CBC has confirmed the rumours swirling around for a couple of days. Jerome! Kennedy – presumptive front-runner to replace Danny Williams – won’t be running for the job.
CBC is also reporting that he’ll announce his intentions publicly next week. Don’t be surprised if Jerome! also indicates he won’t be seeking re-election next fall. Williams got Kennedy into politics and Kennedy has enjoyed his leading role in cabinet because of his close personal relations to Williams.
Interestingly, Jerome! was one of the two cabinet ministers who hung around with Danny after Danny told cabinet he was quitting. The other was Tom Marshall.
Marshall is also reportedly considering a run for the job. As CBC notes, no one is officially in the race. The closest anyone has come is education minister Darin King. Some have suggested Kathy Dunderdale should stay on.
So far no one has asked Joan Burke if she’s interested in the job. She’s been reputed to have a team in place and some cash in the bank.
If the Conservatives settle on either Dunderdale or Marshall, the party would be appointing a caretaker who might stay only long enough to see the party through the next election.
Since 1949, incumbent political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador have had no shortage of potential rivals for the top job from the moment it became vacant. This is the first time in 61 years that a party has had apparent difficulty attracting candidates.
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A line from a resolutely partisan source within the past 24 hours, noting that in the two weeks since Danny Williams high-tailed it, the provincial Conservatives have managed to settled two nagging public sector labour disputes:
Imagine how much they could have done if Danny left seven years ago.
Williams resigned on December 3 after seven years as Premier.
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Mark Watton, whose experience includes a stint as a senior advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office and chief of staff to cabinet minister Ken Dryden, is thinking of seeking the Liberal nomination in Humber West.
There’s a story in the Friday Western Star.
Now a lawyer who has been working out of Toronto since 2008, the 36-year-old is seriously thinking about throwing his hat in the ring as a Liberal candidate for the byelection to replace former premier Danny Williams in Humber West.
He will be returning home to Corner Brook for the Christmas break in the coming days and will use that time to do more thinking before making a decision.
Regular readers of this corner will also know Watton as the author of nottawa, a political blog he’s maintained for the past few years or so.
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Australian miner Paladin Energy Ltd (TSX:PDN)(ASX:PDN) announced Friday that it has concluded a definitive agreement for the purchase of the uranium assets of Aurora Energy Resources Inc.. Aurora was a wholly owned subsidiary of Fronteer Gold (TSX:FRG)(NYSE Amex:FRG).
Aurora Energy holds title to significant uranium assets within the highly prospective Central Mineral Belt in Labrador, including the Michelin deposit as well as the Jacques Lake, Rainbow, Nash, Inda and Gear deposits and has secured the most prospective ground within the CMB.
Paladin will pay Fronteer Cdn$260.87 million for Aurora through the issuance of new shares in Paladin.
According to a news release, “Paladin considers the CMB to be one of the few remaining, underexplored uranium districts globally and this acquisition not only provides Paladin with a noteworthy mid-term development asset but also offers an excellent opportunity for both significant new discoveries and expansions of the existing deposits. This highly strategic transaction fulfils Paladin's long held ambition to expand its footprint into Canada, a leading country in uranium mining, both in terms of resources and its stable political and business environment, providing the Company with an important new platform from which to plan its continued growth.”
Paladin plans to continue further testing and exploration to define the size of the assets it now holds. John Borshoff, managing director and CEO of Paladin said that the company intends “to advance these assets and will commit to regional target identification and testing upon resolution of the current uranium mining moratorium, which was put in place by the Nunatsiavut Government to provide the necessary time to complete a Land Use Plan and Environmental Protection legislation, both on track for completion by March 2011. The goal will be to advance towards a definitive economic study and district development plan once a sufficient resource base has been defined thus benefiting Paladin shareholders, our customers and the stakeholders of Nunatsiavut and Newfoundland and Labrador.”
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Nalcor headman Ed Martin is supposed to be selling the Muskrat falls plan for the Conservatives to help their re-election bid.
He is talking up the economic wonderments of a power line from the island of Newfoundland into Nova Scotia.
One of the things such a line makes feasible, Martin claims, is a thermal plant to turn natural gas into electricity. Natural gas is currently so cheap that American generators are selling electricity from their gas plants in the United States to New Brunswick.
But, as the Telegram reports,
Martin said converting natural gas to electricity would also require a small gas turbine plant and a lot of study.
“Our focus right now, no question, is the Lower Churchill … and that’s going to be a five- to six-year construction project.
“We’d have to see if gas was there, we’d have to run the economics, it would be sometime after that. But, once again, five or six years is not that long a time.”
“There” is onshore at Parsons Pond. But there is also gas offshore Newfoundland and Labrador so it is not like there is a shortage of available gas nor is the idea of using the gas to fire a generator such a novel idea.
However, note that Martin says that gas generation is something to be studied down the road a ways, once the Lower Churchill is done. “We’d have to run the economics, it would be sometime after” Muskrat is up and running.
Gas-to-electricity generation is not green but it is a lot less environmentally damaging than burning diesel at a plant like the now infamous one at Holyrood. Don’t forget that the main use for the power at Muskrat Falls is to replace the evil generators at Holyrood.
So with all that firmly in front of your eyes, note that Kathy Dunderdale keeps insisting that all the alternatives to Muskrat falls have already been studied and that the Falls option is the cheapest. As she said on the last day of a very short session of the legislature:
“Mr. Speaker, they are going to have to pay a lot less for Muskrat Falls power than for any other alternative that is available to the people in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker…”
“We have considered all of the options available to us…”
So if Ed Martin hasn’t already studied the cost of generating electricity from natural gas – by his own admission, no less – then how can Kathy Dunderdale say that Ed Martin has already studied replacing Holyrood with gas generation and found that such a plan would cost more than $6.5 billion?
Well, she can’t.
Not unless Ed Martin is fibbing.
And if Ed isn’t fibbing then that means that Kathy Dunderdale is fibbing or doesn’t understand her briefings.
Now there’s a shocker.
