a bloc-head party.

We’ve heard all this before.

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November 2008 Churchill Falls fire knocked out two of 11 generating units

A fire last fall at Churchill Falls knocked out two of the 11 generating units at the facility, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro confirmed for Bond Papers Monday.

Repairs began immediately after the fire and one of the two disabled generators returned to service in February.  Repairs continue on the other.

The fire damaged cables connecting the underground transformers to transformers on the surface. There were no injuries.  The fire was contained on the surface by Churchill Falls fire and security staff.  Newspaper reports at the time indicated that the facility was evacuated as a safety precaution.

An investigation into the fire is expected to be completed shortly at which time further details will be released.

A January 16 story in the Montreal Gazette warned readers to be cautious about their power consumption. Winter is normally a time of heavy demand in Quebec.  As the Gazette reported:

Hydro's provincial grid is stretched especially tight these days because two turbines in Churchill Falls, N.L., that normally supply Hydro-Québec with 1,000 megawatts were damaged by fire in the fall.

CFLCo’s Churchill Falls facility generates in excess of 5400 megawatts.

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Rex should check his video archives

Rex Murphy, in his Globe and Mail column, Saturday, March 7:

Mr. Harper is not Canada. Mr. Williams is not Newfoundland.

Danny Williams, from Rex Murphy’s profile for The National after the October 2007 Newfoundland and Labrador general election:

I think I represent in my own heart and soul the hearts and souls of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The one may not be Canada but as for the other, for l’etat terre-neuvien?

C’est lui.

Well, at least in his own mind.

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Bursting bubbles everywhere

last year the provincial government budget for 2008 forecast the provincial economy would shrink by 2.2%. Even with the economic down-turn, the economy seems poised to grow by that much.

But that was last year.

And the provincial government number was a forecast.

In 2009, the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador will shrink.  There are no bubbles to protect any economy from the recession.

The Conference Board of Canada puts the drop at 2.6% and for good reason:

Despite a positive outlook for consumer spending and construction, Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy will decline in 2009 by 2.6 per cent, the worst performance of all the provinces. Oil production continues to fall off at mature sites and the closure of the newsprint mill in Grand Falls will hurt manufacturing output.

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Darwin Awards Runners Up: Things that go boom in the night

Police answered an unusual call this week in North River, Conception Bay. Someone wanted the police to dispose of a  naval five inch shell that people had been keeping as some sort of souvenir.

The thing reportedly dates back to the early part of the 20th century and, if the media report is right, was pilfered from an old Royal Naval Reserve training ship in St. John’s.

Ah the stories one comes across like this. 

In the mid-1990s there were a couple of reports in the space of a week of old hand grenades (Mills bombs) turning up in the Maritimes.  If memory serves, one was found on a mantle piece where it had rested undisturbed for decades until someone noticed it while cleaning out the house.  In the other incident, someone coming out to change the flag on a government building found the thing sitting there like an abandoned baby.

An old friend who served with the local constabulary relayed another story years ago of responding to a call to a home in what was then a less developed part of the city.  It was quite near an old Canadian army depot, though.  Somewhere along the line, the old codger who’d owned the place had managed to find a few treasures and stored them in his shed.  Included among the goodies was – as it turned out – a stash of 25 pounder artillery shells, less the bagged charges of gunpowder used to shoot them out of the cannon.

Still, though, the stuff was mighty dangerous.  Had they gone off, they would have left a mighty great hole where the shed and house had been, not to mention what would have become of the people.

It’s one thing to be a farmer in France and Belgium where this stuff comes up out of the Earth almost a century after it was first used.  or say to be a farmer in Afghanistan where the unexploded bombs and booby traps from recent conflicts still claim lives.

We are talking a whole other matter, though, when you have people who think that bombs, shells, grenades and other things intended to kill and maim might actually be worthwhile things to have around so there won’t be a lull in the conversation when the lads come round for a swalley.

At least someone had the good sense to call in the experts and have the thing disposed of properly.

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Romaine clears environmental review

The Romaine hydro project in Quebec cleared the joint federal-provincial environmental review panel on Friday.

