Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir

While some people may be excited about the fact that all three party leaders in the province are on Da Twitter, a close look at how political parties in newfoundland and Labrador are using, or not using social media, shows that there is a lot less here than meets the eye.

NTV aired two stories last week about social media and the upcoming provincial election.  Your humble e-scribbler is in both, along with local blogger and former candidate Stephen Eli Harris.  The first piece – here – started from the news that Kathy Dunderdale is the first Premier to use Twitter. The second one – here – built off the fact that the provincial government’s energy corporation is also using Twitter as part of its campaign to gain support for its Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Do a quick Internet search and you will find plenty of commentary and analysis on the Obama campaign and social media.  Some of the more interesting assessments compare how the republican and Democrat campaigns in 2008 differed.  The Republicans preached to the choir.  That is they used social media as a way of speaking to people who were already committed Republicans or who were leaning heavily that way.

The Democrats used social media as a way of tapping into a large pool of swing voters, alienated voters and independents. The used social media to draw potential voters to core materials and give them plenty of options to take action in support of the campaign.

Both strategies are built around the basic point that social media offer some pretty potent ways to reach voters who are now tuned in a great many places besides television, radio and the local newspaper.

In the upcoming provincial election, you will see that the Conservatives have a heavy Twitter presence. The New Democrats are using it and some Liberals have discovered that it exists.

The more important thing to notice is the content.  The Conservatives tend to spout their talking points or spit out meaningless pap about getting a haircut. The New Democrats tend to retweet campaign news from the party president or leader.  In short, they are packaged, plastic and preaching to the choir. 

One exception that stands out: Jerome Kennedy, with this tweet:

"the harmonies of new floods", "the thunder of insentient seas", "eternal pathways of fire"- E.J. Pratt's "Newfoundland". Required reading.

The dunderdale2011.ca website doesn’t have any sign of an effort to attract supporters, engage them and turn them into activists.  Sure, there’s a “Get Involved” button but it takes you to some sterile text:

There are many ways you can get involved in our Party.

In the lead-up to the general election campaign in October 2011, you may choose to volunteer with your local district association in support of your Progressive Conservative candidate.

You may wish to serve with Young Progressive Conservatives, the Progressive Conservative Women’s Caucus or the provincial campaign.

If you wish to get involved as a volunteer, please contact our Party office:  blah blah blah

This is not about pulling people in and turning them into activists.  This is a website about pushing information out, most likely to people who are already converts.  And if you think about it in light of the leadership controversy earlier this year,  that’s basically the way the party runs.

Ditto for  the NDP website.  For starters it’s just a sub-page from the national NDP site.  The buttons that look like ways to get involved are just e-mail forms to fill out so somebody can contact you later.  The Twitter button takes you to the leader’s feed.  As this is written on Monday evening, the last update was 24 hours earlier.

They’ve got a map of where they have candidates for the election.  That’s right above a list of nominated candidates:  14 as of July 25. The individual candidate web pages are pretty bare.  There’s not much there beyond some basic biographical information.

Ditto ditto the Liberal website.  it hasn’t been updated in a couple of months.  if you click the “where we stand” button you will find the party constitution.  No sign of a platform or policies. The news page is up-to-date with releases as recently as Monday. 

That’s the one clue on this website that there’s an election on.  There is a link to something called candidate nominations but it is a pdf of candidate profiles and pictures.  It’s out of date, to boot.

Of course, that’s pretty much consistent with political parties that aren’t interested in drawing in new supporters based on a platform aimed at voter interests.  As your humble e-scribbler noted for NTV, you are going to have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper between the parties on major issues. The one thing they will all have in common is a commitment to spend gobs of public cash:  pork is the priority. Likewise, for all parties – but especially the current incumbent Tories, it will be yet more  paternalism.

Local political parties all practice a form of defensive politics that involves a combination of preaching to the people they already have while repeating whatever it is the other guys have been doing that worked before.  The more aggressive forms of the defence – like the Tories in 2007 – also use heavy doses of Republican-style attack politics to suppress the opponents.  It can work spectacularly well.

Well, sort of.  The 2007 Tories won a landslide of seats but they actually didn’t get any more votes.  What they managed to do was demoralise the Liberals whose lacklustre campaign couldn’t draw anyone out.  The Liberal vote collapsed and that made it easy for the Tories to pick up seats.

But the Tories actually got fewer votes in 2007 than they did in 2003.

That isn’t what you may think if you only listened to the superficial media reports that did nothing more than repeat the intensive hype coming from the Tory camp.

The current Tory strategy is essentially a pledge for more of the same. For the campaign, that seems to mean yet more of the same but without the small-minded, vicious personal attacks that were Danny Williams’ stock in trade.

Other than that, there’s nothing really new in their campaign at all. Social media could let voters see real people and let that personality energise the campaign. Instead, they get some cross between Max Headroom and Johnny Cab.

Don’t be surprised if the parties have to struggle to get their voters to the polls.  The Tories are almost certain to face that problem. The other two parties don’t stand much of a chance at pulling new voters to their cause and they too will work to get the same people to the polls again.  Some individual campaigns might stand out but at the provincial level, the campaigns are pretty much brain dead.

And growth isn’t really what they are doing even if, as with the New Democrats, they are claiming that miracles are about to happen.  Consider that for all the hype, the Dippers only have 14 candidates in place.  That’s roughly the same number as the Liberals. None of them has a name or a profile outside of their own community or in some cases outside their own household.

For parties trying to take down an incumbent government, social media should be the tool of choice. What’s so interesting about the current election campaign and social media is that neither political party in the province is doing anything but using the new, revolutionary tools, to spit out more of the same old anti-revolutionary crap.

At this point, that’s the story of social media and the 2011 election.

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An endorsement that rings a little hollow

It is always funny listening to Cynthia Downy endorsing anyone for political office.  Not so long ago she was running for Stephen Harper and saying all the things about Stephen Harper she now says about Kathy Dunderdale.

The Politics of Perpetual Panic

Danny Williams’ legacy in Newfoundland and Labrador will be one thing:  the politics of panic. The old drama queen was always in a panic over something or other that was the gravest threat to something or other since the time of the last great upset to end all tirades.

Just like their role-model who seemed to spend almost every second of his seven years in office pissed-off, ticked-off or just plain old angry, the gaggle of politicians who came to office around him can’t function without something bunching their undies in the cracks of their arses.

His chosen successor, Kathy Dunderdale, is due the title of Chief Knicker Knotter.  Evidently running the Telly 10 caused the spandex to ride up Premier Kathy Dunderdale.  She could not wait to catch her breath after the race to let the world know that privatizing search and rescue service is just “not on.”

As the Telegram reported, Dunderdale told reporters that:

“As soon as I heard the speculation Ottawa might be considering that, we contacted the Prime Minister’s Office immediately and said again to them the health and safety is the number one priority in this province. It’s an issue to which we’re highly sensitive, we’re still very, very upset over the Marine Sub-Centre, and we’re not letting that go. So please do not exacerbate this any further.  And, before you have any consideration at all about changing the way you do this business, you come to Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the people involved in this industry before you take any moves whatsoever.”

Leaping is not confined to one particular political stripe.

Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms spent a bunch of time late last week telling any reporter who would listen that any move to privatize search and rescue would mean the death of gander and the squadron there.

Not to be outdone, Bloc NDP defence critic Jack Harris said that search and rescue is a core defence function.  He would defend the virtue of the sainted men and women of the Canadian Forces.  Too bad that Harris spent time after the Cougar 491 tragedy trying to pin responsibility for the deaths on 103 Squadron in Gander.  “Off-station” they were, according to Harris even though that – even at the time – completely false. 

And when most people caught onto his initial bullshite, Harris shifted to another bunch of foolishness about response times.

By now, savvy readers picked up the key word in Dunderdale’s warning. 

Go back and read it again if you need to.

Right there at the beginning.

“Speculation.”

Yes.

Speculation.