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Mr. Speaker, while it is true that Emera will own the Maritime Link for thirty-five years, they will only have the ability to wheel one terawatt of power across that link. Mr. Speaker, all rights above the one terawatt lie with Nalcor.Unfortunately, for Dunderdale that isn’t what the term sheet says. Under Term 7 (d), Emera can buy additional power for sale in Nova Scotia, and under 7(e), Emera can step in between Nalcor and a power sale to a third party:
1. Rick Hillier: The number of people still pushing this is getting pretty funny. Hillier already gave a pretty clear “no” in two different CBC interviews before Don Martin got him at CTV. Aside from being somewhat coy and flirting a bit, Hillier didn’t give any sign that he is seriously considering it and – here’s the kicker – there’s no sign anyone is organizing on his behalf.
2. Be careful what you wish for: Rick Hillier is the potential political nuke capable of vapourising everything around him. If he really wanted to be premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, he’d actually be better off running for another party and starting with a completely clean slate. If he did want to run, Hillier would be better off starting his own party so he could pick and chose his candidates and build a team entirely of his own choosing.
Would he really want Danny Williams’ cast-offs?
3. Saviour Syndrome: Some people still have their heads firmly rooted in the idea of a saviour so it isn’t surprising that they are casting around for someone to take away their considerable anxiety. Rick fits that bill and that’s the only bill he seems to fit.
Anxiety.
Nervousness.
More than a few provincial Conservatives are likely suffering a bit of extra flatulence this holiday season as they think of facing the future without their magic political bullet long gone.
4. Fabian Manning: The senator is reportedly making calls checking on his support among his former colleagues. He still seems like a really long shot.
5. Steve Kent: The supremely shitty public reaction the Draft Steve idea got may well have told him that, unlike Frank Moores, now is definitely not the time.
6. A deal to avoid a fight: Privately some people are talking about the prospect of an orchestrated coronation in order to avoid a bloodbath on the convention floor. Interesting idea but the sort of negotiation that would have to go on to deliver a coronation still leave the chances of a bloodbath – or just a lot of bad blood – even if there is no sign of it in public without luminol and an ALS.
7. Jerome!: Considered the heir-apparent to Danny’s throne, Jerome Kennedy seems to be the de facto front-runner even without declaring. Two things might be interesting to chat about over the holidays: First, think what would it mean if Jerome! actually did apologise publicly to the doctor he used as a public political punching bag? Hint: it is exactly the kind of statesman-like act that people expect of a Premier worthy of the name.
Second, if not Jerome!, then who?
8. Inception: Pretend for a moment you are a Conservative back-room boy. Take out your calendar. Fit in a leadership convention, a provincial budget, a federal election, and up to three by-elections between now and June. Minimise the overlap.
Now take out your token and see if it spins irregularly on the table.
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Shawn Skinner is the latest Conservative cabinet minister to find himself swept through into the looking glass world of the province’s natural resources ministry.
This is the bizarro world, you may recall, where the complete cock-up by the provincial government – expropriating an environmental mess – turned magically into a world where AbitibiBowater appeared to abandon its responsibilities and the provincial government rode in to save the day.
And then there is a natural resources news release and never the twain shall meet, so it seems.
Or to paraphrase a famous old, former politician: nothing could be further from the truth.
On Tuesday, the newly minted minister issued a news release to tell the people of the province that a draft bill in front of the legislature is about denying compensation to AbitibiBowater for the expropriation in 2008.
The action we are taking through these amendments will ensure that Abitibi-Consolidated will receive no compensation from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
And so in this looking glass world, Skinner tells us, a thing is not what it is; it is what it ain’t.
Abitibi is already compensated to the tune of $130 million federal tax dollars for the clusterfrack called the expropriation. They do not need any further compensation, since they already have it. Thus, in Skinner’s construction, the bill is not about what it is, but what it is most definitely not about.
Don’t worry if your head is spinning at this point. Skinner’s is too.
His noggin must be twirling since Skinner then describes Fortis, Enel and a raft of other companies whose property was expressly seized and whose legal rights were brutally extinguished to have been mere “bystanders” to the whole affair.
Once again, there is the truth of what the bill expresses says - take Schedule E as the bit we are talking about - and there is what Skinner says. Those two things can only exist in the world inhabited by the average Dannystanni cabinet minister. Here is Schedule E:
1. The "Acknowledgement and Consent Agreement (Water Use Authorization)" dated 24 April 1997 between the Star Lake Hydro Partnership, the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada ; and the Crown, and all amendments including the Supplementary Acknowledgement - Crown Water Use Authorization dated 9 May 2001 and assignments of them.
2. The "Acknowledgement and Consent Agreement (Crown Water Power Licence)" dated 24 April 1997 between the Star Lake Hydro Partnership, the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada ; and the Crown, and all amendments including the Supplementary Acknowledgement - Crown Water Power License dated 9 May 2001 and assignments of it.
3. The "Hydro Consent and Acknowledgement Agreement" dated 31 July 2002 between the Exploits River Hydro Partnership, Clarica Life Insurance Company, and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and assignments of it.
4. The "Agreement for the Purchase and Sale of Power and Energy" dated 18 September 2001 between Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and all amendments, including the Assignment dated 31 July 2002 between Exploits River Hydro Partnership, Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and assignments of them.
5. The "Restated Agreement for Non-Utility Generated Power and Energy" dated 24 April 1997 between Abitibi-Price Inc. and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and all amendments, including the Assignment dated 24 April 1997 between the Star Lake Hydro Partnership, Abitibi-Price Inc. and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and assignments of them.
6. The "Acknowledgement and Consent Agreement" dated 25 April 1997 between the Star Lake Hydro Partnership, the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada ; and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and all amendments and assignments of it.
7. The "Acknowledgement - Power Purchase Agreement" dated 24 April 1997 between the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada, in its own right and as agents for the Canada Life Assurance Company, the Maritime Life Assurance Company, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, the Standard Life Assurance Company and Industrial-Alliance Life Insurance Company, the Star Lake Hydro Partnership; and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and all amendments and assignments of it.
