A sweet energy deal for someone

The following op-ed piece is from opposition leader Kelvin Parsons.  It appeared in several conventional news media last weekend.

 

A sweet deal, but not for the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador

by Kelvin Parsons

The proposed Term Sheet to develop hydroelectric power at Muskrat Falls, Labrador with Emera Energy of Nova Scotia is badly flawed. If it proceeds, it will cause an exorbitant rise in electricity rates and increase our provincial debt by as much as 50 per cent, a worrisome development given that we already have the highest per capita debt in Canada.

The Government of Premier Kathy Dunderdale would have us believe this deal is necessary to provide stable, long term energy prices and that if it doesn’t proceed our energy prices will be even higher. However, neither the premier, nor Nalcor, has provided any information to substantiate that claim. Neither has Ms. Dunderdale or Nalcor offered any proof that energy demand is increasing on the island and that we actually need the additional power Muskrat could provide. It would be instructive to see Nalcor’s energy demand projections given this province has lost two pulp and paper mills under the current government’s watch and our population is projected to decrease over the long term.

As for her contention that replacing the thermal plant at Holyrood with Muskrat power would make this province 98 per cent green, Ms. Dunderdale is not telling the full story. She is failing to disclose that Holyrood generates only 20 per cent of the island’s electricity and that the other 80 per cent is already “green energy” that comes from hydroelectric stations such as the ones at Bay d’Espoir and Cat Arm and from wind farms such as the one at St. Lawrence. Using the premier’s own formula for calculating our “greenness,” which includes the 5,400 megawatts of energy already being produced on the upper Churchill, this province is already 91 per cent “green.”

The premier is proposing that we spend $6.2 billion to build a new power plant in Labrador and run lines thousands of kilometers over land and under water to replace just 20 per cent of our energy production. Adding such a huge financial burden on top of our existing debt - for such limited gain - makes no financial sense.

Refurbishing Holyrood to reduce its emissions is a far cheaper option. Eliminating Holyrood also eliminates the prospect of eventually using this province’s large stores of natural gas for electrical generation here at home. There is much more gas in the oil fields now under production in the Jeanne ‘d’Arc basin than in the Sable reserves off Nova Scotia. And that’s not counting the potential reserves in Western Newfoundland or the large gas reserves off Labrador.

As well, the citizens of this province should be told there are several other potential hydroelectric and wind projects that can be developed on the island of Newfoundland to meet any incremental growth in electrical demand for many years to come. These projects can be developed at far less cost than Muskrat Falls and with much less impact on us as taxpayers and electricity consumers.

Make no mistake, Muskrat will be a financial burden. By the premier’s own admission, the generating and transmission costs of Muskrat Falls power will be at least $143 per megawatt hour. That’s a 120 per cent increase over the base rate Nalcor now charges Newfoundland Power, the main provider of energy to consumers on the island. If there are cost overruns on the project, the base cost will be even higher.

If this project is approved, we will go from having the cheapest power rates in Atlantic Canada to the most expensive. Muskrat’s exorbitant energy costs will also hurt businesses, impair job creation and drive up the cost of living for everyone in this province as the higher electricity charges are added to consumer goods.

But there will be some beneficiaries – just not in Newfoundland and Labrador. Take the case of Emera Energy of Nova Scotia. Ms. Dunderdale claims Emera is paying $1.2 billion for 20 per cent of Muskrat’s energy. That is untrue. That $1.2 billion is being invested in a transmission line that Emera will wholly own for 35 years. The power that will run across that line to Emera will be provided for free. Emera will then sell its free power to consumers in Nova Scotia, recovering its $1.2 billion investment with a guaranteed rate of return. All this has been confirmed by Emera’s president, Bruce Huskilson, in a conference call with investment analysts.

This arrangement is akin to me letting my neighbour take water from my well for 35 years for free, as long as he pays for the hose. Whatever money he gets from selling that water, he keeps it all, not a cent of it comes back to me.

Premier Dunderdale claims the benefit of such a lopsided deal is that Nalcor will be allowed to run excess energy from Muskrat over Emera’s line for sale in the Maritimes and New England. That is true. But Nalcor will have to pay all the associated tariffs and very likely use Emera as the broker. That means more fees paid to our Nova Scotia “partner” and less revenue for the people of this province.

As well, any Muskrat power going to the Maritimes or New England will be sold at a fraction of its production cost. Comparing the current market price in New England of about $50 per megawatt hour with Muskrat’s production cost of $143 per megawatt hour, the people of this province would end up subsidizing two thirds of the cost of electricity going to New England. While Americans and people in the Maritimes would enjoy paying the lower market rate, consumers of electricity here on the island of Newfoundland would have to pay Muskrat’s full production cost plus allowances for profit.

There are other problems with the deal that Premier Dunderdale doesn’t want to talk about. For instance, while Nalcor has agreed to pay half of all cost overruns on the construction of Emera’s Maritime Link, there is no reciprocal agreement on Emera’s part to pay any cost overruns on the transmission line running from Labrador to Newfoundland. That’s despite the fact Emera is getting a 29 per cent ownership stake in our line and will enjoy 29 per cent of all the profits derived from transmitting power from Muskrat Falls to consumers here on the island.

Not surprisingly, financial analysts have hailed the project as a great deal for Emera. They have not made the same assessment for the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The bottom line is this: Premier Dunderdale and her government is asking the residents of this province to pay more than double for their electricity and take on an additional $4.5 billion in debt to finance a project that will provide free energy to Nova Scotia and subsidized energy to consumers in the Maritimes and New England.

As for her contention that keeping Holyrood on stream will lead to energy costs that are even higher than Muskrat’s, to date neither her government nor Nalcor has provided any evidence to back that claim despite our repeated requests to see any such documents.

The Term Sheet to develop Muskrat Falls looks like it was slapped together in a hurry. Incredibly, it’s even worse than the historically unfair Upper Churchill contract. At least in the case of the Upper Churchill, Hydro Quebec pays something for our energy, albeit a pittance of its market value. If Ms. Dunderdale gets her way, Emera Energy will receive Muskrat’s energy for free as well as a 29 per cut of profits on all transmission of energy to our island. Meanwhile, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will be financing this atrocious deal with even higher debt payments and exorbitant electricity bills.

It’s a sweet deal, alright, but not for the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Connie Leadership 2011: Brad and circuses

Conservative Party insiders are so desperate to block any leadership contest that they are willing to creatively reinterpret the party constitution so that only people they chose get to be members for the purposes of deciding who gets to lead the party.

CBC’s David Cochrane reported on Monday that the Conservatives evaluating Cabana’s nomination forms have decided that “members” are only the members of district associations and other similar people described in one subsection of Article 5 of the party constitution:

ARTICLE 5 MEMBERSHIP

1. All persons who are residents or domiciled in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and who support the principles and aims of the Party are eligible to become members of the Party.

2. Subjects to Article 5-1 all individual members of affiliated associations and groups who support the principles and aims of the Party shall be members of the Party.

3. Notwithstanding Article 5-1 and Article 5-2, all members of the Provincial Executive Council as defined in Article 7-1 who support the principles and aims of the Party shall be members of the Party. Any member of the Provincial Executive Council who ceases to support the principles and aims of the Party will automatically cease to be a member of the Provincial Executive Council and forfeit all rights and privileges associated therewith.

Now that’s not really ambiguous except to anyone lacking basic English language skills.  The sub-section da byes are relying on is the third one but that only makes sure that the district and provincial executive people get counted as members and that resigning from such a position has a price.

The main bits of the section define membership pretty broadly.

But if the back-room boys succeed in disqualifying Brad Cabana because he doesn’t have any Sub-section 3 “members” on his nomination form, that might not be the only problem they cause.  Cabana is reportedly planning a legal challenge to this bit of  legal tomfoolery, and that would normally be enough of a problem.