You see, this all started from a story about the federal government’s ongoing struggle to find a replacement for the 40 year old Buffalo aircraft that fly in western Canada long after they should have been retired. In that context, National Defence wants to discuss all options, including contracting out instead of purchasing and operating the aircraft themselves:

The Conservative plan to purchase new fixed-wing search-and-rescue planes has been stalled for years. The government is now trying to kick-start the program, which is estimated to cost $3 billion.

On Wednesday, the government informed companies that it would hold consultations on the project.

The session will include discussion on potential procurement approaches for a fixed-wing search-and-rescue project, including Alternate Service Delivery options, the government noted in its message to companies.

All we have is speculation.

Supposition.

Imagination.

There’s nothing concrete.

And yes politicians from Kathy Dunderdale to Jack Harris are attacking the speculation with everything they’ve got.

Only morons react to speculation.  That used to be one of the first things they taught you in politician school. 

After all, if people like Jack Harris knew anything about search and rescue themselves (Hint:  he knows jack], they would at least consider the possibility that contracting out for fixed wing search and rescue support could actually improve search and rescue service in the country.

Maybe contracted fixed-wing SAR flights coupled with military SAR helicopters would give better coverage at the same overall cost. Maybe, contracting out a bit of the work would let the federal government expand the number of fixed wing SAR aircraft such that the east coast would get dedicated SAR aircraft.  Right now, Hercules based on Greenwood do SAR in addition to doing transport duties.  That’s far from ideal.

Incidentally, your humble e-scribbler discussed some ideas for improving SAR in 2009 when the ghouls and panic puppies were working themselves into a lather about this on another occasion.

But notice that in that sentence about considering, your humble e-scribbler used the “could”.  Conditional language.  That’s because without knowing for sure what the cost and other implications might be,  there’s no way of knowing whether contracting out search and rescue would be good or bad.

And maybe, as the Ottawa Citizen story notes, the air force folks will raise enough of a stink themselves that this idea will die quietly. The again , they might go along with it.

After all a whole bunch of people got their knickers in a bunch almost 30 years ago when the Canadian Forces retired the old Tracker aircraft.  The federal fisheries department contracted out the surveillance flights and got better coverage with a new aircraft.  Meanwhile, the Canadian Forces continued to patrol offshore.  The two work quite well together with the military concentrating on Canada’s military security needs while fisheries looks after the civilian things.

SAR is a lot like that, actually.  It’s a civilian thing that should be handled, at the very least,  by the coast guard not the military. Farming it out to the private sector might not be a bad idea, if it improves the service  - shorter launch  times there Jack Harris? - without increasing costs.

Might even be better if the service came from a company based in Newfoundland and Labrador.  Maybe Jack Harris should check with the folks at Provincial Aerospace.  After all, they operate from his own riding.

Of course, folks like defence critic Jack Harris should know that.

He and his ilk don’t care about those sorts of issues because, like other politicians of the Danny Williams era, it is more important to be in a perpetual panic than to know what is actually going on.

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Nalcor ignores natural gas, local studies back cheaper alternative to Muskrat Falls project

The provincial government’s energy corporation didn’t study natural gas as an alternative to using Muskrat Falls to replace the Holyrood generating plant according to the company’s final written submission to the environmental panel reviewing the project.

Nalcor dismissed natural gas as “purely hypothetical” since the major oil companies have not identified a “viable business case” (p. 20). The company cited testimony given to the environmental panel to justify its decision.

But information given to the panel in testimony at a hearing into the project in St. John’s on August 4 didn’t come from the major offshore companies.  Some of the information came as hearsay comments from two private consultants interested in developing a natural gas storage facility near Stephenville and from Nalcor’s own vice president Gilbert Bennett.

Neither Bennett nor the consultants could cite specific information.  Neither told the panel, either,  that assessing development of offshore natural gas is hampered because the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador still hasn’t developed a natural gas royalty regime, despite commitments to do so in 1997 and again in the provincial energy plan issued in 2007.

That’s the same plan that committed the provincial government to developing the Lower Churchill.

The other source Nalcor cited to dismiss natural gas is testimony by NOIA president Bob Cadigan at the same April hearing. 

The panel was interested in the prospect of using natural gas from the offshore just for Holyrood and not for export. And when asked by the environmental assessment panel for specifics on a natural gas development, Cadigan didn’t have any information about the viability of natural gas as a replacement for Muskrat Falls of any sort. 

Instead, he relied on the project proponents and their assessments:

And in terms of that feasibility,  I think -- you know, I believe that the province and Nalcor have looked at a global -- from a global  perspective or high level at the opportunities available, and I would be surprised if it was an economically viable source to replace electric 18 generation from Holyrood [p. 141]

NOIA is comprised of supply and service companies for which Muskrat Falls represents a very lucrative business opportunity.

What none of the project boosters talked about were studies done within the past decade on offshore gas development.

A 2005 discussion paper prepared for NOIA by Dr. Stephen Bruneau looked at six options for getting additional electricity for the island grid. Bruneau concluded that development of only 60% of the known gas reserves at Hibernia, White Rose and Terra Nova would give enough natural gas to power a Holyrood size generating plant at full capacity, 365 days a year for over a century.  That would displace 500,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Bruneau estimated the cost of a pipeline to bring the gas ashore to be $300 million. Another $400 million would build a natural gas generating plant, with another $112.5 million needed to build a short on-land pipeline and build natural gas handling facilities at sea.  Total cost would be less than $1.0 billion.

Nalcor estimates the Muskrat Falls project will cost  at least $6.2 billion, with the resulting electricity costs at least 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour.

In contrast, Bruneau estimated the cost of electricity from a Holyrood natural gas plant at five cents a kilowatt hour.  Surplus gas could be converted to liquid natural gas and stored, according to Bruneau, or exported to the American market:

Associated gas transferred to the Island via pipeline is economical and is a wise choice for Newfoundland and Labrador energy strategy. It
will result in lower electricity prices, improved environmental stewardship, will attract major industry including LNG export opportunities, and, is economical to begin IMMEDIATELY.

Bruneau’s conclusions are supported by a 2001 study for the provincial energy department that looked at the feasibility of piping natural gas and gas liquids from the offshore using a pipeline. That study concluded, among other things, that the resources examined by the study could be developed economically even in a low price environment.

 

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Rumpole and Food for Thought

The Mighty Ceeb is at it again with another story that distorts the information they started with.

“Severe crime soaring in N.L.” screams the website headline. The second paragraph:

Statistics Canada reported that while reports of crime across the country are declining, Newfoundland and Labrador reported significant increases in crime. Violent crime in the province was up by 13 per cent in 2010, and up by 29 per cent in St. John's, the most significant increase in any Canadian city.

But wait.

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary chief Bob Johnson points out that two murders in the capital region compared to none the year before will skew the statistics if that’s all you count on.

Some might blame Stats Can.

Nice try, but take a look at the table and see the numbers.

Sure the province went up on the combined set of measures Statistics Canada calls an index. But the province is still below the national average.  The violent crime severity index at 70.2 is lower than larger provinces and less than half the numbers for Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Here’s the original Stat Can table.  Click on it and you should get a larger version:

Stat Can issues regular news releases on crime statistics.  As such, anyone using the figures can make easy comparisons rather than just rely on the year over year change Statistics Canada used this time. you can find the crime severity index for Nl for 2007, for example:  61.8. 

At the end of a simple search and few comparisons and you can see Chief Johnson is pretty much spot on.  And in relative terms, the provincial score on these crime indices is below the national average and significantly better than in other parts of Canada.

Consider, too, that these figures don’t look at the rate of solved crimes.  That is, there’s no measurement here of how many of these crimes didn’t wind up with an arrest and/or conviction.   When miscreants can get away with their crime, odds are – one would suspect – that crime becomes attractive.

And if that doesn’t persuade, consider these words rom the police chief.  They are an accurate reflection of reality in the province’s booming capital city:

Johnston pointed out that in the case of the murders, the victims and the people charged knew each other. Apart from convenience store clerks, most citizens of St. John's — and Newfoundland and Labrador — are not likely to encounter serious or violent crimes close up.