So let us have no more of this nonsense, shall we?
Instead, let us talk of what this bill is.
It is a step toward settling the outstanding claims for companies who have a legitimate right to compensation for the brutal and unnecessary seizure of their property and for the cancellation of their rights gained by entering into good faith agreements with the provincial government and its Crown corporation Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.
Fortis defaulted on a loan. The provincial government has now assumed the payment of that bill. Sunlife, Manulife and the others can likely produce comparable evidence of injury.
Neither politicians nor the media have bothered to talk about these companies. The politicians did not speak of them because it was uncomfortable to talk about the facts of the expropriation. You can tell how uncomfortable it is since politicians never seem to want to talk about the facts of the matter. This release is confirmation of that, if nothing else.
As for the media, it remains a mystery as to what they report and what they don’t but that is another story entirely.
And let us not forget that the bondholders who suffered demonstrable financial loss as a result of the brutal and unnecessary seizure are also the sorts of people one would like to invest in a new hydro-electric project in the province. They are much like the people who invested in another hydro-electric project oh so many years ago and who had to go to court to protect their investment from government’s ill-considered legal measures.
This bill is about calming them down as well, a point that is likely too close to what is really going on for any provincial cabinet minister to admit. It is about trying to repair the considerable damage done to the province’s reputation as a result of the brutal and entirely unnecessary seizure bill. What actually happens, what compensation the government does wind up paying for the brutal and unnecessary expropriation will be the real test of whether or not the wounds to the province’s investment climate have started to heal.
As for the unnecessary expropriation bill itself, it would have been unnecessary only if one accepts the the claims made about it at the time.
But that too is another story for another day.
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1. Chevron and its Caspian pipeline partners are going to drop $5.4 billion to double the capacity of a pipeline bringing crude out of its Caspian Sea production operation. The line will be able to move 1.4 million barrels of oil per day when the project is finished.
2. The federal government will drop as much as $18 million into a $24 million natural gas pipeline project between Vallee Jonction and Thetford Mines Quebec.
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Environment minister Charlene Johnson is delaying a decision to permit Corner Brook Pulp and Paper to burn used car and truck tires as a fuel supplement at the company’s Corner Brook paper-making plant.
cbc.ca/nl reports that Johnson will now issue a decision on January 15 because the department received more public submissions than it expected. Johnson was originally supposed to make a decision by December 12.
While some initial reporters suggested there was considerable support for the proposal, protests, a Facebook group and other complaints grew as awareness of the proposal increased.
The Western Star reported in November that Johnson’s department reviewed the tire burning proposal last spring and recommended approving it.
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And not just first base but the fencing and other improvements at a softball pitch.
In a world where money talks, does this sort of thing render some people mute?
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If you are looking for a good read, take a wander over to cbc.ca/nl and soak up Andrew Button’s observations on a recent visit to the House of Assembly
But, if the days I spent observing the house are any indication, the peanut gallery has more representation than anyone else in our province's legislature. With the non-stop heckling that goes on there, the house of assembly evokes the detention hall more than the hallowed offices of the Queen's own chamber.
Button is right.
But that’s not what’s worth noting here.
Rather, pay attention to the fact the piece appeared. The producers and editors at the Ceeb may have had this underway before Danny Williams hightailed it out of here but your humble e-scribbler is willing to bet there’ll be more of these sorts of pieces in the weeks and months ahead.
You see, the House of Assembly didn’t turn into a drool academy in the past couple of days. Members of the House have been displaying this sort of behaviour for years. Arguably, things have gotten notably worse in the past decade, as older hands retired and a new crowd took over.
The taunts are audible from the gallery, as Button noticed, even if the official record didn’t contain it. Some of the stuff hurled back and forth has been quite personal and quite savage. And the bias of the Speaker in dealing with this sort of behaviour is simply unavoidable.
Yet,for some reason, the number of times this issue turned up in local media in the past seven years is one you can count on the fingers of one severely mangled hand. it’s not like reporters didn’t see and hear the behaviour
Odd is that, especially considering it is a reflection – as much as anything else – of what Chief Justice Green referred to several times in his report on the House of Assembly spending scandal. It’s called the “tone at the top.” That new crowd that started flooding the chamber after 2003 learned their attitude toward the legislature and the people in it from their boss. And not surprisingly, the attitude turned out to be a bad one.
It isn’t odd if you connect it up with another piece of information. According to at least one editor, Danny Williams and his crew used to mention that infamous Craig Westcott e-mail to reporters and editors whenever the opportunity arose over the 20 months between the date Westcott sent the e-mail and when he made it public via Kevin O’Brien.
Blatant breach of the province’s privacy laws. An effort to attack a reporter’s credibility. A sign of the intensely personal way Williams used to take everything. Any of those reasons might have been cause for someone to have reported the fact Williams’ office was talking up the e-mail.
Even just mention the episode, in passing.
But they didn’t.
Not once.
For those who like to remember those days, think of what happened as being a bit like Brian Tobin’s time. Tobin learned that he could place a decent story on both television newscasts if he fed it to the Telegram for their front page first.
And coincidentally, the Telegram seemed to lay off the sort of investigative reporting on things like travel expenses that they used to produce regularly. With a strong leader, it seems some people think it makes more sense to try and be part of the choir.
And then Brian left the province.
Poof.
The Telly does a series on how the provincial government did such a piss-poor job of handling access to information requests. Over in another corner, it took a national CBC program to reveal that Brian Tobin was on track in 2000 to be the highest spending premier in the country. The sort of stuff that normally would have appeared in local media didn’t; well, didn’t appear not until Brian headed back to Ottawa.
Then, as if by magic, all sorts of stuff started to pour out of every media orifice in the province. Things might be different these days from the immediate aftermath of Tobin’s time, but events of the past few days suggest that old habits are hard to break.
Things seem to be returning to normal, whatever normal is around these parts.