The Conservative insiders who are trying to dictate who gets to be Premier may also cause themselves some other embarrassment if not real legal difficulties.

You see, membership also affects who can be candidates in elections.  Plus, under Article 12 of the Conservative party constitution the definition of membership also determines who may vote in a candidate selection process:

Eligible voters entitled to vote for a person to be elected as the Party Candidate are those persons who are members of the District Association, ordinarily resident in the Electoral District at the date of the Nominating Meeting and who are not less than eighteen (18) years of age either at the date of the nominating meeting or at the date of the election, if the date of the election has been set.

So it doesn’t take too much imagination to see that if “members” are only people currently serving on a district executive, then the party will pretty quickly cease to exist.  The only people they can nominate as a candidate to replace Danny for example are one of the people currently sitting on the Humber west executive.

Underneath it all, though, what people across Canada  are really seeing here is the attitude some people have to political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador.  The attitude is consistent with the sort of patronage-riddled, paternalism that has defined the past decade or so of provincial politics.

Under that model, the party is merely the handful of back-room brokers who rule over everyone and everything else. They are accountable to no one except themselves.

Listen to how many people who have said already that if the caucus is decided then Cabana doesn’t stand a chance. That reflects the old-fashioned view of a party and ignores the fact that even under the Conservative constitution, a significant chunk of the delegates to a leadership convention are supposed to be elected in each of the districts.

You can also see the old-fashioned notions contained in this if you look at the complete lunacy of the Conservative position.  Danny Williams argued that Roger Grimes, elected by a convention of elected delegates couldn’t stay on as premier.  To make sure that couldn’t happen again – supposedly – Williams and his colleagues set new rules with changes to the province’s Elections Act that would require a general election under certain circumstances.

Yet, under the Conservative Party’s own constitution, the caucus gets to appoint an interim leader. If by some chance Cabana’s nomination stands, the Conservative caucus will select not one but two caretaker Premiers in as many months. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have not seen such transient premierships since the 1920s when premiers came and went with the shifting coalitions within the legislature.

Politics in this province is in a parlous state.  The fundamental rot of the whole structure could not be more clearly seen than in the circus that is the once-proud Conservative Party struggling to find someone who actually wants the job while fighting to exclude someone who apparently does.

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Provincial Conservative membership provisions #nlpoli

Here’s a simple discussion of the membership definitions under the current Conservative party constitution in Newfoundland and Labrador:

“Membership has its privileges”

Interestingly enough, Twitter and other bits of the Internet are showing how few supporters of the Conservative party know what their party constitution actually says.

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Connie Leadership 2011: Cabana candidacy causes Connie caucus consternation

Joe Hickey turned out to be a giant jerk-off but Brad Cabana came out of nowhere and scuttled the carefully laid plans among the province’s Conservative back-room boys to crown Kathy Dunderdale as leader of the province’s Conservatives.

Unless the the boys can find some procedural way to disqualify Cabana, the Conservatives will now have to hold a leadership convention. That’s the one thing they were desperately trying to avoid.

More to follow…

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Kremlinology 29: Easybake Tories

Kremlinology has always been a series about trying to interpret signs to see if they can point out what is going on behind the scenes in politics.

In the case of recent monumental changes on the provincial political scene, though, it seems that the signs are unmistakeable even to someone with no political sense at all.

To get your head in the right space, recall that when the Tories lost a by-election in late 2009 – one, single political sideshow – the shockwaves rippled through the province like someone had whacked the jello. The surest sign of the anxiety within  the party? 

Tony Ducey, DBA Tony the Tory, wrote letters to every newspaper in the province saying that the Tory party was not dead. Who said it was even sick at the time?  Well aside from your humble e-scribbler.  All jokes aside, there really isn’t a person on the planet who would have suggested, even in jest, that a single belch of indigestion is a sign of a fatal heart attack.

The first clue to the big problems in the Kingdom of Dannystan was Tony’s denial of problems triggered by what was essentially a non-event. One by-election loss does not usually trigger the Gotterdammerung but apparently Tony was petrified that it did.

As everyone knows, much has changed in the meantime and many such tiny traces of evidence pointed to problems.  Some of these clues were unmistakeable.  The most obvious one of all happened last fall when, in the space of a week, Danny Williams went from being the guy who was poised to sweep to a third term as premier to being the guy standing third in line behind you at Canadian Tire.

Turns out that some Tories don’t believe in such obvious signs of resignation as…well…someone saying good-bye.  The rumour running through Newfoundland and Labrador last week was that Danny had actually not quit and run at all.

Nosirreee, Danny had some undisclosed personal business to deal with.  His resignation, His Christ-like admonition that we should all love each other and Kathy Dunderdale as Hisself loved Hisself’s children was merely a way of saying “Hang on, my duckie, this is really a big joke.  I’ll be back once I’ve tidied up a little mess.”  Once that was done, safely from the eyes of the evil news media, he’d come back.  Like maybe around May and then he’d be ready to kick ass and take names again.

That story is everywhere. 

Your humble e-scribbler heard it around town on Friday and got it in e-mails from several spots in the province and outside it.  As comforting as that thought may be to some, and as much as some might like to imagine that Elvis isn’t stone-cold in the ground these decades or that the Gloved One will return, let us be abundantly clear:

Hisself is gone.

That sighting last week in the Confed Building likely has some sensible explanation but rest assured, this is not some script for 22 Minutes again.  Danny is the ex-premier and not likely to be back.

Speaking of rumours – and Lord knows they have been all that most people passed around this Christmas -  the only rumour not flying around the past couple of months has been that Hisself is about to get a semi-permanent guest spot on Doyle with the possibility of a spin-off next season.  in that scenario, Danny would play a former politician slash lawyer slash saviour of the universe who rights wrongs from his office in a converted movie theatre where the roof collapsed. He’d have a couple of sidekicks from his political days and another couple from his legal days.  Think of it as a cross between The Mentalist (the saviour and sidekicks angle), Slapshot (comedy and the jock angle) and Hell’s Kitchen (the histrionics).

The rumour that he wants to go federal is not as much of a joke as it first appears.   You can find evidence of it in a year-end telegram interview in which he insists that his attacks on “Quebec” are aimed solely at Hydro-Quebec, not the lovely people of that province.  And, as Danny claimed in the interview, he always has to qualify his comments so people don’t misunderstand. 

Always qualify. 

Yeah, right.

As far as federal politics is concerned his anti-Quebec tirades make him radioactive but that doesn’t mean he didn’t harbour a few delusions about replacing Steve.

In any event, Danny is gone.

He is not coming back.

The intense and wildly-varied rumour market is a sign of nothing more than the gigantic shitbake that is gripping the province’s Conservatives.  And this latest one is the most bizarre of all.

Think about it for a second. 

If their story is true, Danny would be pulling a turn-around even greater than that pulled by Joe Smallwood in 1969.  The old bugger retired and then, in the middle of the leadership campaign to replace him, announced that only he was worthy enough to succeed himself. 

He launched a comeback and defeated all comers, including John Crosbie.

What’s more Danny would be going against his own mother’s wishes for him.  She did tell reporters, after al,l that she would shoot him if he tried to run again for anything other than the bus.

And Danny’s mom, it should be noted, used to drag her crowd door-to-door to get rid of Smallwood and the Satanical spawn he led.  How friggin’ cruel would the universe be to have Danny come back into politics against her wishes and do it in a way that shows more raw ego than Joe Smallwood. 

What a savage twist would it be to have that sainted woman discover in her declining years that her favourite son is merely the meat-suit for her worst political enemy’s political soul?  If you see a ‘67 four-door Impala on Duckworth, you know you have tuned into a new episode of Supernatural. Sam and Dean will be looking for the season-ender to top last year’s season-ender:  the Apocalypse. 