In making its decision, the panel noted that it worked within the legal boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador:

Par ailleurs, elle a évalué les effets environnementaux du projet selon le tracé de 1927 du Conseil
privé et ne se prononce aucunement sur la validité de cette frontière entre le Québec et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador.

Quel shock for the League of Professional Victims.

For those whose French isn’t that good here’s a rough (not literal) translation:

In addition, it evaluated the environmental effects of the project according to the boundary set in 1927 by the Privy Council and does not come to a conclusion at all about the validity of this border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It comes to no conclusion since it had no grounds on which to question the whole issue. So much for the twaddle pushed by the League that somehow this decision would see the federal government endorse a border change. Apparently only one private individual appeared before the committee to recommend that the border be erased altogether.

There is extensive discussion of the environmental issues, including the potential impact on migratory caribou herds. The panel recommends that the Quebec ministries involved develop a plan with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to protect the caribou.

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Former judge dies; played role in uncovering details of major political scandal

Retired judge Lloyd Soper passed away in St. John’s on Friday, aged 89.  Soper had a distinguished career on the bench where he earned a reputation for his diligent, thoroughness and high standards.

For those who recall, Judge Soper served as commissioner for an inquiry into a political scandal that swirled around a fire at Elizabeth Towers in the late 1970s.

Soper may be best known for examining how confidential police reports wound up in the hands of news media.  He had no trouble weighing the evidence and making a firm decision in a report that ran a mere 47 pages.  The scandal, especially the events of the weekend of 23 September 1978  proved to be a turning point in many political and journalistic careers in the province.

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Islands

1.  The latest writings on the mess that is Iceland:  Winston Smith links to the New Yorker article, while here’s a link to a  feature in Vanity Fair. 

2.  nottawa gives us a couple of links to the story of an island in the North Atlantic that feels isolated from its mother.

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Stephen Harper’s bitch

“Williams bough[t] it hook line and sinker. He threw his considerable political machine behind the Federal Conservatives.”

Extract from a entry in the journal of the main local traitor brander

Smack in the middle of a post about the supposed accuracy of Senator George Baker’s comments on separation comes this comment from the blog author.

According to this blog that need not be named, in 2005, Danny Williams supported Stephen Harper based on the “it” in that quote, namely the promise to remove all non-renewable resources from the Equalization calculation. Then Harper reneged and the rest is history.  Among the League of Professional Victims, this episode has become yet another one of the grievances – more fantasy, fiction and invention than reality – that fuels their daily angst.

That was the point of the post which claims that baker is “telling it like it is.” 

Now it’s not like the political problems with this Equalization fiddle weren’t fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the issues.  Or for that matter for anyone surrounded by a bunch of expert policy people all of whom were familiar with the whole thing. 

And it’s not like a majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted for Harper in 2005 despite the workings of the “considerable political machine.”  They saw through the whole thing from the beginning, apparently.

But despite all that, this fellow who usually says the Premier is always right contends that Danny Williams – super-lawyer, wonder negotiator, walker on water, bender of spoons - was duped.

Fooled.

Taken for a ride.

Played for a patsy.

He was a sucker.

He was outsmarted, outwitted, bamboozled, hoodwinked.

By Stephen Harper.

Of all people.

Yes, according to the province’s chief quisling hunter and boffo rally organizer, Danny Williams was Stephen Harper’s bitch.

Okay.

If Stephen Harper could con Danny Williams, who else has done it?

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Connie silliness

"I think (the comments) are very concerning. (You've) got a member of the Liberal caucus calling on the creation of a 'Bloc Newfoundland'," Kory Teneycke, Harper's spokesperson, said Wednesday.

Can anyone out there spot the two grammatical problems in the comments by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson?

Young Mr. Teneycke misuses two words, if that is of help.

“Concerning” means “regarding” or “with respect to”.  Thus Mr. Teneycke says that comments by Senator George Baker are ones that he “thinks are very with respect to.”

Does that make any sense?

Of course, it doesn’t.