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From Dan Leger at the Chronicle Herald comes a simple description of how taxpayers get shafted in any scheme of regulated monopolies:
Emera now pays an annual dividend of $1.30 per share. An investor who has held the stock since it went public has collected $14 in dividends for every share in the portfolio. In 2010, Emera shares have returned 40 per cent, including dividends and stock price appreciation. And at very little risk, because of that whole regulated monopoly thing.
The company also keeps some cash for shopping sprees. Emera owns a hydro company in Maine and is expanding in California and the sunny Caribbean, with investments in St. Lucia, the Bahamas and Barbados. And it’s doing that with profits spun off from its most lucrative market: good old monopolized Nova Scotia.
It’s beautiful when you think about it. Emera gets 95 per cent of its revenues from captive, regulated markets and most of that comes from Nova Scotia and its guaranteed return. The company uses that money to diversify into new markets and new industries, like Labrador hydro, an energy brokerage, a pipeline, wind, tidal and natural gas. And it’s all subsidized by the Nova Scotia ratepayers.
And there’s nothing requiring any of those new businesses to soften the high rates here. For shareholders, that’s sweet. For the rest of us, not so much.
Things don’t promise to get any better for Nova Scotia ratepayers if, by some chance, Danny Williams’ retirement excuse announcement turns into an actual deal. Emera will be able to buy power for a mere $95 per megawatt hour. Even at the end of the 35 year deal, the company would only pay $125 per megawatt hour and that’s for the very small payment up front of $1.2 billion for a line between Sydney and Port aux Basques.
Do the math. That’s considerably below current electricity rate sin Nova Scotia, even 35 years out. Are Nova Scotian ratepayers likely to get the full benefit of that? Only time might tell.
Consider, by contrast, the position Newfoundland and Labrador ratepayers will face, guaranteed by Danny Williams and his successor. They anticipate that,by the time electricity starts flowing from Muskrat Falls, rates on the island will be 40% higher than they are currently. That works out to a bit over 13 cents a kilowatt hour in St. John’s.
And that point, Muskrat Falls cuts in.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale recently estimated it will cost about 14 cents a kilowatt hour to produce power at Muskrat. On the face of it that looks like rates in Newfoundland would - at the very least - double from what they are in 2017. And that would be on top of the 40% increase expected to happen in the meantime.
Nova Scotians would be getting a pretty sweet discount, by comparison, at a mere nine or nine and a half cents.
But if Dan Leger thinks that Nova Scotians have been screwed by bungling politicians and a failed energy policy, he should look across the Cabot Straits. Newfoundlanders could teach them a few lessons after 40-odd years of politicians who wanted to be energy magnates but who wound up giving rate payers a shock.
The upside, though, is that the most recent example of lousy energy policy is just rancid enough to rouse a few people slough from their torpor and ask a few questions. When Randy Simms and the Telegram editorial board start questioning things, you know it’s got to be pretty bad.
For her part, Premier Kathy Dunderdale seems incapable of answering even the simplest of simple questions. Asked why the proposed dams at Muskrat falls would be connected to Churchill Falls, all Dunderdale would say is this:
As I said last week, Mr. Speaker, we were happy to provide members of the Opposition with a briefing when we did an announcement of this project. I have offered again, because it is a large, complex piece of work, Mr. Speaker. To offer further briefings to the Acting Leader of the Opposition and members of his party, I make that offer again, Mr. Speaker, so he understands the nuances of this deal in a very particular way. Perhaps we can have a more enlightened discussion here on the floor of the House.
Dunderdale is not famous for understanding very much of anything. At least when Danny was around, people could have some comfort that there was someone around with a clue. Now Dunderdale is in charge. She’s Danny hand-picked successor even if she is just a caretaker until someone else takes the helm.
But the odds are that if Danny’s successor’s successor keeps pushing the Danny Legacy Option for the Lower Churchill, Dan leger and his fellow Nova Scotians will be in a much sweeter place than anyone in Newfoundland or Labrador.
Leger is right: political bungling in energy policy tends to leave taxpayers the poorer, but Nova Scotia isn’t the best example of that situation.
As you read here on Friday, the provincial government is handing back property seized in December 2008 to Fortis and Enel.
NTV ran the story on Sunday complete with a quote from Premier Kathy Dunderdale.
Dunderdale’s comments give some credence to the idea this expropriation wasn’t about any supposed broken promises by AbitibiBowater.
Maybe it was all about a spurned bid for Abitibi shares in Star Lake.
Maybe it was something else.
Slowly but surely the whole story is emerging.
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A month or so ago, some of you may have read the post called “How to win without news media” and the story of Texas governor Rick Perry and his rather curious media relations strategy.
Undoubtedly, the smart alecks out there caught on to the real story: Perry didn’t win without conventional news media. Perry used them as an integral part of his media strategy. Perry did media interviews. Local news media throughout Texas carried his news releases and other media events. After all how could they not cover any candidate for the state’s highest elected office?
The secret to Perry’s success lay in part in how he used the media. Perry used his polling to tell him the attitude he needed to take toward conventional news media in order to strike a chord with voters across the state.
The answer was to ignore them, for the most part and kick at them every once in a while. Most certainly, Perry never kowtowed to them or showed any sort of deference to the conventional media. And when newspaper editors, long used to being courted, got wind of his attitude and took up their pens against him, Perry profited by their anger.
Rick Perry capitalised on a thread of animosity toward news media that runs through a swath of the North American population and cuts across a wide range of demographics like age, income and education.
It tends to be concentrated in the Republican or Conservative bits of the population, though. Sarah Palin plays on the anti-media theme, as have a number of successful Republican politicians in the United States over the past few decades. Palin likes to talk about the media’s negative slant or their dark and sinister side.
Conservatives north of the 49th also use the media as a convenient prop, much like their southern cousins. And that’s really what the media is: a prop.
Old media hands like Bob Wakeham [audio link] can live in the past all the want. Danny Williams’ rant at the news media last November, all 12 minutes of it, was not an effort to get the heretics to conform. Rather, Williams was just reciting another part of the catechism that binds his own followers together. They love Danny and loathe the media and having that outside enemy helps unite them in the greater cause.