Danny coming back a la Joe Smallwood would bring on something like the Apocalypse. It would certainly make his mom’s head spin around a few times.

Might be good TV though.  Gordon Pinsent could guest star as the ghost of Peter Cashin with Mark Critch as the young, pre-possession Danny. Kevin Noble could play an actor torn between his love of Joe and his love of Dan. There’d have to be a news release on Monday from Terry French announcing provincial government funding to support production of the series which will relocate from Vancouver to St. John’s. Plan is to build on local experience of a TV series shot in St. John’s and starring an old car.

Once you get past the shark jumping tale, though, there is another bit of speccy running around in some Tory circles as well that is worth having a laugh at.  That has to do with the reason for backroom deal currently playing out before our eyes. 

Apparently, Tories are sticking with Dunderdale because she is the status quo and that’s what everyone wants.  Everyone loves Danny.  Everyone loves things the way they are – the polls show that -  so the way to ensure victory in the fall is to keep things just the way people love them.  Think of this as a variation on the Danny:  Resurrection storyline since it derives from the theory that Danny is the key to any future Tory victory. It just confuses Danny with the party.

At least it has the advantage of being consistent with past Tory rationalisations.  Here’s the second paragraph of Tony the Tory’s letter from 2009:

Still, before anyone says that this is the beginning of the end for the PC party in the province and that the tide is turning towards the Liberals, it is not. It's far from it: the PC party is still in the 70s in the polls and have over 40 of the seats in the House of Assembly.

The only problem with this story would be the facts.  Even if we accept CRA polls as being anything close to real, their tracking of Tory party support is not encouraging. The party has been tracking behind its former leader.  In the most recent version, the party support continued the downward trend it’s been on since 2007.  In fact, over the past six months, the party support numbers went up but then dropped  dramatically in just three months.

If the Tories are keeping Kathy Dunderdale it is not because people want more of the Tory same.

No.

They are keeping Kathy because people in the Tory backrooms are scared shitless at the thought of a nomination fight. They are so scared of any nomination contest that they will use any and every excuse to justify the current charade, including claiming that it is nothing more than what the Liberals have done. If that’s the sort of lame-assed stuff they are coming up with, stand by when it turns out that Danny did a few massive give-aways of his on resources, by the by. 

But that, dear friends may turn out to be the least bizarre thing to happen in this year of massive political turmoil in the province.

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Connie Leadership 2011: the caucus’ worst nightmare

Joe Hickey is considering a challenge to Kathy Dunderdale as leader of the province’s Conservatives.

The Telegram reports Hickey has the cash and the 50 signatures and will announce his intentions on Monday morning.

CBC Radio St. John’s Morning Show has Hickey live at 7:40 AM, Newfoundland and Labrador Daylight Savings Time on Monday. Follow this link – here  - to listen live on Monday.

Update:  NTV is running a story generally similar to the Telly’s account.

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Traffic for 5K and 50 “members”

1. Connie Leadership rigged?
2. Undisclosed risk:  financing the Lower Churchill
3. Connie Leadership 2011:  democratic deficit
4. Connie Leadership 2011:  editorial kick-back
5. Leadership by fiat
6. Connie Leadership 2011:  Persistent Rumour Department
7. Fragile Economy:  finance minister complains about his own policies
8. Pater knows best
9. Is Gerry Byrne completely nuts or what?
10. Connie Leadership 2011:  for the sake of five large and a gang of kids

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Connie Leadership 2011: for the sake of five large and a gang of kids

Apparently the requirements for membership in the provincial Conservative Party pretty wide.

Might be interesting to see if anyone turns up by noon Monday to challenge Kathy Dunderdale for job of leading the local Connies brigade.

Here’s a warning for all you mainlanders who follow the link: this is not really what a “Reform-based” Conservative Party would look like.  Why Danny Williams ever described the party he used to lead that way remains as much of a mystery as the real reason for his very hasty departure.

The link:  “Membership has its privileges.”

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Undisclosed Risk: the cost of freedom is loss

You won’t hear the provincial Conservatives talking too much about an April 2009 deal to sell surplus power from Churchill falls to Emera in New York.

They talked about it a lot when they cut the deal. 

Back then, Danny Williams said the five year contract proved that Labrador hydro power wasn’t isolated any more.  Nalcor wheels Churchill falls power through Quebec to markets in the Untied States.  Nalcor pays Hydro-Quebec a fee for wheeling the power.

And Danny Williams was absolutely right.  Labrador hydro power isn’t isolated.  if Nalcor had customers for Labrador hydro, they could send the power through Quebec tomorrow.

The reason Nalcor isn’t developing the Lower Churchill and shipping the power through Quebec is because there is no market for the power.  Everything else you’ve may have heard from provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador and from the local media about a big Quebec conspiracy to block Nalcor is – in a word – crap.

You can see that the Conservatives wouldn’t want to talk about the Wheeling Deal.  it proves that their more recent line, the one that supposedly justifies the Muskrat falls project is – in a word – crap.

Turns out there may be another reason why they aren’t talking about it.

Danny Dumaresque, a former director of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, issued a news release on Wednesday claiming that Nalcor is losing money on the Wheeler Deal. The story got decent media coverage across Newfoundland and Labrador and even made it onto the Radio Canada website. There’s also a short story about 20 minutes into the CBC’s Here and Now broadcast on January 5, 2010 and on NTV News from the same date.

Dumaresque looked at the Nalcor annual report and calculated that the company lost money on the deal compared to the previous deal to sell the power to Hydro-Quebec:

Over the past 18 months I have been told various figures of costs and revenue but because these figures were much different than the previous contract with Hydro Quebec, I was reluctant to cite them. However, today I can confirm that this province has lost $15 million in the last 9 months of 2009 under this ‘historic arrangement’ than we would have received from the contract with Hydro Quebec, a reduction of 40 percent.

My information is that results have not been any better in 2010 and up to $20 million will be lost. Therefore, in less than two short years we have lost $35 million of precious taxpayer’s money and the potential to lose up to $100 million over the life of a 5 year agreement which we had with Hydro Quebec!

In addition to this loss of revenue to the province I am also able to confirm that NALCOR has paid nearly $34 million to the Government of Quebec since this deal was done and $7 million to Emera Energy of Nova Scotia. [bold in original]

In the media interviews, natural resources minister Shawn Skinner doesn’t dispute the losses.  In fact he admits that under the deal, Nalcor would lose money when electricity prices are low but it could make them back if prices are high.  Even he uses the line with CBC to the effect that losing money is the price of freedom.  When a politician has to use complete bullshit like that you know he’s been caught out.

There are three things to note from this.

First of all, this is pretty much what you might expect from the deal.  It was clear at the time Nalcor inked the deal that – based on the numbers they released – the deal would only deliver about the same price per kilowatt hour to Nalcor that they were getting under the old fixed-price deal with Hydro-Quebec.  Sure electricity retails for 20-odd cents per kilowatt hour in New York city.  But by the time you take off the wheeling charges to Hydro-Quebec and all the other middlemen, and allow for Emera’s cut, the net for Nalcor was 3.5 to 4.0 cents per kilowatt hour.

As it turned out, electricity prices dropped in the United States what with the 2008 recession and all. They are so low that American producers can sell electricity produced by natural gas from the United States across the border into New Brunswick.  And as it stands right now, prices are going to stay down for the duration of this first contract. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro considered wheeling the power in 1998 but figured out exactly what has happened.  They opted for selling power for the best return as opposed to going the Danny Williams route and losing money.  Pure business genius at work there signing a deal that only works if prices stay high or keep going up.