“Concerning” is one of those words which has acquired an entirely new meaning through the misuse of a growing number of people. Irregardless, some of you might say; we all know what he meant. You may have even observed that Mr. Teneycke made his comments with such force that we know he was convicted of them.

Common misuse does not change the fact the word is being used incorrectly.  We simply do not know what he meant since the person responsible for conveying to the rest of us what the Prime Minister thinks is evidently unfamiliar with the language he was speaking.

We can make this observation with some conviction since Mr. Teneycke then claims that the Senator was “calling on” the creation a separatist political party. 

“To call on” means to pay a visit to or to appeal to someone for something. Is he saying that Senator baker paid the idea a visit?  Did the idea offer the Senator some refreshments?

You see the inherent silliness in the words, as used.

There’s more than a bit of silliness in the Conservative indignation over Senator Baker’s musings on separatism, of course.  They spent a couple of years cuddling up to their old friends now in the Bloc Quebecois in an effort to secure the majority government  that has thus far eluded them. They should hardly find it bothersome that Senator Baker said he would encourage the formation of a separatist party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

If anything is of public concern in Mr. Teneyke’s comments, however, it is that this gentleman is so evidently unskilled in the language and yet remains as the person responsible for speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister.

If this is any sign of the incompetence in the administration the Prime Minister leads, perhaps the only person being called on here ought to be the Governor General so that she might issue the appropriate writs.

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The other option

"How long do you take it? The time is up and if they keep doing this for another three years what other option would there be?" [Senator George] Baker said.

The other option, Senator Baker would be for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to reject the sort of nonsense represented by your comments.

Nonsense, fantasy, falsehood and fabrication have been the order of the political day in Newfoundland and Labrador for too long .

it’s time for some maturity to return to local political life.

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Big Brother is already watching

And he’s pretty curious to find out who Winston Smith is.

Who cares?

He – or she – writes interesting stuff.

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The ABC campaign by Fernando

Take a good look at this billboard.

It cost $56,000.

That includes over $38,000 for the board itself, another $16,000 for “planning” and another $1,130 for “services.

The money went to a company called Promoworks, Inc, which as some people have discovered is registered to the owner of Target Marketing.

You may recall Target as the agency of record for provincial government advertising. They also did the triffid logo thingy the provincial government now uses.

Promoworks is an interesting company. You won’t find it online. You won’t find it listed in the telephone book.

The only director of the company is Noel O’Dea, the guy behind Target Marketing. In fact, the mailing address for the company is the street address for Target.  Unlike the corporate registry entry for target, Promoworks has a different mailing address.  It’s a law firm – O’Dea Earle - which, among other things, is home to the Premier’s brother Tommy. 

Now there’s nothing unusual in any of that.

What’s odd is that the bills flowed through Promoworks when, by any reasonable deduction, the work was done by Target. It’s not unusual for an advertising agency to do political work like this, even an agency like Target whose client list includes Air Canada Jazz, McCains, A & P, Irving and other major brands. And it’s not like some simple sleuthing didn’t figure it out.

Yet for some reason the bills went through a legally registered company but one without any public face at all.

Odd.

The campaign bills themselves seem a bit odd too, odd if one considers they were supposed to be advertising for a national campaign.

A single billboard in downtown Toronto cost almost half the total budget for the project, if you consider only the actual line item in the financial statement for the billboard. People who know don’t measure advertising by the amount of media coverage it garnered.  They measure it by the impact it had on consumers and by all informed accounts, this sucker didn’t have any impact on consumers outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even allowing for some media coverage of the billboard, the total impact of that money would be negligible in the total amount of advertising, news work and other communications coming from the political campaigns themselves. It had about as much effect as a pebble tossed in the Atlantic in the middle of a hurricane.

It’s almost like this whole thing was supposed to look good even if it didn’t do anything substantive beyond generate billings, a campaign by Fernando if you will.

There are some niggling details that don’t add up here either.

Like the $244.50 for registering the domain “anythingbutconservative.ca”. It went to internic.ca, incidentally, not something called “intonic.ca”.  Registering the domain doesn’t give you content and there’s no bill for the website design in there anywhere, apparently. None of the amounts or labels match up to that.