"Even though the numbers are going up, violent crime in St. John's hasn't been spilling out into the streets where ordinary people, innocent bystanders, would be affected," said Johnston.

None of that is reflected in the CBC’s headline.

But then again, if it didn’t bleed, it wouldn’t lead.

If it bleeds, it leads?  Now where did you last hear that line used as a criticism of a media outlet?

Hmmm.

Food for thought.

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The Politics of Public Spending

Check the local media for the past week and you’ll see a sudden bunch of stories about the series of fire truck announcements provincial politicians of the Tory persuasion are making across the province.

Voice of the Cabinet Minister’s got one.

CBC’s got one.

Apparently there have been 19 announcements or unveilings of new fire trucks, with three more to come.

Municipal affairs minister Fairity O’Brien insists this is just routine stuff and has nothing to do with the provincial election coming in October.

Now ordinarily that would be such a nose puller of a line that one would involuntarily scream “bullshit” at the top of one’s lungs. 

Except that it is Fairity O’Brien. 

In fairitiness to Fairity, the guy who probably can’t remember the name of the  district St. Anthony is in and who bullshitted about planning and emergency response likely does not know that what he said about the fire truck and the truth are two different things.

So let’s just say he has a particularly virulent case of pinochiosis.

And that he’s more full of shite than usual on top of that, besides.

The announcements are all about politics and the upcoming election.  Even Fairity knows it.  As Geoff Meeker pointed out, here’s what Fairity said in his rambling answer to a question on an open line call-in show about the pork announcements.  After denying they were political, O’Brien said:

okay, so the question here in my district is, and I am only speaking for myself, do you want four more years of what you’ve just experienced in the last eight, or do you want to sit in the Opposition, or whatever it may be…

Now sending such an incredibly weak minister as O’Brien out to defend blatant pork-barrel politics is a sign of arrogance or cynicism.  Take your pick which it is; either way is bad.

O’Brien threat, however is one thing:  stupid.  Were Fairity and his colleagues to punish a district for voting for an opposition member, they would only be cutting their own political throats. Ask the Tories from the 1980s what that sort of political extortion netted them. 

Better yet, ask the Tories on the Great Northern Peninsula what even the mere perception of a political vendetta – the air ambulance decision – has netted them since the Tories lost the Straits and White Bay North by-election.

Not much of any good would come back the answer.

If Kathy Dunderdale wanted to send a stupid message to voters about patronage and voting, then she evidently picked the right fellow.  Fairity O’Brien did a fine job for her.

The Tories might have a bigger problem.  They might be faced with an electorate that knows full well this is all about pork and that realises they win pork no matter what way they vote. He who lives by the hock might wind up dying by the hock, so to speak.

All three political parties in the province will be running campaigns this fall built around delivering ever increasing amounts of pork in exchange for votes.  All three political parties agree that the provincial economy is going gangbusters.  So basically there’d be no legitimate reason to justify cutting back any spending.

The choice for voters this fall is not between fire trucks and no fire trucks. It is over how many fire trucks they want. 

Or a search and rescue centre.

Or an offshore supply base.

If you want to see naked electoral pork-barrelling in action, don’t look at fire trucks.

That’s old hat.  The first election fire truck announcements came in 2007.

Look instead at Bay Bulls.

The provincial and federal governments held separate announcements this week to give cash to the same project.  They held separate announcements so the provincial minister – in trouble in his own district – could get some free advertising for himself without the original tree hugging federal cabinet minister horning in.

Federal cash of $1.0 million for an expansion to Pennecon’s offshore supply base at Bay Bulls met the investment criteria for a provincial program.  Now the province will kick another half million.

$1.5 million in public money for a project estimated to cost no more than $2.1 million in total.

The job haul? 

Maybe 15. 

$100,000 per job.

The Tories hand out millions of taxpayer dollars to private businesses, often free of charge  The Newfoundland and Labrador NDP want to give Nova Scotians a free university education. The Liberals and the New Democrats want to give rich people in the province a break on their Hummer fill-ups and cut the cost of heating their luxury homes. Next thing you know the Liberals will resurrect that God-forsaken Stunnel idea just to mark themselves as the stupidest of stupid political parties.

But seriously: the Tories ran in 2007 on the argument that the Liberals would bankrupt the province by spending like drunken sailors.

They simply can’t make the argument any more. No one will believe it is possible to bankrupt the place after Fairity and his buddies spent the last four years spending on anything and everything imaginable.  And they really will find it hard to accept that money is tight if every political party in the province wants to double electricity rates in the province and double the public debt at the same time through this insane Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Happy days are indeed here again, b’ys.

The only thing missing is the Fonz.

Now that you are squirming a bit, think about what might happen if at the same time people had three parties offering variations on a pork-flavoured platform, they also realised that neither of the leaders would be in their jobs four years from now.

And then wonder what all that might mean in an election where there is nothing to chose from and turn-out might drop by 20%, mostly consisting of Tory voters.

After all, that’s what happened in 2007.  Liberal vote collapsed.  Tory vote declined and the same New Democrats turned out in 2007 that had turned out in 2003.

It could give new meaning to the politics of public spending.

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Traffic in the heat of the Summer of Love 2011

Fire trucks, Twitter and a 60 year old who dropped a hundred pounds in six months wanting a job today she didn’t want six months ago.

Must be the Summer of Love 2011.

All that is fodder for another post.  For now let’s just check out the 10 stories most Bond Papers readers were pondering last week.

1. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians;  NL NDP leader
2. Like Momma always said…Part Deux und Trois
3. From the Earth to the moon
4. And Harry won’t be running either
5. Rumpole and the Cardinal Rule
6. Nurturing a democratic revolution
7. Bullshit then or now?  Nalcor boss changes story on Muskrat megadebt project and natural gas
8. Making the Most of our Energy Resources – Oil and Gas in the Future
9. Former Tory fin min not giving up fight against Muskrat
10. Containing Ottawa’s Skyrocketing Power Bill

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Containing Ottawa’s Skyrocketing Power Bill

by Tom Adams and Brian Lee Crowley

[Note:  the authors prepared the following commentary to coincide with the recent energy ministers meeting.  It has appeared in other publications across the country.]

Federal taxpayers are exposed to an explosion of liabilities to fund provincial electricity misadventures, the worst of which are undermining Canada’s international trading reputation. A federal-provincial energy conference in Kananaskis, Alberta running until July 19th threatens to up the ante.

Last week, Texas energy titan T. Boone Pickens launched a $775-million
NAFTA challenge alleging the Ontario government has discriminated against his privately owned wind energy company. Pickens is demanding that the federal government pay up.

The federal government is also defending protectionist elements of Ontario’s controversial Green Energy Act against a challenge Japan has launched with the support of the United States and European Union at the World Trade Organization.

Ontario is not the only province with electricity initiatives undermining Canada’s trading reputation and sending the bill to Ottawa.

Last August, a NAFTA dispute panel obliged federal taxpayers to pay the industrial firm Abitibi-Bowater $130 million after the government of Newfoundland and Labrador confiscated electricity generation assets. Far from holding the Newfoundland government responsible for shafting federal taxpayers, Prime Minister Stephen Harper instead promised loan guarantees for submarine transmission connections
required by a Labrador power megaproject with very dubious economics.

With the subsidy offer, Harper effectively rewarded Newfoundland’s government and further impaired Canada’s trade reputation in an unsuccessful bid to win seats on the Rock (although the Conservatives did pick up a seat in Labrador).

Newfoundland justifies its power scheme on the basis that provincial power costs are going to soar anyway, eventually making pricey Labrador power relatively cheap by comparison. Most of the new Labrador power, however, is earmarked for the Maritimes and potentially New England. Unlike Newfoundland, those markets have access to North America’s glut of natural gas, a key factor driving down average power rates across the U.S.

Any subsidies to Labrador power are likely to attract yet more trade complaints from generators in New England, particularly those now selling significant amounts of power into the Maritimes. International competitors of export industries in Atlantic Canada may also complain.