Second of all, you have to appreciate that this is exactly the same sort of financial wizardry that underpins the Muskrat Falls deal. 

In order for Danny’s retirement plan to work and for the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador not to take it in the derriere, oil prices have to double from their current level within the next decade and keep going from there.

If anything else happens, then the taxpayers get jammed up badly.  The reason is simple:  Nalcor is building the whole project based on the only guaranteed sale being for power inside Newfoundland.  They can sell power to other provinces or to the United States and if the prices fall far short of the cost of production, then the taxpayers of this province will cover the loss through their electricity rates.  That’s exactly what provincial laws – amended since 2006 – require.

Notice that none of the other players involved lose anything.  Emera gets cash no matter what.  For $1.2 billion they get 35 years of essentially free power to sell to Nova Scotia.  They can sell other power for less than the cost of production and even at the end of the 35 years they will pay less for the power than it cost to produce it in 2017 when the first power is supposed to flow.

It’s the same as the Wheeler Deal.  Hydro-Quebec gets its fees for carrying the juice to the border.  Emera gets its fees and commissions.  The only people who come up short on the deal are the taxpayers of this province who – one way or another – have to cover Nalcor’s losses.

Not bad, eh?

Now the thing is that nobody mentioned this at the time Danny Williams announced the deal in April 2009. Danny never said taxpayers could lose money at all. He never even vaguely hinted at it.  In fact, while he acknowledged prices at the time were low, Nalcor boss Ed Martin said that

[b]ased on current electricity prices, Newfoundland and Labrador could earn about $40 million to $80 million in profits annually….

That’s the third thing and it is the biggest thing of all:  it’s called undisclosed risk. And in business circles, failure to disclose significant risk to investors -  or the de facto owners in this case - is a pretty big deal.  It goes straight to the trust that the ordinary people of Newfoundland and Labrador have placed in these politicians who are now acknowledging, in effect, that there are very important things about these deals that they haven’t bothered to tell people about.

It makes you wonder what other little secrets, what other little time bombs there are ticking away.

What other undisclosed risks are the people of the province facing that they didn’t face before 2003?

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High oil prices threaten economic recovery

Via the Globe and Mail:

"Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy," the IEA's chief economist, Faith Birol, told The Financial Times. "The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil producers.

This warning, the newspaper said, will ramp up pressure on OPEC countries to boost their production.

The strength in oil, chief economist David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff + Associates said today, does not reflect stronger consumer demand in the United States, but rather external forces and heightened investor demand.

Wow.

Who knew?

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Connie Leadership 2011: editorial kick-back

From the Thursday Telegram, comes a rather nasty editorial comment on the charade that is the Conservative caucus plan to replace Danny Williams:

By comparison, Danny Williams announced his candidacy for the Tory leadership on Dec. 6, 2000, but nominations didn’t close until Jan. 31.

Some will point out that anyone interested in the leadership has known it was coming since Williams resigned at the end of November. Then again, Ed Byrne announced his resignation in June, giving possible candidates seven months to make up their minds about running.

In the coded language dominating political life in Newfoundland and Labrador these days, this editorial is a pretty sharply worded rebuke.

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Connie Leadership 2011: Persistent Rumour Department

All Christmas.

Jerome! will announce he won’t be running for re-election.

Sometime before the end of January, he’ll make a statement. 

Yes, yes, everyone knows that Jerome!’s already said publicly he’ll be running again but this rumour has survived that pretty clear statement.  After all, Danny insisted he was running again but that turned out to be not quite what happened.

And it only took the Old Man a week or so to go from telling Debbie Cooper that he was constantly re-evaluating his future to flinging his gear into the truck and heading for the hills.

If Jerome doesn’t run again, he doesn’t qualify for a politician’s pension. That could be a powerful incentive to stay on for another term.  

There’s pretty much no hope of a seat on a federally-appointed court.  His buddies could appoint him to the Provincial Court but they’d have to give him a pretty senior and largely made-up appointment.  No one expects that Jerome! is going to be sitting in Goose Bay or anything like that. That would also lead to lots of guffawing in the legal community as the guy who slagged political patronage appointments to the bench became one.

If Jerome doesn’t run again, then he’d have to go back to the old law practice or find some other business to pay the bills.

And then people could wonder who might run for the Conservatives in his place. 

For now, though, it is still just a rumour.

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Just imagine…

For some reason, the Conservative government of Danny Williams wanted to smash Fishery Products International and sell off the bits and pieces.

FPI used to be a large and successful fish processing company based in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Now it doesn’t exist any more and the most lucrative bits and pieces wound up in the hands of people who don’t do much business in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Just imagine if certain powerful interests in the province hadn’t destroyed the company.  FPI might be doing what one of its former competitors is now doing:  trying to buy into the Iceland fish business.

High Liner announced late Tuesday that it made an unsolicited offer worth ¤340-million ($445.4-million) to acquire Icelandic, one of the three biggest value-added seafood processors to the U.S. food service market. It wants the company simply to bulk up its own business.

That wouldn’t normally be front-page news. But in this case, it was the main story in at least two major media outlets. Why? Because Icelandic is owned by a public pension consortium run by the Framtakssjódur Íslands fund. And the owners have excluded the Canadians so far from the takeover process. High Liner piping up publicly was akin to a foreign company telling Iceland’s politicians to smarten up and open up the sales process to more bidders.

There’s a fascinating story in the Financial Post on the whole thing.

The world is only as small as people imagine themselves to be and, for the past seven years, this province has been dominated by people whose vision is incredibly myopic.

The consequences of such limited thinking are all around us, from the fragile economy that worries the cabinet minister who helped create it to this sort of lost opportunity in the fishery.

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Connie Leadership 2011: democratic deficit

The latest twists in the Conservative leadership story are starting to look a bit more like a soap opera than usual even in a place where the last seven years in politics have centred on how tightly knotted The Leader’s sphincter was at the moment.

With a mere three working days left to go in the very short deadline for nominations, convention co-chair Shawn Skinner wound up encouraging people to file nomination papers.

Now the comment only lasted until about noon on Wednesday and only on VOCM, the voice of the cabinet minister. Here’s what he had to say although the story has since been officially disappeared by VOCM:

Progressive Conservative Convention Chair Shawn Skinner is encouraging people to come forward as the deadline for nominations for the PC Party leadership, this coming Monday, quickly approaches. So far Acting Premier Kathy Dunderdale is the only person who has come forward. Skinner says the PCs are hoping someone else with some interest will enter the race for the party's top spot.

Only a half day hardly makes for a serious effort to scare up nominations and after all, Shawn knows full well the party isn’t really looking for a leadership contest.

If the Tories really wanted a leadership contest then he and his mates wouldn’t have busily done the back-room secret deal to keep Kathy Dunderdale in the job. 

And if Shawn and his pals really wanted an open and fair competition like the kind real political parties have in a democracy, then they wouldn’t be talking about how scared they are of a blood bath.

Shawn’s comments came after someone [Shurely not Tom Rideout] complained about the process to VOCM and the gang at VO reported the tale.

Shawn mumbled something into the microphone about how the party constitution is the reason for the really short nomination process.  As copies of the constitution started turning up on the Internet, though, that lame excuse disappeared faster than a completely spontaneous “Draft Steve Kent” movement started up last month.

What must really be troubling the crowd running the Conservative Party, though, must be a story that ran on NTV.  Political science prof Alex Marland is concerned about the lack of democracy inside the Conservative Party.  Marland makes a number of solid points, not the least of which is the importance of renewing and reinvigorating a political party through a leadership contest. The Conservatives are very consciously avoiding that renewal.  You can add to that the simple point that the Conservatives are also going to head into the next election with a leader everyone knows will not be the leader three years from now.