There’s a bit more to it than that, as well. There’s no accident that Williams singled out the CBC for his ire the other night. Aside from the visceral hatred many ideological conservatives feel toward the Ceeb, the Mother Corp is to some local Conservatives what the New York Times is to southerners: it symbolises the smarmy, elitists who suppress the Conservatives’ truth. And let’s not forget the big part of it for these Conservatives: the CBC is not local. It is the Canadian broadcaster.
There’s not a shred of reality in the anti-media belief system, of course. The Ceeb’s been as good an outlet as any local news media for spreading the Williams’ mythology. In that respect, they are the electronic version of the newspaper supposedly run from Quebec that, in fact, tended to favour Williams and the Conservatives more often than not over the past seven years.
But for all that, some people cling to their hatred of the Ceeb so intensely that last spring they laid siege to the Corporation’s Parkway bunker last spring for something that the Ceeb reporters didn’t do. NTV broke the story of the Premier’s heart surgery. Yet, the cultists attacked the CBC and, to a lesser extent, the Telegram.
November’s rant was by no means the first such Williams tirade against the news media. In fact, it was a regular feature of his fund-raising speech starting in 2006. He’s launched into the same sort of tirade at other times, as well, claiming that he’d have been able to do so much more if only pesky people wouldn’t bother him; bother him, that is with requests for information about what government is doing.
And, of course, Liberals were always a favourite source of Williams ire. They were the ones who supposedly gave away all the province’s resources, for instance. There’s a bit more to this whole thread, however, than just a Tory rant. Consider, for example, the vicious rhetoric Williams employed in a June 2001 in a speech he delivered to Nova Scotia Conservatives:
The more that I see, the more nauseous and angry that I get. The way that our people and our region have been treated by one arrogant federal Liberal government after another is disgusting. The legacy that the late Prime Minister Trudeau and Jean Chrétien will leave in Atlantic Canada is one of dependence on Mother Ottawa, which has been orchestrated for political motives for the sole purpose of maintaining power. No wonder the West is alienated and Québec has threatened separation. Canadians - and Atlantic Canadians, in particular - realize the importance of dignity and self-respect while Ottawa prefers that we negotiate from a position of weakness on our hands and knees.
Yes, friends, conservatives love to use liberals – with initial capital letters or not – and the media for good measure as scapegoats. That’s a subtext to all this by the way: things would be better except for these identifiable groups who conservatives, like Danny Williams, can blame for stuff.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, though, scapegoating is a much more deeply ingrained part of the local political culture than one might imagine. The most obvious one is something called Quebec. All Danny Williams ever had to do was say that Quebeckers were behind it and everyone accepted the idea, without questions.
No Lower Churchill deal? Quebec is blocking it. Ask a question about problems with the Lower Churchill? Get ready to be labelled a Quebec-lover, code for race traitor.
Lest you think these are peculiar examples, consider the Western Star editorial last spring after the people of the province found out that the provincial government had buggered up the AbitibiBowater expropriation rather badly.
Blame the people who did it? Heavens, no.
It’s time they admitted their shortcomings in the process.
It’s the duty of the opposition to challenge the government on legislation it brings before the house, and make sure these kinds of potentially expensive hiccups don’t make it into law.
They were asleep at the switch in this matter — there’s now way around it.
They dozed in their seats, didn’t ask enough questions ... and let the bad legislation become the law of the land.
It should be a lesson for all concerned.
Our system works best when the tough questions are asked ... not when government gets a free pass.
Liberals got the blame not only for the mess but for not questioning it in the beginning.
And what about the sorry state of House of Assembly, sitting for a scant eight days of a fall sitting this year? The Star’s sister newspaper opted to highlight last week the supposedly weak opposition, the Liberal opposition who, the editorialist claims, have had a whole year to do better than make a single mistake. And for good measure, the Telegram repeats the same foolishness the Star did, blaming the Liberals for things done by the government:
Governments and their ministers are paid by taxpayers to govern the province.
Opposition members are paid to thoughtfully and thoroughly examine the decisions of the government — not for opposition’s sake alone, but to try to help the province keep from falling into errors like accidentally expropriated paper mills and hydroelectric deals without escalator clauses. It’s a serious job with serious responsibilities.
Get some game. Earn the pay
Danny Williams’ political success came in part from his skilled use of messages that resonated with his audiences. Blaming Liberals and the news media for everything is a case in point, but you have to add in the notion of scapegoating to truly appreciate the power of his messaging and the extent to which patterns of thought are so thoroughly accepted in some segments of the population in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Danny Williams, like Rick Perry, couldn’t win without news media. The difference was in how each politician used them.
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Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner gave notice on Thursday of a bill that is part of the compensation for two companies caught in the crossfire of the Williams administration’s expropriation bill in 2008.
In giving notice of motion, Skinner only gave the title of the bill - An Act To Amend The Abitibi Consolidated Rights and Assets Act – but Bond Papers has learned that the bill will restore assets seized from Fortis and ENEL two years ago.
Last spring, then natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said that Fortis and Enel would have their power purchase agreements restored as part of the settlement. In August, Danny Williams said the companies would receive cash compensation, a long-term power purchase agreement or some other combination of arrangements as compensation for the government’s action. The only reason to amend the expropriation bill would be to restore to the two companies the assets the provincial government seized under the December 2008 law.
With the assets restored, the provincial government’s energy company – Nalcor - could then also make a new long-term power purchase agreement with ENEL and Fortis to supply power to the island grid. There’s no indication at this time whether or not Nalcor will retain any interest in the hydro-electric generation operations or simply act as a customer for the power.
There’s also no word on what other compensation the companies might be receiving from taxpayers for Williams’ blunder.
The provincial government is already paying a $60 million loan for Fortis that the company defaulted on as a result of the seizure.
In December 2008, Danny Williams’ Conservative administration introduced legislation in the House of Assembly that seized hydro-electric assets from three companies - AbitibiBowater, Fortis and ENEL – supposedly because AbitibiBowater reneged on a 1909 commitment.