The Newfoundland government estimates that a federal subsidy for the Labrador power project in the form of a loan guarantee will cut local power costs by 6 or 7 per cent. Likely cost over-runs could push the value of the federal guarantee much higher.

The Kananaskis meeting provides a platform for provincial governments and lobby groups to push the federal government deeper into provincial electricity matters. Many, including the governments of Ontario and Newfoundland & Labrador, have demanded federal subsidies to interprovincial transmission projects. Ontario also demands federal subsidies for its nuclear expansion ambitions.

The federal track record in the electricity business is dubious, as illustrated by its recent cut-the-losses exit from nuclear power development and marketing. Even if the federal record in the electricity business was solid, using the federal spending power to buy its way into provincial energy affairs now will annoy our trading partners, promote inefficiency and create jurisdictional confusion.

The federal government should focus its electricity sector involvement first on its core constitutional responsibility for interprovincial trade and commerce. The best way to make Labrador power truly competitive against abundant natural gas is to avoid hugely expensive long distance submarine transmission and to instead achieve the best possible economies of scale with more affordable transmission over land.

To reach markets in Ontario or the U.S. Northeast, Labrador power must transit Quebec, which has its own electricity export ambitions. If those provinces cannot negotiate a mutually agreeable solution, the federal government should act to ensure the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of interprovincial trade. Ontario and Newfoundland should not require Quebec’s approval to move electricity any more than Alberta needs Saskatchewan’s permission to move natural gas to Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

Naturally, Quebec does not welcome another big hydro-power competitor, particularly while market prices are low. However, to maintain its access to electricity markets in the United States, Quebec already accepts the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s non-negotiable rules compelling them to open their market to electricity imports. The constitutional powers that the U.S. relies upon to promote highly successful inter-state trading are similar to our own federal
government’s constitutional authority, which Ottawa has always been reluctant to exercise in the electricity sector.

Canadians too should be entitled to an open national electricity system, where no province can hold its neighbours hostage and Canadians can buy and sell power freely. The federal government should keep federal tax dollars out of the electricity sector. Any subsidies to the sector create unfairness to taxpayers across the county and harm Canada's trading reputation, vital to our long term economic interests. Instead Ottawa should use its legitimate powers to create an open national electricity market that treats everyone transparently and fairly.

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Tom Adams is an independent energy and environmental advisor. He has held a variety of senior responsibilities including Executive Director of Energy Probe from 1996 until September 2007, membership on the Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator Board of Directors, and membership on the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Energy Board of Management. His guest columns have appeared in many major Canadian newspapers. He has been a media commentator for 20 years and a lecturer in energy studies at University of Toronto. He has presented expert testimony before many regulatory tribunals in Canada on a wide variety of energy subjects. He has made presentations to Legislative Committees in Ontario and New Brunswick, academic, regulatory and trade conferences, the Atomic Energy Control Board, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Brian Lee Crowley has headed up the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) in Ottawa since its inception in March of 2010, but he has a long and distinguished record in the think tank world. He was the founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) in Halifax, one of the country’s leading regional think tanks. He is a former Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC and is a Senior Fellow at the Galen Institute in Washington. In addition, he advises several think tanks in Canada, France and Nigeria.

Crowley’s published numerous books include two bestsellers: Fearful Symmetry: the fall and rise of Canada’s founding values (2009) and MLI’s first book, The Canadian Century; Moving Out of America’s Shadow, which he co-authored with Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis.

Crowley twice won the Sir Antony Fisher Award for excellence in think tank publications. From 2006-08 Crowley was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist with the federal Department of Finance. He has also headed the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), taught politics, economics and philosophy at various universities in Canada and Europe.

Crowley is a frequent commentator on political and economic issues across all media. He holds degrees from McGill and the London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the latter.

Bullshit then or now? Nalcor boss changes story on natural gas and Muskrat megadebt project

Ed Martin dismisses the idea that natural gas might be a sensible replacement for burning Bunker C at Holyrood.

Here’s the whole story from VOCM in the event they disappear it:

Nalcor has considered - and rejected - the use of liquefied natural gas at the Holyrood generating station as an alternative to Bunker C oil. Because of the current and projected cost of oil, Newfoundland and Labrador's energy corporation has decided to develop Muskrat Falls hydroelectric power on the Lower Churchill River.

Nalcor CEO Ed Martin, speaking on VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms on Tuesday, said the corporation would have to construct a plant to liquefy the natural gas, which is a very costly venture. The other alternative is to tap in to the international market for natural gas and have tankers, which are supplying markets abroad, offload material for Holyrood.

But from the that was then, this is now file, Martin didn’t always think that way.

A mere seven months ago, Martin sang a very different tune.

Back then, turning natural gas to electricity was one of the great opportunities that lay in building a line from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia. The Telegram covered Martin’s speech to the Board of Trade

Many of those opportunities flow from the Maritime link connecting the island portion of the province with the rest of the North American electrical grid.

One example: the possibility of generating electricity from natural gas, also known as gas-to-wire. It’s also an alternative to building pipelines to export natural gas.

So the question is:  was Ed Martin bullshitting in December or is he bullshitting now?

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Former Tory fin min not giving up in fight against Muskrat

Former Conservative finance minister John Collins is fighting the Muskrat Falls project as fervently as ever. 

The 80-something has a new letter in the Telegram taking issue with recent comments by Nalcor boss Ed Martin and natural resources minister Shawn Skinner.

The basic issue here revolves not around the Holyrood close-out, nor around Labrador/island inter-tie (both much needed and long delayed by Hydro), but on the need to develop Muskrat Falls itself at this time.

Question: do panic conditions really demand a $3 billion Muskrat Falls plant and dams now? The answer: no.

Collins demolishes the argument the project is needed to meet demand with a simple fact drawn from Nalcor’s own documents:

Documented demand needs in 2010 are 30 per cent less than in 2004, when no panic was cited nor acted upon, so that particular point is moot.

He then points out that Nalcor has offered no “credible account of investigations” to prove any of its claims about the need to build Muskrat falls now.

Collins is right.  For all the effort Nalcor and the provincial government is putting into selling this project they haven’t provided the simplest of answers to the simplest of questions.

The haven’t provided them because they can’t.

Either that or the answers prove there is no need for the megadebt project.

In April, Collins wrote the Telegram to argue that

“even the export of power doesn’t seem to be rendering enough to justify the cost of generating the power. The only benefit to the province seems to be closing down the Holyrood [generating plant], and  I think there are other ways of doing that.”

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Nurturing a democratic revolution

Public life in Newfoundland and Labrador remains as fundamentally undemocratic as it ever was.

Paternalism remains the order of the day.  As three sitting members of the House revealed, they they are the face of government in their districts. 

Never mind that neither of them is actually in government.  As members of the legislature, each member has but one job:  to hold the government to account for its actions.  They do so on behalf of their constituents. Doesn’t matter if they sit on the government back benches or the opposition benches.  Their job is to serve the people of the province and the House.

By that measure, none of the current members do their jobs very well. 

The House of Assembly sits  - on average - the least number of days of any legislature in the country.  Members have little time to study any legislation the government proposes.  From the government side, members usually read prepared speeches full of officially sanctioned drivel.

The opposition members of the legislature are no better.  Liberal and New Democrat alike, they tend to rely heavily on official government statements for what they know and say about a bill.  Their comments in an afternoon sitting of the House are often laughable paraphrases of what officials told them in a morning “briefing”.   One need only look at the Hansard record of speeches by Lorraine Michael and Yvonne Jones on the day their rolled over and helped the government in the Abitibi expropriation fiasco to see this situation plainly.

The House has no functioning committees to review legislation. The Committee of the Whole remains nothing more than a hollow exercise in form over substance. The public accounts committee – once the means by which the legislature reviewed all public spending – remains as dead as it was during the darkest days of the recent patronage and corruption scandal. 

As amazing as it is to say, the House of Assembly in the early 21st century has reverted back almost to what it was before the collapse of Responsible Government in 1934.