Like splitting the contract between two advertising companies when Target/Promoworks could easily have handled the whole thing.

Like figuring out what “advertising services” constitutes that wasn’t captured in the rest of the bill or why a billboard required $16,000 in “planning.” 

Like what the heck is an Inbox Factory, anyways? That one still defies the searchers.

Rest assured though, they are still searching, even if all they turn up are more questions.

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Cuts, reductions, layoffs

1.  Vale Inco will be cutting jobs from its Canadian operations, including an unspecified number in Newfoundland and Labrador.

2.  Kruger, Inc will be reducing production at Corner Brook by 15,000 tonnes in 2009.  One of the mill’s machines will be idled for eight weeks.

3.  Iron Ore Company of Canada announced it has ceased work on refurbishing at pelletizing plant at Sept Iles.

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So what’s the delay on Cameron?

A technical problem prevented the Cameron Inquiry from delivering its report to the provincial government as promised on 28 February.

Okay.

That happens.

Government’s original plan was to release the thing publicly two days later, allowing time off for Sunday for the rest of us.

Again, fair enough. Compared to some reports which languish in government hands as “drafts” for the better part of a year or more, this is actually pretty good.

So how come government delayed the report release indefinitely once the technical glitch showed up?

It seems a pretty easy thing to release the report as soon as it is received.  Government might not be ready to give all the answers right away but then again they wouldn’t have been able to do much other than figure out their starting position if they’d gotten it on Saturday.  If the health minister is now dealing with something else, then at least tell everyone what is going on.

So why the extra hang-up?

It’s not like the Premier was originally planning to scrum on it anyways.

Get it out there and let’s start dealing with the report and all its details.

Hang on while we get in one last torque update: Delaying the announcement of a report into problems at Eastern Health and then announcing a new chief executive officer for the organization looks a bit like the sorts of issues management stunnedness that got everyone into the mess in the first place.

Is CRA still polling?  Could explain a lot.

And then it’s on, again Update:  The report will be released a day after it was supposed, given that it was received a day after it was supposed to be handed in.

And that couldn’t have been said before five minutes to three on Monday afternoon?

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Who got ABC cash?

The blood feud between Danny Williams and Stephen Harper may have netted Danny Williams something for the $81,000 his ABC campaign reportedly spent, but there’s no way of knowing at this point who really got all that cash.

Based on information contained  on the Elections Canada website, the companies listed as receiving disbursements from Williams’ ABC campaign don’t appear to exist.

On September 1, the Provincial Conservatives paid a company listed as “intonic.ca” $244 for something labelled as “website.”

intonic.ca gets a 404 page in response if you try to find its website using the logical domain.  An Internet search likewise netted zip-olla for a company called “intonic” let alone one that did anything related to web sites.

Another company – listed as The Inbox Factory – received over $24,000 for something called “TV/Newspaper”.

Try and find a company called Inbox Factory through a simple Internet search. A company that can co-ordinate national print and television advertising would likely be established enough to have garnered even a mention on the Internet.

Inbox Factory?

Nada.

Promoworks is a little different.

There is a Canadian company called Promoworks Inc.  It does custom geegaws for companies in the Vancouver area. There’s a similarly named company in Maryland that does the same sort of thing.

But a company that does  - apparently – media planning, superboard design and the media buy to go with it?

Not a sign.

More than $56,000 spent by ABC went to “Promoworks Inc.”.

Try and find any trace of that company on line.

This one is going to take some digging, evidently.

Yep.

None of this should come as a surprise though.  The Family Feud got off to a bad start, not realising they even had to register as a third party player and report their expenses.  Not realising that is until someone pointed it out to them.

Maybe people could ask John Babb, the registered agent for the Feud. He’s the guy who said:

“This is the election that could make and break relations between Newfoundland and Canada forever.”

There might be a bunch of good reasons to ask Babb a few questions about that whole campaign starting with that statement he made right at the start.

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The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

Or maybe not, according to the Russians.