The legislation also quashed a court case Abitibi brought against the provincial government over an earlier dispute and stripped the company any right to compensation.
The expropriation bill also set the provincial cabinet as sole arbiter of any compensation to be paid.
While the bill was met with cheering at home, it met with condemnation across the country. Bond Papers was one of the few voices in the province that questioned the bills’ purpose, its motivation and its assault on the rule of law.
AbitibiBowater sued the Government Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The company reached a settlement with the federal government in August 2010.
Earlier this year, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador learned that the provincial government had accidentally expropriated the former Abitibi paper mill at Grand Falls along with all the environmental liabilities associated with it.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale, the minister responsible for natural resources at the time, learned of the massive error several months after the expropriation but failed to disclose the mistake to the public.
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Among the important pieces of legislation introduced in the House of Assembly for the eight days of its fall sitting, an act to amend the Real Estate Trading Act by adding the word "and" at the end of subparagraph (ii); deleting the comma and the word "and" at the end of subparagraph (iii) and substituting a period; and deleting subparagraph (iv).
The amendment will also change section four of the Act by deleting the word "or" at the end of paragraph (d), and by adding immediately after that paragraph this clause: “(d.1) a person in the business of property management who arranges a lease or rental agreement; or…”.
You could not make this stuff up if you tried.
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For starters, there is no news in telling us that the provincial Conservatives are not delivering on their promised whistleblower legislation in 2010.
Thanks, CBC, for that bulletin. Maybe we can get an update on that Lindberg guy flying the Atlantic next.
What really stands out in this bit of non-news from the provincial legislature’s extremely short fall sitting is what the mighty Ceeb tells us about Danny Williams and this bit of legislation.
Williams committed to bringing in whistleblower legislation during this term in office, but would not specify when the public might expect to see it.
There’s no question Williams promised it.
There’s also no question he promised it for the very first sitting of the legislature after the October 2007 provincial general election.
Here’s what the Telegram reported on October 7, 2007 [quoted at labradore]:
Progressive Conservative Leader Danny Williams pledged Saturday a new Tory government will implement whistleblower laws in the first session of the legislature after the Oct. 9 election.
"We'll get that on at the very earliest opportunity," Williams said in response to questions from reporters at a Carbonear shopping mall.
"The very first session of the House that we have, that's something we'll have a look at. As a matter of fact, there'd be no reason why we wouldn't get it on."
In other words, CBC’s claim is factually incorrect.
Then there’s the line that in 2009 Williams “reiterated his government's promised [sic] to create the legislation.”
That would be a huge “not exactly” on that one too.
In June 2009, Williams started inventing excuses for the lack of legislation. He claimed that there wasn’t much experience with whistleblower laws even though the first one was enacted in the United States in 1863. By one count, there are no fewer than 18 separate federal whistleblower protection statutes in the United States. Then there are ones in various state jurisdictions, provinces, the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere.
What the Ceeb is referring to in its story are comments Williams made in may 2009. At that time he linked whistleblower laws to access to information legislation. The record shows he had a chronic problem with those laws that allows people to access such secrets as his public speeches. Williams said he was worried about people with a personal vendetta against the government.
So basically the real story is that we are now long past the third anniversary of Williams’ broken promise. Williams has skedaddled and his former caucus colleagues are left holding the bag.
CBC might not be quite that blunt, but at least they could try and report accurate information rather than things that are – quite obviously – false.
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For your amusement or amazement, here are some choice, unedited portions of a speech by Conservative member of the House of Assembly Kevin Hutchings.
He was speaking on a resolution supporting the provincial government’s apprenticeship policies.
Apparently, looking back and forward, back and forth, for years to come next year and other temporally challenged concepts:
Mr. Speaker, as we look back and where we are today in looking forward in terms of significant growth we are seeing in a broad spectrum of industries here in this Province; whether it is the oil industry, whether it is technology and engineering, industrial and residential development, we have seen unprecedented growth. As we move forward for years to come, the predictions for next year are that the GDP for this year Province will be growing at a rate, probably the highest in the country.
What we have seen in past years, and what we are going to see in future years looks very promising. Skilled trades in terms of meeting that demand in terms of the labour market, meeting those projects that lay ahead of us is important. We have to have the foresight and do the work to make sure that we can meet those needs in the labour force, that our population, all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who we encourage that they seek a career in the skilled trades. As well, that the opportunity is there for them to access what they need to make that career in the skilled trades as we need them, as we move forward.
Mr. Speaker, just recently obviously, with the term sheet on Muskrat Falls, the Lower Churchill. We have things like Long Harbour, in the mining industry, commodity markets have come back over the past year. Good things are there happening as well.
All of that in terms of those projects and what is needed out there, that is a requirement that this government has supported the initiatives of the skilled trades and will look forward to continuing to build on what we have done to date, so we can meet all of those needs, Mr. Speaker. It includes thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity, current and what we will see in the future as well, Mr. Speaker.
…
Hmmm.
North.
To the future.
Something suggests Kevin’s idol is Sarah Palin.
Just don’t expect Shatner to be making any performance art out of this little gem.
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“They shouldn't worry about their performance numbers or their voter support in the first year and a half of their mandate," Mills said.That’s interesting advice if for no other reason than it is exactly the opposite of what Mills’ favourite client did when ostensibly faced with the same situation.
"They should just make the decisions that need to be made, apologize for it, say it wasn't their fault, and just get it done.
"Two or three years later when things are looking much brighter they can take credit for taking tough action when it was needed to be taken.”
Now this should cause a bit of a stir in some quarters:
Labrador M.P. Todd Russell today announced that he is conducting an opinion survey throughout Labrador, in order to gauge Labradorians’ opinion of the proposed Muskrat Falls hydro project, recently announced by the provincial government and Nalcor.
“The proposed Muskrat Falls project has been planned for decades,” Russell said. “This important Labrador resource can only be developed once. If it is to be developed at all, it has to be done right. This survey is intended to give Labradorians a collective voice before final decisions are made that will impact generations to come.”