The House of Assembly is reduced to a form of Punch and Judy show. And to compliment it, recent changes to the provincial access to information laws have systematically reduced public knowledge of government actions when the legislature is not sitting.

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have turned their backs on politics in increasing numbers.  Voter turn-out in recent general elections and by-elections is at historic low levels.  They know that they have little control so there is no incentive to take part. 

Even the appointed House officers – the Speaker, and the watchdogs of privacy, children’s interests, elections and public accounts – are bumbling and useless. Some offices have been or are filled by political hacks who do not even pretend to be impartial.

A modern, prosperous province deserves a healthy thriving democracy.  Nothing short of a spiritual revolution can reform public life in Newfoundland and Labrador and raise it to the standards that the ordinary men and women of the province deserve.

Here are some ways to do that.

For starters, we need election finance reform:

• Ban corporate and union donations.
• Only individuals should be able to contribute to political parties to a maximum of $5,000 a year.
• Ban “in kind” contributions to parties and candidates.
• Limit election, by-election and leadership campaign fundraising and spending.
• Limit spending by political parties and third parties during elections and during the years between general elections.
• Require full disclosure of donations when they occur, with additional monthly updates on the Chief Electoral Officer’s website.

Piece-meal and largely unnecessary changes to elections in the province from 2004 onward have produced an electoral system that is an embarrassment in a democracy worthy of the name. Electoral reform should include the following measures to break the influence of money and to restore some power to the backbenchers and opposition members:

• Remove the provision that the resignation of a premier triggers a general election.  Overbearing ego created it and it serves no useful purpose.
• Eliminate mail-in ballots and the current system that allows voting before an election writ is actually issued.
• Restore the mandatory 90 day period in which a by-election must be called to fill a vacancy.  The 2004 change to 60 days proved unnecessary and, as in 2007, produced the laughable case of a by-election that was called but never actually held.
• Cut off incumbent expense charges, cell phones and other perks of office 45 days in advance of a fixed election date. This will discourage campaigning at public expense by incumbents.
• Compel members not seeking re-election to vacate their offices and cut off their expense accounts 45 days before a fixed election date or 30 days after they announce their intentions publicly, whichever saves the public more money.
• Introduce amendments to the House of Assembly Act that set mandatory sitting days (for example 50 days in the spring and 40 in the fall) for the House of Assembly with cash penalties for each member if the House does not sit the prescribed number of days.
• Introduce amendments to the House of Assembly Act to establish legislative committees, set the number of hearing days they must sit.
• Make the membership on the committee a function of House seniority regardless of whether a member is on the opposition benches or government back benches.
• Give the committees research and administrative staff to be hired by the Speaker.
• Update:  To go along with this, some other changes to funding would follow:  the office of the leader of the opposition would get funding for administrative positions such as chief of staff, executive assistant and communications director.  Caucuses would no longer get funding for staff and research positions.  Instead, every member would get a standard allotment for a constituency assistant, a travel budget etc. to support individual work as members.
• Update:  The Public Accounts Committee should be the only one with an opposition majority and an opposition chair. 
• Cabinet minister would only be allowed to serve on the House of Assembly management committee.
• Introduce legislation to limit the size of cabinet and the number of government party members who may draw extra payments for government duties.  Exclude those members drawing extra pay from committee work.
• Strengthen the conflict of interest rules for politicians to limit their business and other interests while serving in the House. 
• Add charities to the list of prohibited interests that members may have, especially once they sit in cabinet.
• Extend the prohibited period for doing business with government after leaving office to five years for all politicians and political staff.
• Former cabinet ministers should be barred from any dealings with all government departments, not just the one for which they last served as minister.

To restore the integrity of the House of Assembly officer appointments, nominees should be vetted during public hearings by a House of Assembly committee on appointments.  Nominees should come from a publicly advertised competition, although the list of potential candidates may include recommended nominees from cabinet.

Existing legislation should be amended to allow that officers can only be removed by the Speaker with the concurrence of the committee.  Any suspension or removal from office while the House is not in session must be the subject of a public hearing at the next sitting of the House.

And that’s just the start of it.

In future posts in the series, we’ll look at changes to the province’s access to information laws and reforms to senior appointments.

There are more than 15 good ideas for a stronger Newfoundland and Labrador.

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People unfamiliar with the legislature might not understand how some of these changes could produce a dramatic difference in the House.  Let’s see if this helps:

• Banning corporate and union donations breaks the influence of big money on party policy and shifts power back toward individuals.
• Adding charities to the conflict of interest guidelines closes a gigantic loophole in the current conflict guidelines that has proven to be a major problem in the United States. 
• The new committee structure is intended to restore some power to the legislature and to individual members of the House and help break the centralization of power in the first minister. Among other things, it breaks the patronage hold that Premiers have on perks and bonuses that are often held out as a way of influencing members unduly. 
• Individual members should be able to develop a profile, reputation and a power base that would make them contenders for cabinet based on merit rather than obsequiousness and pliability.
• Funding committees instead of caucuses prevents majority parties coupled with a biased Speaker from doing as the Conservatives did in the current legislature with funding for the official opposition.
• Cutting off expenses before a fixed election levels the playing field between incumbents and challengers at the district level.

From the Earth to the moon

Forty two years later, the American manned space program is about to die.

For the first time in half a century the United States will not have the ability to send humans into space and bring them home again.

How truly sad that is.

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Rumpole and the Cardinal Rule

St. John’s lawyer Averill Baker is pissed that the Crown prosecutor is trying to remove her from a case because she represented the victim in the savage beating her current client is accused of visiting on his head.

He’s facing a second degree murder charge for allegedly shooting his accomplice in a botched armed robbery.  The fellow is also facing an attempted murder charge for the beating of baker’s former client.

Lisa Stead sent Baker a letter. According to Baker, Stead wrote that she will ask a judge to remove Baker if she shows up in court representing the fellow accused of .

Seems the Crown tucked the fellow in in 2005 for possession of stolen goods and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.  Baker represented him at the time. 

What’s more, Stead advised Baker that she may be called as a witness in the case.

A couple of things stand out from the CBC account of this and Baker’s comments.

First, she says that she represented the victim in the current case  for “half a day” in 2005 and therefore knows nothing else about the fellow and his life.  While there may be no connection between the brief appearance in court and the conviction, the two things don’t look good together. 

Baker might have been better off walking from the current case given the fairly obvious conflict of interest.  Any cross examination of the victim in the current case would be fraught with problems.  On the face of it, one would be hard pressed to see how that would do her current client any good.

But second and perhaps more important than anything else, there’s the line at the end of the CBC story:

Baker said if the Crown comes up with other charges to attempt to make her be a witness, she will apply to Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court to rule on malicious prosecution.

This suggests that – contrary to her earlier assertion – Baker may know something of her former client’s business or his relationship with the fellow she now represents that she claims.  The charges mentioned here seem to be related to Baker, not her current or former client.

Let’s hope someone at CBC misunderstood.

Otherwise, the implication for Baker’s client is one thing.

The implication for Baker is another, and it is not good.

Not good at all.

In fact, the implications are so serious this might be a case where the lawyer needs to get some legal advice before saying another word.  There’s a reason why lawyers often advise their clients to first of all follow the cardinal rule:  shut the f*ck up.

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Making the Most of Our Energy Resources, Part II – Oil and Gas in the Future

Without new oil and gas discoveries, the Newfoundland and Labrador petroleum industry will dry up within a couple of decades.  There hasn’t been a significant discovery in the offshore since the 1980s, with the exception of one find in the Orphan Basin.

The problem isn’t a lack of oil or gas.  The geological estimates back up the notion there is plenty more to find. The problem is no one is looking for it hard enough to find it. 

To give you a sense of how low exploration levels are now compared to a couple of decades ago, take a look at this slide.  It’s taken from Wade Locke’s recent presentation for the Harris Centre. 

Low exploration levels is one of the most important problems facing the oil and gas industry.  It’s not a new problem.  It’s not the only problem.  There are others, all of which centre on the basic challenge of how we can make the most of our oil and gas resources now and in the future.