With the words “democratic deficit” swirling around the Conservative Party already, 2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting year in provincial politics.  There’s little fear of a new personality cult emerging and the fallout from the old one may just be starting to show up in public comments about the ruling Conservatives.  Bill Rowe made a rather telling observation the other day about how quick people are these days to say uncomplimentary things about the Old Man now that he’s out of power. 

Bill must be having a sense of deja vue. The locals are used to dealing with bossism.  They may say one thing when The Boss is in power but once he’s gone their true feelings have a nasty way of turning up.

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The Fragile Economy: finance minister complains about his own policies

Finance minister Tom Marshall thinks its time for the private sector to step in and boost the economy around Corner Brook.

“Other than construction, I would like to see more economic investment; I would like to see more businesses coming in and investing here,” he said. “It is jobs ... What we have seen is government spending, in a massive way, in this area.”

That’s from a story in last Friday’s Western Star.

Two observations come readily to mind.

First of all, that’s a great big “D’uh” there, Tom.  Your humble e-scribbler has been banging out post after post after post over the past six years on this very subject.  The number of posts on it has gone up in the past two years because the fundamental situation is getting fundamentally worse. 

It is getting fundamentally worse – to hit the second point – as a direct result of government policy.  In everything from its energy policy to its disastrous seizure of private sector assets in 2008, the current administration has shown itself to be relentlessly opposed to creating an economic climate that attracts investment, promotes innovation and rewards entrepreneurship. 

The current fragile state of the provincial economy  - “fragile” is a word Tom Marshall used not so long ago, by the way - is a direct consequence of government policies.  Only a fundamental shift in those policies can move the province off the course it is currently on.

As it stands in early 2011, the current administration is firmly committed to continuing the policies that have contributed to putting the economy in its current parlous state.

We have seen the enemy, says finance minister Tom Marshall, and he is us.

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Connie leadership rigged?

The fix is in and it must be getting really smelly and obvious if VOCM – aka voice of the cabinet minister  - is reporting it:

A man claiming to be contemplating a run at the Tory leadership doesn't like the process. The potential candidate, who prefers to be unnamed for the time being, says he has as much or more experience than Kathy Dunderdale. The man cites a lack of public notice and public disclosure as reasons for his displeasure, and goes so far as to call the process "rigged" and "perverted."
Nominations opened December 30 and will close on January 10. The potential candidates point out the Progressive Conservative office was closed for several of those days because of the holiday schedule. He also says there is a $5,000 fee and a requirement of fifty party signatures to seek the party's top spot. All this, he suggests, makes it virtually impossible to apply for the PC leadership, unless they are already in.

VOCM got a comment from convention co-chair Shawn Skinner to the effect that “he arbitrary timeframe for party nominations had to be set based on the party's constitution, and that everyone should have known from the time Williams announced his resignation on November 25 that the party would be seeking another leader.”

Some observations:

1.  Where is the party constitution?  If, as Shawn Skinner claims, the whole process is dictated by the party’s constitution surely he and his mates could have posted the constitution for all to see.  It’s called being transparent and open.

As it stands, the Conservative Party website doesn’t give any information on the constitution at all.  Anyone checking the website wouldn’t even know that there was a constitution.

2.  The news release announcing the nomination process gives absolutely no details on the requirements.  It doesn’t give any links to go to find information.  This 5K and 50 signatures would come as a complete surprise to anyone who had a week or so to scrape everything together.

In fact, here’s the complete news release, as issued December 30:

Progressive Conservative Party President John Babb and Convention Co-chairs Minister Shawn Skinner and Minister Joan Burke announced that nominations for the leadership will open at 12:00 noon, today, Thursday, December 30, 2010, and will close at 12:00 noon on Monday, January 10, 2011.

Delegate selection meetings to commence after the close of nominations. Details related to the date and location of the leadership convention will be announced at a later date.

There’s a contact name and number on there as well but other than that information – nominations are open and that they close with more information to follow there is exactly zilch in the way of meaningful information.

Well whaddyaknow Update: Turns out there is a link in the upper right hand corner that gives a bunch of forms.  Essentially, the information there is the same as the stuff in the VO stuff:  a 5k deposit and 50 party members in good standing.

If you want the constitution you have to contact the office.


3. “fifty party signatures”  WTF?  This is a party that has open nomination meetings:  anyone can go and vote.  So how exactly does one find out who are “party” people to contact so that one could collect signatures?

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Leadership by fiat

The Telegram editorial last Friday took issue with the upcoming coronation of Kathy Dunderdale as leader of the provincial Conservatives and, by default, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Check it out. 

You won’t be disappointed, right down to what appears to be the date code buried the editorial’s URL – 1969-12-31.

December 31, 1969.

There is, however, one small issue that deserves some comment:

There is an unwritten code of leadership campaigns in governing parties: a departing premier will seek a capable senior caretaker who is not interested in the leadership, so that no advantage will be conferred on the person holding the office in the upcoming leadership race.

Since 1949, there’s only been one case in which an incumbent Premier resigned and left behind a caretaker leader in his place.

Brian Tobin high-tailed it back to federal politics in October 2000.  he left with such speed that the Liberals had no choice but get someone in the job while they organized a party leadership fight.

In 1978-79, Frank Moores stayed in the job until his party found a successor.  As it turned out, that was Brian Peckford.  In 1988-89, Peckford did the same thing.  The Conservatives turned up Tom Rideout.

On December 28, 1995 – 15 years ago last month – Clyde Wells announced he’d be leaving politics.  He’d stay on only as long as it took the party to sort out the leadership.  By the end of January, Wells handed over the reins to Brian Tobin.

And that’s it.

Look across the country and you’ll see the same pattern.  Go back into the pre-Confederation history of this place and you’ll find Premier handing off to replacement, not to some sort of stand-in.

There’s another part to this, as well.  The outgoing leader left it to his or her party to figure out who would replace him. And in each instance, the party leadership did their job.  

In some respects it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a guy who wanted to abolish free speech in the province’s legislature took it upon himself to anoint his replacement. 

Through all of this, there is a thread that runs very deep.  It is the thread the Telegram’s editors found:  it’s the thread of democracy, of the fundamental belief that ordinary people pick who gets to lead. Ordinary members of political parties should get to pick the leader from choices at a contest.

And then later on, in a general election, ordinary voters who may not belong to that political party get to make a choice about who runs the whole place.

There’s more to this than just a nod to some mouldering and out-dated idea:  a party leadership contest helps to sort out the poseurs from the people with the gravitas to do the job of representing the entire province and all its people as the head of government.

Kathy Dunderdale’s coronation continues a tradition alright, the sad tradition begun in 2003 that undermines the province’s democratic institutions.

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Undisclosed risk: financing the Lower Churchill

“We had discussions about loan guarantee, and if they’ll do that, we think we could drive hydro rates down even lower and save millions.”

Finance minister Tom Marshall, December 2010

Ah yes, it is all so simple.

One little loan guarantee and everything is solved. 

Borrow billions and save millions.

The provincial government could issue bonds to cover the billions it will take to build Muskrat Falls.  No sweat.  Apparently, someone told Marshall the bonds would sell out in 15 minutes.  Well, at least that’s what Tom said in December.

Of course government-backed bonds would sell out in 15 minutes. Investors can’t lose.  Governments don’t evaporate in a cloud of financial pixie dust like companies do. Governments  - especially provincial governments inside big G-8 countries - always pay off. 

And that’s where Tom’s assessment starts to go off the rails:  disclosure.

Fin min admits power rates are sensitive issue

Finance minister Tom Marshall admitted last week that electricity rates resulting from the Danny Williams Legacy project are a very sensitive political issue.

In a year-end interview with the Western Star, Marshall said that he’d recently spoken with the federal finance minister about a federal loan guarantee for the project:

“We had discussions about loan guarantee, and if they’ll do that, we think we could drive hydro rates down even lower and save millions.”