The survey consists of twelve simple questions on various aspects of the proposed Muskrat Falls project. Survey forms have been distributed by mail to every residential address in Labrador. In certain communities, the survey forms will be distributed in bilingual Innu-aimun/English or Inuktitut/English formats.
“I appreciate that this proposed project is of great interest to people in other parts of the province and the country,” Russell said, “and I thank them for their interest.”
“As Member of Parliament for Labrador, I need a clear picture of where my constituents stand on this issue. Only those responses from people who live in Labrador, or who are eligible to vote in Labrador, will count towards the final results.”
In order to be included in the tabulation, contact information will be required. Additional demographic information may also be provided by survey respondents if they choose to do so.
Russell assured all participants in this survey that their personal information and individual responses to survey questions will be kept strictly confidential.
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You can get the survey, online, in four languages at www.toddrussell.ca.
The value of building permits in Newfoundland and Labrador went from $79.9 million in September to more than $188 million in October.
Great, right?
Well, yes, as long as you are in St. John’s. That’s where the bulk if the growth came: $149.6 million to be exact.
A mere 20% of the total value of building permits in the province came outside St. John’s. That speaks volumes about how economic development is doing outside the capital city region.
And the source of that townie growth? “Institutional” building permits. Government spending, in other words.
Spending public money seems to be a popular economic development idea these days. The provincial government has been pushing it since at least 2005. The local business community likes sucking the public tit.
But neither the provincial government nor the business sector seems to give a rat’s behind that this trend is very unhealthy. Very unhealthy, indeed.
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So far Danny Williams’ parting finger to the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador is going over like a fart in church.
People are showering something but it isn’t the love Danny wanted.
For some reason, normal people don’t like the idea of the guy taking a war memorial and using it as the backdrop for his political Christmas cards for a job he just vacated.
And by all the signs people in the province are genuinely fracked off about it. In this corner, the post from Monday rocketed to wind up as the top post of the past 24 hours by a two-to-one margin. Over at CBC’s online story, the two negative-for-Danny options - “It’s inappropriate” or “It’s disrespectful” - are together getting about 2,000 of the 4453 votes that were cast up until about 1845 hours local time. More people have actually chosen the supposedly neutral choice – “It doesn’t matter to me” – than have selected the Danny-loving choice.
Danny’s fanboys are more than a bit peeved that this story is out there and that people aren’t loving the Old Man as much as they are supposedly supposed to. They are trying every line from “it’s no biggie” to blaming the media. There’s some original stuff for ya.
The poor little darlings are clearly in a lather.
And well they should be.
Their hero, the fellow for whom they have embarrassed themselves in public for almost a decade, frigged off on them with hardly any notice. One minute he was there; the next he was in Florida soaking up the rays. One minute they were happily clicking away at the VOCM question of the day, the next thing the talking points are gone and he’s buggered off leaving them to deal with this little embarrassing piece of egotistical excess. You’d be fried too is suddenly you were the guy at his high school reunion sporting at mullet at age 50. That’s what the fanboys are looking like these days.
But truthfully there’s really no surprise at the tacky choice for Christmas cards.
Really.
Anyone on the Premier Danny Christmas card list got at least one other Yule-turd greeting besides the one they got this year. In 2009, the card was a piss-poorly photoshopped shot of Hisself near Churchill Falls.
Remember the big Atlantic Premier’s meeting there last fall? Danny waging war against the evil foreigners? Invoking the spectre of Churchill Falls?
If you didn’t know better, you might be fooled into believing this shot was taken at the same time. Take a closer look at the shot, the lighting and the edges of the Danny-figure and you can see he was cropped and dropped. The effect winds up looking like John Wayne walking into the sunset on a Vietnamese beach at the end of The Green Berets.
The fanboys can only hope this is the least embarrassing little mess the Old Man left behind.
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"I have been so honoured to be your leader for the past seven years. Thank you for your continued support. I will miss you all and will never forget you. I wish you a very Merry Christmas, peace, happiness and good health. Danny Williams, Q.C., Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador."
The Newfoundland Book of Remembrance commemorates the men and women of Newfoundland who gave their lives in defence of freedom during both the First and Second World Wars – before Newfoundland became a province of Canada on April 1, 1949. Those listed are from all three branches of the military – the Navy, Air Force and Army. The book includes memorials to First World War campaigns, including Gallipoli and Beaumont-Hamel, and Second World War campaigns, including North Africa and Italy, and Northwest Europe. The Newfoundland Book of Remembrance, containing more than 2,300 names, was installed in the Memorial Chamber of Parliament in 1973, and a replica was placed in the Confederation Building in St. John's.Since the photo appears to be from Williams’ announcement, the cards could only have been prepared after he knew he was leaving the job.
Support for the province’s ruling Conservative Party dropped by about 10 percentage points in Danny Williams’ last month in office according to a poll released on Monday by the provincial government’s official pollster.
Corporate Research Associates reported that 75% of decided respondents to a survey said they would vote Conservative if an election were held tomorrow.
CRA reported that the undecided, do not know and will not vote categories amount to 31%. In itself, that’s the largest UND reported by Corporate Research Associates in the past five years. It’s also up dramatically from the 19 percent reported in August.
Don’t get overly excited by the gap between the two lines though. It illustrates the extent to which CRA’s polling is out of whack.
Except for a couple of odd drops or climbs (November 2008, February 2010 and August 2010), the Conservative support has been declining steadily since CRA’s first post-election poll. The drop overall has been from 67% in November 2007 to 52% three years later. There’s even a bizarro period in the middle where the party support was within fractions of a percentage point for nine months consistently.
If you accept the drops and spikes, the Tories have dropped from 67 to 52 since February 2010.
There are a few things to bear in mind when looking at CRA polling numbers. First, it is well established that the provincial government organizes its political communications to influence the outcome of the quarterly poll. Second, as the actual 2007 election result shows, CRA also gives poll results that are significantly different from actual election experience. In 2007, CRA’s results show the Conservative vote to be much higher than it was on election day and radically underrepresented the “will not vote” by approximately 20 percentage points.