Here are some basic ideas that can help us to get there.

For starters, Newfoundland and Labrador has to be an attractive place for investment, exploration and development. Oil and gas is a highly competitive industry, especially in the exploration sector.  There are only so many exploration dollars to go around.  There are only so many rigs to go around and there are plenty of places in the world where companies can find oil and gas, develop it, get it to market and make a lot of money.

Sending delegation after delegation to oil shows in places like Houston doesn’t produce a single new exploration well. What the local oil and gas industry needs is a stable, predictable environment.  That is something they haven’t had for a while.

One of the easiest things for the provincial government to do is set an offshore oil royalty regime and a gas royalty regime.  The provincial government had an oil royalty regime but the 2007 energy “plan”  to replace it with something else.  Not surprisingly for the current administration, there is no sign of a new oil royalty regime four years after they promised it.

Ditto a natural gas royalty regime. The current administration promised one in 2007 but they still haven’t delivered.  In fact, the provincial government has been working on development of a gas royalty regime for the past 14 years and still they haven’t managed to produce anything but a discussion that went nowhere.

With the royalty regime set, there’s no need for the provincial government to hold up any developments while it “negotiates” with a developer.  That’s the sort of thing one might expect in a banana republic.  It isn’t what happens in mature economies.

In the same way, the provincial government should set – or allow the offshore regulatory board to set – basic rules for local benefits.

The current administration held up the Hebron development and in the end settled for a royalty regime only marginally better than the generic regime. But any gains on so-called super royalties were offset by give-aways on the front end of the royalty structure and on local benefits in the form of research and development spending commitments.

Standard royalty and benefits regimes that work across a variety of price ranges and that work fairly for the resource owner  - i.e. taxpayers - and the developer will promote stable economic development.

The provincial and federal government should also implement a policy of merit-based appointments to the offshore regulatory board.  The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Regulatory Board is one of the most important agencies in the province. The most recent fiasco with efforts to stuff a former political staffer into a job she was unqualified for highlight the potential damage that politicians can do to an important official body.  At the very least, the provincial government should advertise for applicants for board appointments based on well publicized criteria. Board appointees should serve for fixed terms and each appointment should come with a publicly available expiry date. The offshore board is no place for political hacks and cronies.

While the offshore oil and gas industry is well developed, the oil and gas industry that lies exclusively within provincial jurisdiction is not.  As a way of encouraging development of a well-managed industry within the borders of the province, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should develop a regulatory board to administer lands, manage reservoirs, serve as a repository for information on oil and gas and generally serve as the focus of industry regulation from the three mile limit inward. 

The new oil and gas regulator should complement the work of the offshore board.  Naturally, the new board will assume some of the roles assigned to the old provincial petroleum directorate as well as ones that have grown up within the oil and gas division of the natural resources department. The new onshore regulatory board should also administer new, standard royalty and benefit regimes for any future developments.

Other elements of the 15 ideas (and more) also will apply to the oil industry.  For example, breaking up the energy company and either privatizing it or forcing it to function like other companies would break its strangle-hold on the local business environment.  This would inevitably allow for new life and energy in a sector that is rapidly becoming stagnant.

Without new life in the province’s energy industry,  the future looks bleak.  Staying on the current path is not a practical option. 

These are a few ideas to stimulate life and growth and to create a future for the province and its people that works.

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Like Momma always said…Part Deux und Trois

The only funnier thing than a guy up on assault charges claiming he is a wannabe Tory candidate are opposition party politicos who campaign for the incumbents.

In the past couple of weeks, comments coming from both parties have highlighted positive economic news.

Liberal leader Yvonne Jones did it before she headed back to Labrador for a series of meetings. She issued a news release that mentioned how the Labrador economy is booming.

Then  provincial NDP president Dale Kirby tweeted a link to a Globe and Mail story about how well the provincial economy is doing in comparison to the rest of the Atlantic provinces.

Wonderful stuff.

Except that in both cases, Jones and Kirby wound up reinforcing the classic argument for staying the course and keeping the current government in power. Things are going well, say the incumbents. Don’t risk all the good times by changing horse in the middle of the stream of cash and jobs.

Opposition parties need to draw attention to things the incumbent party isn’t talking about. There are plenty of issues. Some of them are ones the incumbents just don’t give a frig about but opposition voters do.  Some are issues the incumbents haven’t figured out are potentially decisive. Others are ones the incumbents will scream blue murder about because they are sore issues.

But talking about how good things are under the current administration?

Not really a message that says vote for me, the leader of the party that didn’t deliver all this good stuff.

It’s good for them to be positive, you say.  Otherwise the opposition parties would be all negative.  No one likes it when you are negative.  More people would listen to the opposition parties if they weren't negative all the time.

Well, for starters if you think that way, then you are – without question  - an ardent supporter of whatever incumbent government we are talking about.  Either that or you make Pollyanna look like a suicide waiting to happen.

Only incumbent politicos and their staunch supporters dislike it when others talk about problems.  Face it:  problems exist all the time.  They may not be big problems but they do exist.  It’s natural for people to talk about them if for no other reason than they would like the incumbents to fix them.

But incumbents hate people talking about problems.  The longer the incumbents are in office the more they dislike problems.  The longer the incumbents are in office, you see, the more likely it is that they caused the problems.

Incumbents also know that problems energise the opposition supporters.  After all, talking about the problems at the time are what helped get the incumbents elected in the first place. 

It seems like ancient history these days, but those who can recall the period between 2001 and 2003 will remember Danny Williams talked relentlessly about problems.  He was angry.  He stayed angry even after the 2003 general election. In fact, Danny stayed angry right up to his last days in office.

Tories  - and Danny lovers - don’t see it that way, of course. They think he spoke the truth.  But that’s what one would expect Tories to say, just as Liberals would have said the same sorts of things the last time Liberals were in power.

And when the incumbents hissed at Danny that he was too negative, he just ignored them and carried on about his business.  Danny carried on because he knew what opposition politicians are supposed to do if they ever want to get back into a government office again.

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And Harry won't be running either

Conservative cabinet minister Harry Harding won't be seeking re-election in this fall's general election, according to media reports on MOnday..

Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians: NL NDP leader

The Newfoundland and Labrador local of the New Democratic Party wants taxpayers in her province to give Nova Scotians free tuition at Memorial University.

Sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?

But that’s exactly what she wants to do, at least if you follow the thrust of Lorraine Michael’s July 8th news release.

In the release the NDP leader said that “free tuition is essential to ensuring that all of Newfoundland and Labrador’s young people get equal access to education they will need for their own, and by extension, all our prosperity.”

Wonderful stuff.

Then she cites in study released by her party president Dale Kirby, wearing his education professor hat.

Kirby and his colleagues surveyed Memorial University students from Maritime Canada and asked them some questions about why they decided on studying at Memorial University. As the executive summary in the report notes, the number of Maritime students at Memorial went up “ten-fold’ in the past decade or so. And as the report also notes, there have been other reports, most notably by news media, in which Maritime students identified cost as one of the big reasons for them coming to Memorial. They can study at a comprehensive university that has a decent reputation overall(outstanding in some faculties) and they can do it cheaper than they could at Dalhousie or Acadia or University of New Brunswick.

They come here because the tuition is cheap, they said. 

So, reasons Michael, free education for Nova Scotians will benefit Newfoundland and Labrador.

She does not explain how. 

Odds are she can’t.

That’s not important, though. 

In the world of Conservative-style retail politics, all a political party has to do is offer this sort of cash incentive to win votes. It’s like the one about cutting taxes on gasoline or home-heating products.  None of those ideas make any sense except as a way of luring voters:  give us your vote and we’ll give you cash.

The foolishness of the free tuition idea is actually right there in Michael’s release. All you have to do is think about it for a second.

You see all those Maritime students frig off back to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Prince Edward island once they get their Memorial University degrees.  They only come here because they can get a decent university paid on the cheap.  They don’t spend four years at Memorial because they plan to settle in Hibb’s Hole once the drinking…err…studying is done.