David Pugliese has a neat blog entry on the whole flap of the past 24 hours coming out of the defence ministers odd comments about an interception of unspecified Russian aircraft by Canadian and American interceptors somewhere north of the continent.

Initial reports suggested the plane – which became two planes at some point – were Tu-95 BEARs.  File footage and still photos of BEARs turned up in all sorts of Canadian media.

The National Post ran a photograph of an Su-24 FENCER for a while in its online coverage.

The Russians said the aircraft were TU-160 BLACKJACKs and that the Canadians and Americans had been notified of the flight in advance. The Post is now running a picture of both Tupolev aircraft.

All of this raises a few questions:

1.  What’s the fuss?  The flights have been going on for a year and a half. It’s a far cry from the height of the Cold War.

2.  Did anyone see that?  Odd that NORAD hasn’t released any photos of the intercept mission.  That would clear up right away any of the obvious discrepancies in the story about how many aircraft were involved and what type they were.  For those whose knickers are in a twist over the security implications of the alleged intercept, the confusion in identifying the type should cause concern. 

Not only are the aircraft different visually, but they also look different on radar and have significantly different flying characteristics.  If Canadian operators can’t tell the difference between the two then we may have a much bigger issue if some sort of Cold War breaks out again between the Russians and the rest of us.

3.  And where are those icebreakers again, Peter?  The federal Conservatives were pushing Arctic sovereignty.  They had all sorts of promises about bases and new icebreakers. Nothing has materialised on this supposedly significant file.

Even worse, these guys  - Peter and his boss - can’t seem to sort out replacing a few replenishment vessels for the navy, a task that’s been in train for a while and which is much much higher up the order of priorities given that it affects naval operations along the east and west coast.  These guys are dealing daily with sovereignty issues much more pressing than the odd flight by the Russians.

What may have looked like some kind of virtuous media spin performance to some actually winds up being a giant national embarrassment no matter how you look at it.

Farce – as the Russians called it – doesn’t begin to describe it.

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No Lower Churchill in Nova Scotia Green Plan

Two things to note from the release of Nova Scotia’s green plan for energy conservation:

1.  Talk is cheap, again:  They actually have a plan, unlike Newfoundland and Labrador.

One was promised in 2005 but so far – and in keeping with the inability of this administration to do anything in a timely way – no details haven’t emerged that actually create meaningful targets for anything.

2.  Contrary to the sentence in the Chronicle-Herald’s coverage, there is no reference to the Lower Churchill in the plan itself.

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Use power profits for region: Pike

Former Abitibi public relations executive Roger Pike is suggesting the provincial government create a fund using the money generated by the hydroelectric assets seized by government in December. There’s a front page story accompanying Pike’s opinion piece in the Friday Telegram.

The money would be used to promote further economic development in central Newfoundland.  Pike believes the annual revenues generated by the assets could be as much as $35 million annually. After borrowing and other costs are considered, the net profit would be $15 million.

Pike also suggests that the provincial government will be entering a partnership with other operators at Star Lake and in a project on the Exploits even though the expropriation bill in December seized all assets and cancelled all rights held by any companies involved.

With Nalcor Energy now taking 50 per cent ownership positions (through expropriation) in Star Lake and the Exploits River Hydro Partnership (previously held by Abitibi) the profit from these two projects would be an enduring benefit to the province, and under the existing agreements the province would be the sole owner of these projects in 2022-2033 respectively, thus doubling their benefit.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts directly associated with the manufacturing of newsprint should be set aside to now provide the economic stimulus for our region.

Merely setting aside the energy from the 54 megawatts to attract a big industrial customer is not wise for one principal reason. An incentive based on energy alone is simply too restrictive in scope. Remember, AbitibiBowater had an energy subsidy but left.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts must be contained in a vehicle that stimulates our region. From what I understand, the energy produced by the 54 megawatts should be worth at least 7.5 cents per kilowatt/hour (KWH) to the island electrical system. At 7.5 cents, the annual revenues would amount to approximately $35 million. This is a fair chunk of change (a conservative estimate) being generated out of our small community.

The Telegram story rightly notes the controversy in central Newfoundland over the power assets and government’s plans. Bond Papers readers are already familiar with that.