Until now, the Marshall and his colleagues insisted that the project would be great from rate payers even without a loan guarantee.

Marshall’s comments mirror those of Premier Kathy Dunderdale in what is fairly obviously a concerted effort to allay concerns about massive increases in electricity rates resulting from the Williams’ legacy project.

.

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Dunderdale admits financials are problem for Muskrat project

In an interview with NTV news, Premier Kathy Dunderdale admitted last week that costs for consumers are a sensitive political issue with the proposed Muskrat Falls memorial project to Danny Williams.

Dunderdale said that the provincial government is interested in a federal loan guarantee for the project because it would lower the interest rate Nalcor – the provincial government’s energy company - would have to pay to develop the project. She said that the provincial government would pass on any savings resulting from the loan guarantee to consumers.

Until now, Dunderdale has insisted that the project would be a financial boon to ratepayers in the province by keeping  electricity rates down from what they might be without the project.

 

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Pater knows best

Telegram editor Russell Wangersky has some suggestions for the provincial Conservatives now that Danny is gone:

• “Reform the province’s access to information legislation so that citizens of the province actually have a right to information, rather than depending on the divine right of cabinet ministers to release what they deign fit. …”
• “Whistleblower legislation….”
• House of Assembly sittings….”  More of ‘em, says Russell.
• “Provide more information on just what is happening with Muskrat Falls, the single largest project on this province’s horizon and one that could topple us into Irish-style superdebt.”

Wonderful ideas.

Great ones, in fact.

There’s only one teensy problem.

The Conservatives didn’t get to their awesome standing in the province by letting these sorts of pesky things like transparency and accountability get in their way.

And what’s more, Russell said that was cool:

“I voted for him, and, truth be told, I would have voted for him again. Premier Danny Williams, that is.”

…

“That being said, for the last seven years, Danny Williams has been the right choice to run this province, and, regardless of any number of complaints, he’s done it well.”

You see, the same guy who Russell thinks was just neat-o had no time for all those things Russell writes about.

He didn’t.

He said he was all about accountability and transparency. 

But as we all know,  his actions spoke volumes louder than any words he ever uttered.

You just can’t endorse political strong-men on the one hand and then wonder where the democracy went on the other.

And as for the gang who held Danny aloft and who now run the place in his stead?  Well, just expect more of the same.  Politicians go with what works and, as Russell so ably demonstrated, nothing succeeds around these parts like old-fashioned paternalism.

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Month-end Traffic Report for December 2010

1. Is Gerry Byrne completely nuts or what?
2. Williams to head Rogers sports empire?
3. Connie Leadership 2011
4. Williams’ abrupt departure “shocking”:  Dunderdale
5. Conservatives to give back seized hydro assets
6. Williams’ disgraceful Christmas cards
7. Who isn’t running in 2011
8. All your incoherence are belong to us
9. Connie Leadership 2011 – Mid-December night’s ruminations
10. The return to “normal”

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The Traffic Week-ender for December 27-31, 2010

1. Is Gerry Byrne completely nuts or what?
2. Kathy Dunderdale:  the New Paternalism
3. Pop Drop 2010 continues
4. Williams to head Rogers sports empire?
5. Media trends:  the technical term is “suckass”
6. For the love of three oranges
7. Counting your chickens
8. The politics of history  - editorial version
9. The World the Old Man lives in
10. Court docket now online – Lawyers:  update your bookmarks:
    Provincial Court  and Supreme Court (Trial Division)

 

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Connie Leadership 2011: Fear and Loathing in the Caucus Room

Most people now realise that Kathy Dunderdale is staying on as leader and Premier a result of some secret backroom deal within the Conservative Party.

As nottawa notes, the Connies are giving potential rivals a mere 11 days to come forward.  That compares to the couple of months Yvonne Jones’ potential rivals had.  In other words, the Conservatives will go through a complete charade including what they are calling a leadership convention.

Despite this rather obvious political fraud, the people of the province know that they have a new premier thanks to a secret deal – not even a vote – cut by unnamed people in dark rooms.  It is like the good old 1920s all over again when administrations came and went over-night based on shifting alliances and unspoken promises.

And the people of the province can sleep soundly knowing their fate and that fate of the public treasury is determined by shadowy figures and endorsed by the Connie caucus.

Well, virtually all, according to the semi-official news agency VOCM – voice of the cabinet minister.

That word “virtually” suggests that some members objected or at the very least didn’t display the requisite enthusiasm.

Now there may well be nothing to that beyond an inexperienced reporter’s careless use of words.  But then again, there might be a bit more to it.  Politicians are, by nature, an ambitious lot.  Some of them have been forced to curb their tongues for upwards of seven years.  Their personal ambitions took a back seat to the Old Man’s interests and his iron grip on the caucus and the Confederation Building. Now they are told to sit on their ambitions yet again for another period of time.

Some other members of the Conservative caucus may well be uncomfortable with the decidedly anti-democratic way that Kathy Dunderdale is getting the job.  Some may recall the anointed Connie kingpin Danny Williams’ attacks on Roger Grimes over a far more democratic selection in the Liberal Party in 2001.  Hypocrisy never bothered Williams like it does others, but that is another story.

That lack of unanimity may well explain why Dunderdale held such a low-key announcement of her candidacy:  a scrum, attended by none save a single aide and the local media. it had the air of being a lash-up job.

That lack of unanimity, of course, is what this backroom deal is really all about.  Conservatives in St. John’s are clearly afraid that a leadership fight over the next two or three months will make for a Conservative of repeat of what they characterise as the divisive 2001 Liberal contest.

There are divisions within the Conservative Party.  Those divisions must be deep.  They must be deep enough to put the fear of God into the back-room boys.

Were it otherwise, the Conservatives would have a contest as they did  - successfully - in 1979 and 1989.  Instead they are afraid and loathe to tempt fate.

And for the record, the Liberal campaign in 2001 was divisive.  All leadership fights are.

John Efford and his team built part of Efford’s support on discontent over the way Brian Tobin and his close associates supposedly ran the entire party from St. John’s.  The party rank and file were passed over, according to some, in favour of those chosen by the old leader and his cronies.  Whether it is true or not is another matter, but there certainly were Liberals who felt abused.

And yes while Roger Grimes initially had some strong words about John Efford’s man Danny Dumaresque, wounds healed up before the 2003 campaign.  Grimes made a couple of appointments and everyone got on with business.

That’s what happens in politics. People have different opinions.  Leaders get paid to deal with those differences openly and cleanly, if possible, but certainly in a way that doesn’t let grievances fester.  Successful leaders are the ones who can bring a party together after a fight.  If a leader cannot unite his or her party then he or she is really not up to the job of being premier.

It is a simple and irrefutable train of logic.

By cutting a back-room deal, though, the province’s Conservatives have wound up in a very odd, and very troubling spot. 

Yes they’ve taken an anti-democratic approach. That is obvious. But then again their entire administration since 2003 is built on some of the oldest, most backward, and most pernicious political traditions of the province. It isn’t surprising they’d lurch back to the 1920s for inspiration when times got a bit tough.

More importantly, they sought to avoid what they perceived as a Liberal mistake and in the process have blundered into a much bigger one.  They have a caucus that is not united. That is never good.

To compound that, they now have a leader who is – at the very best – a caretaker until after the next general election.  Dunderdale was due to retire:  they all know that.  She is at the end of her political career. 

After October 2011, Dunderdale is gone.  It is only a question of how long she will hang on and then the Conservatives will be back in the same boat again.

In the meantime, Dunderdale has no plans and no ideas.  She is merely holding things together for an unknown period of time.

Kathy Dunderdale is a leader with no plans and – even worse - with no real political authority.