And if lower tuition is already bringing in the mainland students in droves, then odds are free tuition will attract droves more. The university will have to hire more professors and build more classrooms and laboratories.

And who will pay for this?

Why the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, of course.

Now think about that a bit more.

In a province where the government is facing a pretty severe financial problem because of foolish spending, the New Democrats want to spend millions more to make university education free.  Then they’ll have to spend hundreds of millions more making the university larger to accommodate all the new students.

And where will thousands of those students come from?

Why Nova Scotia, of course, the most populous province in Atlantic Canada.

Now where else has Nova scotia cropped up lately?

Yes. 

Of course.

Lorraine Michael, Kathy Dunderdale, and Yvonne Jones want to spend billions on this Muskrat Falls project so they can ship cheap electrical power to Nova Scotians.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will pay the full cost of the power plus a profit for Nalcor and Nova Scotia-based Emera so that Nova Scotians get a break.

And this is how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will gain a long-term benefit from their natural resources:  by selling discount electricity to Nova Scotians. 

That sounds an awful lot like this education scheme Lorraine and Dale have cooked up.

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Traffic that never flip flops

The weekly top 10 Bond Papers posts for the week of July 11 to 15, 2011, selected by you, the readers.

1. Forecasting the fall
2. All three NL parties back Muskrat project
3. A world of their own
4. Ahem
5. Political parties and debt:  the Kennedy perspective
6. You might know it as bribery, Ma’am
7. Cross yet another one off your list and Not much to see [tie]
8. Cross Sheila off your list
9. The Ballot Question:  October 2011
10. Did I say “yes” to Muskrat?  I meant “no”:  Jones

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Telly takes wind out of Muskrat

The Telegram editorial on Thursday linked the Muskrat Falls project with the recent announcement by Kruger Inc of a wind energy project in Quebec:

Power, apparently, is cheaper in Quebec. Hydro-Québec says its 2,000 megawatts of wind power are being purchased for an average cost of 8.7 cents a kilowatt hour. That's a huge difference - especially because we're also supposed to be selling power into North American markets.

But you have to wonder - if Hydro-Québec is bringing 2,000 megawatts of wind power on stream at 8.7 cents a kilowatt hour before Nalcor brings 824 megawatts of power on stream at 14.3 to 16.5 cents a kilowatt hour, who will be subsidizing the off-island sale of power of Muskrat Falls to make it competitive with power that costs a third less?

And just why is Muskrat Falls clearly the provincial government's only choice - and Nalcor the only possible supplier - to meet our energy needs again?

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Did I say yes to Muskrat? I meant “no”: Jones

Political decisions in Newfoundland and Labrador are apparently like the local weather at least as far as the current crop of party leaders in the province is concerned.

Wait a minute and everything changes.

Kathy Dunderdale set the standard for indecisiveness with her on-again, off-again subsidies for Danny Williams’ latest gaggle of professional jockstraps.

Now it’s Yvonne Jones’ turn.

In an interview with NTV’s Issues and Answers last week, Jones said that as Premier she’d hand over responsibility for deciding the fate of the Muskrat Falls to the Auditor General. 

And if he ruled the thing was good, then that was good enough for Jones.  She’d go along with it.  Jones sounded positively giddy at the thought of all the jobs and electricity to fuel develop in Labrador.  She claimed there’s 700 megawatts need for mining developments.  That’s pure crap, of course.

Well wait a minute, or in this case a couple of days, and Jones wants to scrap the deal now. That’s what she says in the latest news release from the Opposition Leader’s Office

The reason Jones changed her mind is an interview with Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin on CBC Radio.  Shumlin noted, among other things, the problems with the current projected prices for Muskrat Falls power. 

“If the power is too expensive for residents of the United States, how is it affordable for us, when Premier Dunderdale wants to charge us more for it than consumers outside the province,” Jones said. “Kathy Dunderdale is content to saddle this province with generations of debt for a project that doesn’t make financial sense.”

Quick!  Get the smelling salts.  Regular readers of this corner are swooning at this revelation. After all, it’s not like your humble e-scribbler hasn’t been pounding the drum about how uncompetitive the Muskrat Falls power is on the markets not just today but well into the future.

In fact, there’s even a comment from Kathy Dunderdale  - from last fall - about the lack of American markets for the super expensive Muskrat power.

And if none of that rings a bell, don’t forget the Rhode Island memorandum of understanding.  Kathy Dunderdale told the legislature one story.  Turns out that, to paraphrase a famous politician, nothing Kathy said could be further from the truth:

As far as we can determine, there is no legislative hold up here in Rhode Island, it is more of a question of cost.  While the power generation is inexpensive, the cost of transmission adds to the final price. The possibility of purchasing power is still alive; it may be a topic of discussion at the conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers that is happening today. Interest in purchasing renewable energy remains. 

Yes folks, there you have it from 2009:  New England states are interested in buying energy from renewable sources but the damnable costs of transmission are a problem.

That post did not make the local media sit up and take notice.  It took two years and another governor for them to figure it out.

Anyway, scuttling the deal is Jones’ latest position. Once she gets a few phone calls from people who want jobs on the project or from business owners anxious to suck harder on the public debt tit, she’ll swing around again.

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Aquaculture centre opened three years behind schedule, more than 100% over budget

Premier Kathy Dunderdale opened an aquaculture centre in the south coast community of St. Alban’s on Thursday three years after it was supposed to be finished and at more than twice the original forecast price.

Former fisheries minister Tom Rideout announced the offices and laboratories in 2007.  He estimated the cost at $4.2 million.  It was supposed to be opened in 2008.

In a news release marking the opening, the provincial government reported the facility cost $8.8 million.

Danny Williams included the project as part of the provincial government’s “stimulus” package in 2009.  That was just one of the delayed and over budget Williams included as if they were brand new projects in response to the recession.

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Ahem

From the e-mail inbox this week came a gentle reminder from Kevin Kelly, editor at the Herald:

Just wanted to point out that in last week's Newfoundland Herald, (the one with Kiss on the cover), I did a story entitled "Headed for Disaster" discussing the province's spending habits, including how much money the government was spending on itself, as well as comparing govt. spending from 2004 to now. I also brought up the Muskrat Falls costs and comments from both sides of the issue.

Kevin didn’t like the reference in another post that only the Telegram was getting the message that provincial government deficits and Muskrat Falls debt weren’t a good mix.

Fair ‘nuff, Kevin. 

Just to make it clear though, your humble e-scribbler divides the local media scene into two piles.  The daily electronic and print gang go in one pile.  These are the gang who make up the press gallery in the House of Assembly and who have reporters covering the provincial political scene. They tend to break or report on hard political and economic news day-in and day-out.

The weeklies, monthlies and bi-weekly print outlets go in another pile, for a bunch of reasons.  This doesn’t mean they are less important, less influential or anything less in any way.  They just have a different focus.  It could be the local community, as in the Transcon weeklies.  It could be the local arts and entertainment scene.

Rather than skimp, here’s an extract from what the Herald ran in a piece titled “Headed for disaster?”

But here’s the thing. The provincial government is showing no signs of cutting its spending, even on itself.

The Tories have come under fire in recent budgets that included enormous revenues from the oil industry, but were matched by increases in spending and less worry on debt reduction.

Even with the looming financial crisis that could happen, the provincial government increased spending this year by 5 per cent, a trend that has continued over the past number of years.

“We have responded since being elected to office with expenditure levels that support a high level of programs and services, and we stimulated the economy during the recession,” stated Finance Minister Tom Marshall during his recent budget.

“Always, however, we were committed to spending within our means. During my consultations with the people of the province prior to this Budget, I was clear that, while strong expenditure growth was necessary during the catch-up and stimulus periods, more moderate expenditures are required in the future. Our net program expenses will grow by less than 5% in 2011-12, with much of this growth relating to wage increases previously negotiated.”