One sign of the mounting public concern is a new website – municipalmatters.ca – that gives an online forum for people in central Newfoundland to discuss economic and other issues affecting the region.

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Freedom from information: the federal case

The federal information commissioner released his report card today on the performance of federal departments under the access to information law.

Six of 10 departments sampled failed to meet the minimum standard. The commissioner identifies reasons for these failings, mostly having to do with staff and resources.

Some of the issues faced by applicants will be familiar to anyone who has tried to use the access laws in Newfoundland and Labrador to garner information held by the provincial government.

While the federal problem appears to be one of resources, what is happening locally is an entire culture that is oriented toward preventing disclosure.

Officials do not merely seek to ensure that records that ought not to be released under the law (mandatory and discretionary exemptions) are withheld.

Instead, they seek to avoid releasing any information which government does not wish to release for reasons that go well beyond the ones provided in legislation.

It started in 2003-2004 with the Premier's insistence that government would not release public opinion polls.  The law was explicit on the subject: polls could not be withheld.  He ignored the law and only finally relented under considerable public pressure.

In subsequent examples, officials have simply invented ways of frustrating applicants and preventing disclosure.  Informal means of accessing information don't exist.  They have simply been abolished. One can only access information by filing out a form and paying money up front.

Even then, there is no guarantee of getting information even if the applicant knows the information exists and asks for it specifically. The Telegram’s request for purple files are a case in point.  The department simply determined they will not provide the records and claims that there are no records they will release on the request.  There are no “responsive records”, as they put it using that notion found no where in the province’s access laws.

It's pure contrivance, pure fiction.

The intent of the officials is unmistakable, however.  They simply do not wish to comply with the law as passed by the legislature.

In some instances the excuses are laughable.  Officials provide a computer print-out of the requested information yet deny that the information is stored electronically.

Departments are able to act outside the law since they do so with the consent - implicit or explicit as the case may be - of the politicians in charge. This seems patently obvious but it bears pointing out: if the people in charge did not sanction the approach to access requests being taken, they would change it.

Take, for example, a request for information on an administrative review that was never publicly announced.  The minister responsible uses an invented excuse to deny access:  the information cannot be released because the review is not completed. One would be naive to draw any conclusion but than that the politicians have something there they do not wish the public to see.

In Ottawa the freedom from information problem requires money to fix.  In Newfoundland and Labrador, any changes to the freedom from information problem will require something much more difficult to bring about:  a change in some people’s attitudes.

When that might occur is anyone’s guess.

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“The most serious threat to Gros Morne”

A report prepared as part of the 1987 application process to declare Gros Morne a World Heritage site labelled proposed transmission lines through the park for the Lower Churchill project as “the most serious threat to Gros Morne”.

The report said an environmental assessment determined the proposed route would affect the park’s caribou populations and plant life along the transmission line.  The summary report, prepared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, was submitted to the panel reviewing applications under the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage program. It also concluded the development wasn’t very likely but that the potential impacts needed to be clarified.

The NALCO proposal in 2009 does note potential impact on caribou in and around Gros Morne but indicates the company will continue to practice measures to mitigate the impacts even though the impacts are not precisely known.  There is no apparent reference to the earlier environmental assessment of the project in the 2009 proposal although it  includes a reference in the bibliography to the UNESCO website.

Gros Morne was selected as a World Heritage site for its relatively pristine environment, special geology and overall physical beauty.

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So where is the sustainable development act?

We asked the question already but in light of the Gros Morne fiasco, one must wonder what happened to a piece of legislation we were told in 2003 was supposed to help deal with federal provincial co-ordination on environmental issues.