Even allowing for those considerations, the Tories appear to have experienced a dramatic decline in voter support in a relatively short span. Neither the Liberals nor the New Democrats picked up the disaffected vote, apparently.
Nonetheless, this poll shows the extent to which the Conservatives were bleeding support even before Danny Williams announced his departure. What happens in the 10 months to the next provincial election will hinge on developments over the next five to six months.
The Conservatives will pick a new leader and bring down a new budget. They also face labour and other problems across the province. A significant number of voters in the province look like they have decided to wait and see what happens.
Keep your eyes fixed on the February polling period.
CRA’s news release was not available on line as of 1430 hours Newfoundland Daylight Savings Time.
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They say that you can never go home again but Danny Williams’s parting gift to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador seems to be more than a massive guarantee they’ll bear an ever greater public debt than the crushing one they carry now.
The guy who made his fortune delivering Detroit television stations to townies just couldn’t resist adding some cable to the deal.
Seems that Nalcor, the government-owned energy monopoly Williams created is now promising the people of Labrador that if they go along with his plan to bring Labrador power to townies, they will get cable.
Now to truly understand just exactly what this little bait and switch deal is really all about, recall that Danny Williams once promised, in writing, that
[c]onsistent with our energy policy objectives, a Progressive Conservative government will make use of the hydroelectric potential of the Lower Churchill and any electricity that can be recalled or reclaimed from the Upper Churchill to accomplish the following priorities:
• Promote industrial development and meet domestic energy demand in Labrador and then on the Island of Newfoundland. [Emphasis added]
But that promise went out the window right as soon as Williams got into the business of trying to build his debt-laden legacy. They’ve been offering cash for the past couple of years for people to study small hydro projects as an alternative to powering these coastal towns with diesel.
If the Old Man and his hand-picked successor get their way, power lines from Muskrat Falls will run right by communities now served by diesel generators. Power lines will run by the towns and take that Labrador power off to St. John’s and down into Nova Scotia, but none of it will go to the people closest to the dam, if it is built.
So, as it turns out that promise about using Labrador power for Labradorians is headed for the same dustbin that holds the one about only developing the Lower Churchill with Hydro-Quebec if there was redress for the 1969 deal. As it turned out, Williams spent five years of his seven in office trying to get HQ to take an ownership stake without redress. Set redress to one side is the way Premier Kathy Dunderdale described it last year.
What was that some famous politician said once about greatest frauds and unkept promises?
Anyway, …
The people in different parts of Labrador are none too pleased about this idea, apparently. You can tell because there are suddenly Internet and telephone cable lines in the mix for the Lower Churchill. The existing lines in Goose Bay are apparently at capacity and can’t handle any more subscribers.
Only a handful of years ago, back when the Old Man’s party was cutting a deal to subsidize some private sector cable companies, the cost of adding the lines to Labrador was something they needed to study. And at a cost of $80 million or so back in 2006, it seemed to be a bit much, apparently because the provincial government couldn’t manage to step up. Billions in public infrastructure but no cash for a Labrador cable line.
And then in 2009, Danny Williams was mongering any scare he could find just to sling a power lines through a World Heritage site. The cost of going around the park was about $100 million according to Williams, and that was too much since it might jeopardize granny’s heart surgery or some such foolishness.
But now – suddenly – they can find the cash.
If…that is.
Even though fibre optic lines would be a completely separate thing from the Nalcor project, government is now talking it up. Maybe they are counting on the gullibility of the people of the Big Land.
Maybe they should think again.
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From the Telegram’s Saturday edition, comes a provocative idea from another opinion piece:
If Churchill Falls is the alpha and omega of provincial politics, what happens now?
How does a political culture evolve once it has reached the promised land, where have-not is no more?
Mr. Williams did not change the province’s political culture so much as he embodied it. And for the past forty years, that culture has been predicated on the politics of anticipation.
For two generations, Newfoundlanders have waited for political deliverance from the injustices of the past.
This anticipation created a political teleology so deeply ingrained that it’s hardly recognized, let alone questioned. The unspoken assumption has always been that Newfoundland and Labrador is not just a place but a time: it’s always on the cusp of going somewhere, becoming something, fighting someone.
To be a Newfoundlander is to know in your bones that the next big announcement is just around the corner, because one day the sun will surely shine.
Being Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador has meant never having to say you’re sorry, because suffering have-not status and Ottawa’s perfidy justifies doing whatever is necessary, from hauling down a national flag to slandering opponents as traitors and betrayers.
Yet if politics has meant struggle, what happens when the struggle is won?
Historian Jerry Bannister comes up with a poser.
After all, Labrador hydro-electric power is the political equivalent of paradise on Earth in Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s something that is always just around the next bend.
It’s the better tomorrow we have to be ready for.
So what happens now that we are supposedly at that point in history?
What’s next?
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Add talk show host Randy Simms to the pile of people who now appreciate that the Lower Churchill announcement wasn’t about a deal to get the thing done.
His column in the Saturday Telegram (not online) couldn’t have been any plainer:
Premier Danny Williams did much the same thing, declaring, "Today will go down in history as the day that finally eclipses that day back in
1969 when the Upper Churchill Contract was signed."Really?
…
I think the spectacle we saw at the term sheet signing was more
political than practical. It was done for the benefit of the home
audience.
And it only took a couple of weeks.
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It’s just more of Bob Wakeham’s usual bullshit.
Yvonne Jones became leader of the Liberal Party through acclamation, not a bonafide leadership convention. …
Lorraine Michael had a leadership contest with a political nobody, and won her party’s leadership in a proceeding in which a mere 100 or so delegates cast ballots, not exactly a history-making, barn-burner of a race.
…
If there are cheers to be hollered from inside the ranks of those who have diligently fought the good fight for women, or if Newfoundlanders wish to pat themselves on the back for an enlightened view of gender equality, then I would suggest the appropriate time, the most meaningful time, would occur when and if women have fought it out tooth and nail in the kind of process that have elevated men to roles of governance.
Meanwhile, Bob makes no observation about how his recently departed hero got his political job.
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