Kathy Dunderdale has her job because other people agreed to let her have it. It is not as though they were given a chance and decided not to run of their own accord.  They were persuaded not to run and that is a very different thing.

In a tough spot, Kathy Dunderdale cannot pull a Danny and lay down any laws to anyone. She cannot even build a consensus based on her own political constituency of supporters. Nor can she truthfully build a consensus based on her savvy.  She has blundered too badly in public too often for that to have any real effect for her cabinet mates. People who thought Roger grimes came out of his leadership beholden to every one of his caucus can now look on Kathy Dunderdale put in exactly the same spot, or a worse one.

Kathy Dunderdale will also have a tough time disciplining those who step out of line. Since she serves at the pleasure of her caucus she can also be dismissed by them as easily.

How much will it take to crack the veneer covering the Conservative Party?

Time will tell.

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Another fundamental shift

Rob Antle is leaving the Telegram to take up a new job with Atlantic Business Magazine.

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The Year-end Traffic Wrap Up 2010

Here are the top Bond Papers posts for 2010 as determined by readers. 

If you clicked these pages and read them specifically, here’s what you helped push to the top of the pile.

1. Court docket now online! (Do lawyers know how to bookmark stuff?)
2. Five years of secret talks on Lower Churchill:  the Dunderdale audio (The conventional media ignored it, but people found it anyway)
3. General and master corporal face charges over relationship (Betcha forgot this one!)
4. Williams to head Rogers sports empire? (Apparently, he isn’t but lots of people think it’s an interesting idea)
5. Connie Leadership 2011 (this is the first of the series of updates – you can find a bunch more here)
6. Conservatives to give back seized hydro assets  (A short session but another December reminder of just how badly the Conservatives shagged the people of Newfoundland and Labrador with this little fiasco)
7. Williams abrupt departure “shocking”: Dunderdale  (Shocked is one word to describe provincial Conservatives’ reaction.  Sh*t-baked was another)
8. Williams’ disgraceful Christmas cards (The guy writes his own political obit!)
9. Bell 206 Crash:  photo interpretation (There are many sides to srbp readers)
10. The World the Old Man Lives In:  larger picture  (If this one had been on tee shirts and mugs, your humble e-scribbler could have bought a condo in Florida right next to the Old Man’s place.)

 

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Kathy Dunderdale: The New Paternalism

Dunderdale has sought to continue key points of the Williams government, including development of the Lower Churchill megaproject, but she has already shown a different approach on labour relations.

She ordered ministers to settle a 13-month strike involving a small group of support workers on the Burin Peninsula, and later asked ministers to end a nearly two-year negotiation with physicians that concluded last week with ratification of a new pay package.

That’s the way cbc.ca/nl described Kathy Dunderdale on a story Wednesday that did everything but explain that the Conservative caucus met on Wednesday to endorse the deal that had already been cooked up in order to avoid a leadership contest.

Note that last paragraph, though.  It shows how readily conventional news media are already absorbing the new Conservative Party political narrative about the kind of leader Kathy Dunderdale will be.

It’s right in line with a comment by Conservative parliamentary assistant Steve Kent, as reported by VOCM:

Kent describes Dunderdale as a compassionate, thoughtful, and principle-centered leader.

The new premier may well be all those wonderful things but the point to notice here is that in the construction of the whole idea Dunderdale personally directed that ministers clear up not one but two embarrassing situations.  She has the positive qualities.  She personally bestowed benefits.

Incidentally, this is exactly how Dunderdale described her role at the news conference in which she announced the deal with doctors.  There’s no accident to this:  lines like that are worked out in advance and comments don’t wind up on the page in some sort of arbitrary fashion.  They are selected to convey very particular ideas.

Dunderdale’s prepared statement describes opening the lines of communication with doctors as “my first priority…”. According to Dunderdale’s prepared remarks, the two ministers directly involved in the negotiations merely played a role.

This is essentially the same construction used by Danny Williams:  he did things or directed them, especially when they were beneficially. Ministers took orders in a clearly subordinate role.

You can see the same sort of construction in the way his most ardent supporters describe Williams:  he personally bestowed pride, courage and so forth on the poor benighted people of Newfoundland (and Labrador). Take as an example this comment on a post by Nalcor lobbyist Tim Powers over at the Globe and Mail:

2:12 PM on November 27, 2010

I know we have to believe there are strong leaders out there who will step forward and continue the work of Danny Williams. Quite frankly, with the news of his departure, I felt somewhat orphaned, a sense of being left alone surrounded by those who will, again, try and rob us of what we have achieved. …

Williams is a father figure, in the classic paternalist sense.  His departure orphaned his children.

What this political line ignores, of course, is the role that Kathy Dunderdale played in the Williams administration,  She was Williams’ hand-picked Number Two and his hand-picked successor. Like Tom Rideout before her, she represented a direct link to the older Conservative Party and its supporters who predated Williams.

Had she felt strongly about the doctor’s dispute or about the Burin situation she was in a position to change the government’s position. She didn’t. She supported it consistently. Similarly, both Tom Marshall and Jerome Kennedy held ministerial portfolios that gave them both legal and political power to resolve the matters long before the government finally settled both. The truth is that cabinet changed its approach to these two issues for reasons other than the arrival of a new leader who is compassionate.

In other words, the reality of how political decisions get made is considerably more complicated.  It’s also not something politicians really want people to know about, let alone discuss.

Instead, politicians fall back on time-worn attitudes to politics that people quite readily accept without even realising what the words actually mean.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale is no change from the resurgence of paternalism in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

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2010: The year in review

For the year-end post, you’ll have to wait until Friday to find out what the readers picked as their favourite stories of 2010.

For today, here’s another view.  Your humble e-scribbler has picked one Bond Papers post or topic from each month as a reminder of the year’s events.  I f you take the time to wander back through the archives, you’ll find all sorts of things from the UFO story that ran among last winter to a couple of posts on education.  There are also posts on the fishery that got some public attention – h/t to CBC’s Fisheries Broadcast.

So much more happened in the province than people seem to remember and the stuff they do remember is often not the most important things.

In any event, here’s the Year in Review:

January:  Spending scandal:  when “facts” aren’t true

February:  Three on one topic:  Deep Throat, Deep T’roat and Deep Throats

March:  The Fragile Economy:  staying the course

April:  Jon Lien:  mensch

May: The search for meaning challenge – yet more unfounded news media claims. 

June:  Roger Fitzgerald’s bias – the House of Assembly is at the point where partisan bias openly displayed by the Speaker is now commonplace.

July:  Calamity Kathy’s story doesn’t add up.  The local media are already praising her political genius.  Here’s another example of how short their memories are or how low are their standards.

August:  Good to the last fish

September:  The politicisation of public emergencies

October:  Breasts:  they’re not just for gawking at

November:  Reversing the entrepreneurial drive

December:  How to win without news media – Part 2

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Is Gerry Byrne completely nuts or what?

Byrne says to saddle his constituents with massive debt and increased electricity prices.

That’s not exactly how Gerry Byrne might want to say it but that is exactly what the federal politician is looking to do.

The member of parliament for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte wants the federal government to backstop Danny’s Get Outta Dodge legacy plan.  Danny wants exactly the same thing and, to be frank, that’s one of the few ways this pig of a deal will fly.

The other way is for Byrne’s constituents to pay for it with a guarantee of doubling their electricity rates – or worse – for electricity they could get more cheaply using other ideas.

Now why, in a likely election year, would a federal politician want to shaft his his constituents twice over with double their electricity rates and increasing their public debt by $4.0 billion or more?

Has he gone completely insane?

Totally bonkers?

Been spiking the eggnog with oxy?