Like the whole Lower Churchill project, not just slinging hydro lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

From the 2003 Provincial Conservative policy manual, no longer available on the party website:

A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

The Sustainable Development Act will be the legislative framework for a Strategic Environmental Management Plan, which will have the long-term goal of achieving environmental and economic sustainability and a high quality of life for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The Plan will incorporate management systems that:

• Integrate environmental considerations into all government decision-making processes.
• Involve all sectors of the Province in identifying common values and working towards a shared vision of a sustainable and prosperous future.
• Utilize a variety of experts to ensure that management decisions are guided by reliable information.
• Provide a framework to coordinate activities across federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions, and cooperation among various government departments and agencies.
• Create a stable and predictable regulatory environment that will benefit all interests.
• Promote the use of environmentally-friendly technology to meet the objective of sustainable, responsible resource development.
• Promote private sector investment in recycling, heritage conservation, eco-tourism and other business opportunities in the environment sector.
• Make use of environmental resources to create new wealth and generate employment in rural areas of the Province. [Bolding added]

Promised 2003.

Passed 2007.

Still not in force, 2009 and no sign of it showing up soon.

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Gros Morne controversy hits the Globe

Only a couple of weeks ago the tinfoil hat brigade was crowing because one of their cherished delusions made it to the Globe.

Then the Premier explained there was no problem with the Labrador border.

So then the whole thing became the Globe’s fault for trying to invent controversy.

Now the Premier is back in the Globe again, this time as the supporter of that idea to sling 43 metre high towers through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This one has turned out to be a big political problem domestically and it will soon turn into an international controversy.

That sort of stuff is always good for raising capital and generally creating the image of place where you’d like to do business.

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NALCO: the power of confusion

A sample of the conflicting policy statements on the Lower Churchill, Holyrood diesel generating plant and the rationale for slinging hydro lines on 43 metre tall towers in a UNESCO World heritage site.

A.  Premier Danny Williams:

"The reason that those lines are actually going through that park and the existing transmission corridor is to take out the dirty emissions that are coming from the Seal Cove-Holyrood plant," said Williams, referring to an oil-burning generating plant in eastern Newfoundland. [CBC story, 24 Feb 09]

B.  NALCO environmental impact submission on the hydro line project (2009):

A key purpose and rationale for the proposed Labrador – Island Transmission Link is to put in place infrastructure to further interconnect Newfoundland and Labrador with the North American electricity system and thus, set the stage for further development and growth in the province’s energy sector and overall economy.

It will also play an important part in ongoing efforts toward securing adequate, reliable and sustainable electricity supply for Newfoundland and Labrador, to address the current and future needs of the province’s residents and industries. [Page ii. Punctuation, capitalisation and italics in original] [Bold added]

…

A key rationale for the project is to put in place infrastructure to further interconnect the province with the North American electricity system, in order to facilitate the future import and export of electricity between mainland North America and Newfoundland and Labrador, and thus, help set the stage for further development and growth in the province’s energy sector….[Page 1] [Bold added]

Similar phrasing appears repeatedly throughout the document’s 199 pages.  Holyrood does not appear as any part of the rationale until page 8. The energy plan makes reference to the Holyrood displacement, but NALCO’s proposal downplays the Holyrood issue in favour of the general development of interconnection “to facilitate the future import and export” of electrical power from the province.

C.  NALCO 20 year capital plan (2008) on the role of Holyrood:

It is important to consider that whichever expansion scenario occurs, an isolated Island electrical system or interconnected to the Lower Churchill via HVDC link, Holyrood will be an integral and vital component of the electrical system for decades to come. In the isolated case Holyrood will continue to be a generating station; in the interconnected scenario its three generating units will operate as synchronous condensers, providing system stability, inertia and voltage control.

Holyrood will not close. The plant will continue to operate under NALCO’s 20 year capital plan with or without the infeed from Labrador. This is in direction opposition to the province’s energy plan released the year before.

D.  The energy plan (2007) commitment on Holyrood:

In the long-term, the current level of emissions from the Holyrood facility is unacceptable. The Provincial Government, through NLH, has investigated the long-term options to address Holyrood emissions and decided to replace Holyrood generation with electricity from the Lower Churchill through a transmission link to the Island. This replacement provides an excellent opportunity to partner with the Federal Government to reduce GHG emissions.

The energy plan envisages the export of wind-generated electricity from the Island.  The infeed environmental document indicates that wind generation is being capped at 88 megawatts because of problems with grid stability.

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