…

But there is still no arguing that it [Muskrat Falls] will cost a lot of money to get the project underway, and does the benefit outweigh the cost?

It’s one of many questions ahead for government as it deals with what could be a looming financial deficit.

Economist Wade Locke says the government has to make some tough decisions in the years ahead to deal with the upcoming debt crisis.

“There are three options you can do: you can borrow, you can raise taxes or you can cut expenditure,” he said. “All three have negative consequences for you, so what you need to think about is which of these options are the most effective way of dealing with your issues.”

It might need to start thinking way ahead, and perhaps cutting where it hurts most, itself.”

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Pesticide ban regulation not even written yet

While everyone may think the provincial has banned the cosmetic use of pesticides, a quick check with the province’s environment department confirmed this afternoon that not only haven’t they gazetted the regulation needed for the ban, they haven’t even written it yet.

That’s not what the news release would have you believe.

The headline reads:

“Ban implemented on cosmetic pesticides for lawn care”

Note the past tense of the verb, suggesting this is something was already done.

The provincial government actually announced on Thursday that it will  - that is, at some undefined point in the future  - write a regulation, send it for approval and have it gazetted to bring it into force.

But until then:  nada.

Without a regulation putting the ban in effect, there’s no other legal way the provincial government can ban the cosmetic use of pesticides.

No reg.

No ban.

This isn’t the first time the provincial government had problems with pesticide regulations.

In February 2004, then-environment minister Tom Osborne announced a consultation into new pesticide regulations to replace pesticide regulations introduced in 2003 by the Liberals.

In September 2005, he announced the new regs would be implemented shortly thereafter.

They were introduced in April 2007, just in time for the provincial election.

Plenty of people have been fooled.

None of them did a simple bit of homework.

News media took the announcement of government’s intention to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides and ran it as if the ban was done. Both of the province’s opposition parties issued news releases praising the provincial government for listening to people and doing what’s right. 

 

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Labour crunch coming

Only the naive or the demented would portray the looming labour crunch in the province as a “tremendous opportunity”.

A report released on Wednesday by the provincial human resources department forecasts that by 2020  - less than a decade from now - there will be 70,000 vacant jobs in the province.  They will be in all sectors of the economy.  They will be in all areas of the province.

The primary cause of the vacancies will be retirements. Only 10% of the vacancies will come from employment growth, that is from new job creation.

This is not an opportunity of any sort.  Newfoundland and Labrador will face a labour shortage at the same time as the rest of North America will go through the same problem. Many of the jobs will remain vacant because there won’t be anyone to fill the positions. Some other provinces, notably Quebec, will face a far worse situation.

This is a situation that the provincial government, labour unions and businesses have seen coming for more than a decade. So far, they have done nothing about it except talk about it.  Now the problem is here.

It represents a very real financial problem for the provincial government.  As baby boomers retire, some costs like health care will increase dramatically.  At the same time,  revenue sources will drop off as there are fewer people working to produce taxes and other sources of government revenue. Increasing the number people drawing a government paycheque may look good  for votes in the short-term, but when you look at the big picture, you can see just exactly how grossly irresponsible the current administration has been for the past seven years.

Regular readers of these scribbles will be very familiar with the implications of the looming labour crunch. Unsound financial management by the current administration promises to make the problem much worse than it would have been if people in responsible government positions had acted instead of talking before now.  The Muskrat Falls megadebt project looks even stupid in this context than it does standing on its own.

Only the naive or the demented would look on this as anything positive.

Government, labour unions and business leaders have seen this coming and they’ve done nothing about it except talk.

On Wednesday, they carried on as if nothing happened.

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The Ballot Question: October 2011

Here’s the question for voters to decide in this fall’s general election as the party leaders themselves have defined it.

If you want:

• guaranteed high electricity prices in Newfoundland and Labrador (roughly double current rates),
• at least double the current provincial debt, and,
• subsidised electricity exports to Nova Scotia and anywhere else in northeastern North America…

then vote:

Progressive Conservative

 

or

Liberal

 

or

New Democratic

 

No matter what you chose,  you get Muskrat Falls.

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Public sector job growth outpaces private in NL

From labradore:

In the five years since the recent-historic low, in early 2006, of about 55,600 public-sector employees, the public-sector labour force has increased by about 11,500 or over 20%. As a share of total employment, the public sector has grown from 26% to 30%.

The twelve-month average ending in June 2011 was 67,100 — an increase of 4100, or 6.5%, from the same period twelve months earlier. This represented an increase of over half a percentage point in the public sector's overall share of the employed labour force.

Then there are the pretty charts showing the public sector employment, federal, provincial and municipal, in thousands of people:

and the private sector:

 

So when you have digested the full impact of that little bit of information, consider what the Muskrat Falls project is really all about: the megadebt will be worth it because it will “bring significant employment and income to the residents and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

 

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Related:

• The Fragile Economy;  … and two steps back
• The Fragile Economy:  hard numbers

Not much to see

The Telegram’s Russell Wangersky looked ahead to the fall election and didn’t like what he saw.

Wangersky’s assessment is brutal but it is accurate.

The Liberals:  “When someone who isn't looking for the leader's job is bigger news than the person who's already holding it, you've got big problems.”

The NDP:  “Unremittingly hopeful but doomed to disappointment….Don't bet the family fortune on renting floats to the victory parade.”

The Conservatives:  “Right now, they are an all-encompassing government that stresses the need for belt-tightening (while spending more), reducing debt (while increasing it) and telling people that we have to live within our means (all the while living beyond their own).”

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A world of their own

Kathy Dunderdale showed up in the province again to talk about the wonderful reception her Muskrat Falls megadebt project got from the New England governors.

Two things stood out right off the bat from Dunderdale’s scrum. 

First, there was her reference to Yvonne Jones as if the Liberal leader hadn’t already drunk the freshie.  Jones supports the project for the same reason Dunderdale does:  “significant employment and income to the residents and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador”.

That those short-term jobs will come at such a terrible price -  doubling electricity rates and doubling the public debt  - won’t bother the placeholders one bit;  none of the province’s political parties are concerned about such triflings when then can buy votes with public money.

Second was Dunderdale’s response to a question about comments by Connecticut Governor Dannel Molloy about the need for timely discussion between Canadian province’s and New England states about importing Canadian electricity.  He also noted the need for improved transmission infrastructure to move the power along.

Dunderdale reminded the reporters at her scrum that Molloy was a newbie, only in office since January.  Then she carried on with the usual song and dance about how hydro is the answer to everyone’s prayers.

The fundamental problems with Muskrat Falls still remain.  Nottawa reminded everyone of the basic problem in a post that ran on Tuesday.  Connecticut’s current retail price for electricity is 40% below Muskrat Falls’ projected cost price. 

What he forgot to add was the transmission cost. That’s also something Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin  was talking about when he told reporters during the recent New England Governor’s and Eastern Canadian Premiers’ conference that:

… the most pressing question that needs to be resolved is how to get Canadian power to northern U.S. markets without boosting transmission capacity.

"There is no universal plan to get it there," Shumlin said.

Muskrat power will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 14 to 16 cents per kilowatt hour to produce.  Then it has to roll through a couple of Canadian province’s and three or four American states.  In every one of those jurisdictions there will be at least one transmission charge whacked on top. 

That’s what Shumlin was talking about.  Even if by some hysterical development 16 cents a kilowatt hour became cheap electricity in New England, adding another 50% on top of that to move it around just prices the juice out of the market altogether.

Well, that and the fact that people in his state and elsewhere in New England just don’t want new hydro lines slung across their states.  New Hampshire opposition to a new line is just one example.

As you listen to Dunderdale, Jones, Michael and other politicians ramble on about Muskrat Falls you just get the sense they are in some sort of bizarre alternate universe.  They are out of touch with reality and news media keep repeating their comments as if they were rational.

The Telegram, alone among local media outlets, is finally getting the message. Its editorial on Saturday and again on Tuesday laid out the naked truth about Muskrat Falls and the provincial government’s enormous debt. The others, like VOCM, just continue to enable the delusions.

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