Heavens knows, but Byrne is obviously getting very, very bad political advice from someone who clearly hasn’t thought this through and who most definitely doesn’t have Gerry’s political best interests at heart.

And rest assured, gentle readers, that whatever imp perched on Gerry’s shoulder, he certainly doesn’t give a toss for Gerry’s supporters. So how did this ludicrous thought get inside Gerry’s skull?  There’s a question begging for an answer.

Someone ought to get the miserable idea out damn quickly though before it festers any further and we ordinary mortals get screwed.

From VOCM, in case they disappear the story:

Liberal MP is encouraging the federal government to step in with support for the Muskrat Falls hydro development. Ottawa has been asked to help finance the subsea link across the Cabot Strait, as well as for a federal loan guarantee. Gerry Byrne says the latter wouldn't cost anything and says the federal government should recognize that when it comes to climate change the development of the Lower Churchill is vital. Byrne says the Lower Churchill is an absolute essential plank in the overall Canadian climate change strategy and for that reason there should be no hesitation in participating.

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The Top Stories of 2010

So it’s time for the obligatory top stories posts. 

Danny quits?  Been there, done that, shoulda printed tee shirts in 2006 when he announced it.

The big story coming out of Williams’ hasty departure is the evident panic within the Conservative Party.  Ordinary Conservatives were obviously expecting Williams to carry on.  His abrupt exit left them decidedly uneasy. For its part, the party leadership seemed to be caught flat-footed and despite initial claims there would be a leadership contest early in the New Year, someone started to work behind the scenes to engineer a deal to keep Danny Williams’ hand-picked successor in place through to 2012.

But the deal as it is currently shaping up is a stop-gap, at best.

Dunderdale was planning to retire from politics. Like Tom Marshall – another supposed successor – Dunderdale is getting toward the end of her political career.  She isn’t likely to be the one to lead the party through two general elections. So sometime between 2011 and 2015, the provincial Conservatives would be back in the leader-finding business again.

If Dunderdale packs it in before October 2014, the province will be plunged into an election thanks to Danny Williams’ Elections Act fiddling in 2004.  If she hangs on for four years, the party will still have to spend the early part of 2015 running some sort of leadership contest.

And in the meantime – the second biggest story to flow from Williams’ escape -the policy doldrums that have beset the Tory party since 2006ish will continue.  Odds will remain decidedly against the provincial government launching any significant new programs unless it involves spending bags of money, that is. There’s also no chance the provincial government will reform its fiscal policy to cope with a massive public sector gross debt.

In the worst case scenario – the third biggest potential story to come out of Williams’ departure -  the Conservatives will forge ahead with Danny Williams’ Get-Outta-Dodge legacy plan and move the province into an even more precarious financial position.  Remember when the public sector debt and  and the size of the economy were the same number?  You will.

The there’s the fourth biggest story to come out of Williams’ departure:  who will replace him.  Bottom line is that we still don’t know.  Likely we won’t know for upwards of four years.

Ready for a fifth story tied to Williams’ surprise retirement?  Hurricane Igor.  Absolutely.  A huge story that affected thousands.  Revealed some serious problems inside the province’s emergency response organization.  And let’s not forget that natural disasters seem to be tied to the political future of certain types of political leaders.

Danny Williams’ political exit may wind up being the most commonly selected top political story for 20120 in Newfoundland and Labrador.  But it’s all the other bits related to his retirement that dwarf the event itself.

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Counting your chickens

There’s something very odd about the way the provincial government and its agencies make huge announcements about not much.

Like say just before Christmas when Nalcor announced that it had signed a letter of intent with SNC-Lavalin to oversee construction of a generating plant and overland transmission lines if the Muskrat Falls deal goes ahead.

Big deal, right?

Well, maybe not. Here’s a line from the Montreal Gazette:

Leslie Quinton, SNC-Lavalin's vice-president of global communications, said: "We don't usually comment on letters-of-intent signings, but in this case we can say it's very good news for our Newfoundland office."

It will be even better news if the project goes ahead.  you see an experienced company like SNC-Lavalin usually doesn’t count its chickens before they are hatched.

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Media trends: the technical term is “suckass”

In a normal place, news media would not use this sort of commentary from a politician about his own caucus, well not unless it was to ridicule the comment and the politician who issued the statement.

Then again, they don’t call this particular media outlet voice of the cabinet minister for nothing:

Terra Nova MHA Sandy Collins says he's extremely pleased to see such a smooth transition of power after Danny Williams announced he was stepping down earlier this month. Collins says it could have been a difficult time for the party and government, but it went smoothly much to the credit of Premier Kathy Dunderdale.

Hey Gerry!

Ed Murrow called.

He said he wants his awards back.

Either that or put a disclaimer that any resemblance between this sort of shite and journalism is purely coincidental.

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For the love of three oranges…

Via the Globe and Mail, a tale of one man and his Christmas orange tradition.

Not the colour.

The fruit.

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Pop Drop 2010 continues

Newfoundland and Labrador’s population dropped again in the third quarter of 2010, according to the latest estimates from Statistics Canada.

International migration is up, but wasn’t enough to pull things into the growth category.

Could it mean that the recession is over?

Well, at least it could be over to the extent that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are feeling comfortable enough to venture off  - again - to Alberta or Ontario or wherever it is they will go to find work. The growth in population from the second quarter of 2007 onward is attributable to the North American recession.  As in previous recessions, outmigration from the province halted and more ex-pats started flowing back in as the economy slowed down.

That pattern started to change a the middle of 2009.

For those like finance minister Tom Marshall and his colleagues in the provincial cabinet - who tried to imagine this was due to the attractiveness of local economic opportunities -  these figures are bad news.  They confirm that their interpretation is wrong. If their view was correct, the population ought to be growing at a much greater rate than it has been for the past year or so.  Locals would be finding work and staying while more people would come from outside to take up the extra jobs created by a booming economy that somehow managed to escape the ravages of the worst recessions since the 1930s.

Short answer:  it didn’t.  And to go with that there are still some major economic problems in the province that the politicians aren’t talking about.  Let’s see if they start talking about them in 2011.

As a last point, as you can see from this second chart, the population of the province has dropped more often each quarter than it has grown over the past five years.  And if you were to extend that back to 2003, you’d see the downward trend continues.  In fact, the trend goes back before 2003.

So much for the government’s pronatalist policy.

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The politics of history - editorial version

The history of politics in Newfoundland and Labrador is very much the history of patronage.

The practice is accurately described in this Western Star editorial titled “Independence” (04 September 1956):

If an electorate thinks that the prime purpose of democracy in action is to provide patronage for their particular constituency and the politician gets the feeling that in order to curry votes he has to descend to the level of the electorate, then it is understandable at least why he follows the path of least resistance, expresses no disagreement whatsoever with the party in power, thereby hoping to be able to wheedle from the government patronage and public funds for his constituency where votes will reward him by returning him to office again.

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Related:  “The politics of history”

Merry Christmas and all that Traffic! – Boxing Day edition

The top stories for the week of December 20-24, 2010, as determined by the readers of Sir Robert Bond Papers.

1. Williams’ abrupt departure “shocking”: Dunderdale
2. Williams to head Rogers sports empire?
3. The horrors of democracy
4. Connie leadership 2011:  Fairity got the call, too 
5. Belinda Stronach pictorial (Sadly the macleans.ca link is dead and apparently unrecoverable)
6. Potholes and compensation
7. Delacourt and the rumour mill
8. Muskrat Falls:  Internal Contradictions 2
9. Internal contradictions:  the editorialist version
10. Of Death Eaters and Horcruxes

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A Christmas Festival – arr. Leroy Anderson

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Joy to the World!

That way it should be:  Tuba Christmas!

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Good King Wenceslas

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Once in Royal David’s City

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Gesu Bambino

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