The Joy of Political Giving, By-Elections edition #nlpoli

Official election finance returns for two by-elections in 2010 and 2011 show an interesting pattern of political contributions.

The most interesting tidbit is that the Tories had to pull out all the financial stops to ensure Vaughan Granter won Humber West. The party transferred more than $17,000 to his campaign.

The single largest expense for the campaign was for workers’ travel.  The Granter campaign spent $14,000 paying for campaign workers’ travel. In addition, the Tory party spent another $10,000 of their own on worker travel. In total, the Tory party spent $28,000 on the by-election.

The returns are the by-elections in and Conception Bay East-Bell Island (2010) and Humber West (2011).  The table below  shows the contributions broken down into personal donations and corporate ones.  CBE-BI is on the top and Humber West is on the bottom.

It’s the mismatch between the personal and the corporate that stands out in Conception Bay East-Bell Island.  Tory David Brazil received 43 corporate donations averaging $470 each, but had contributions from only 18 individuals.  

Among the corporate donors to Brazil’s campaign was a numbered Ontario company that apparently operates an Italian restaurant.  1148305 Ontario Inc. (New Hope Properties) also donated to the Ontario Liberal Party in Cambridge Ontario in 2003 and 2007.

Brazil also got donations from OCI and the Pennecon as well as the gang of loyal givers from the Old Man’s old law firm.

Liberal Joy Buckle also had a large number of corporate donors.  The more interesting ones show a connection to the former leader of the Liberal party and the current one.

New Democrat George Murphy was the only one of the three by-election candidates who turned out more personal than corporate donations.  among his big benefactors was wannabe party leader and current MHA for St. John’s North Dale Kirby.

Check what they spent their money on and you can see the huge advantage incumbency gives you.  The Tories raised more than $37,000 compared to about $15,000 for the NDP and slightly more than half that for the Liberals.  But the Tories were able to transfer out of the campaign more money than the Liberals raised in total and almost as much as the NDP spent.

Out on Humber West, the story was different.  Liberal Mark Watton turned up 47 donations from individuals and 11 from corporations.  The geographic origin of Watton’s donors  - across Canada and one from France - attests to his wide personal appeal and connections.

While Watton’s successful Tory opponent netted a large number of corporate donations, a couple of them might be looking for his help these days.  Well, at least four members of the Corner Brook Firefighters Association, newly out of work thanks to Vaughan Granter’s Tory colleagues on the Corner Brook city council.  Maybe the boys can ask Vaughan to intercede on their behalf.  They did give him $500  - via the association - in the by-election.

Their spending and income statements, though are where things get really interesting.  Watton raised way more than Granter.  The Tory party had to transfer $17,000 into Granter’s campaign. Granter only raised $14,600 on his own compared to $25,000 for Watton.

- srbp -

The fishery of the future, DFO version #nlpoli #cdnpoli

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is holding a consultation on the future direction of the commercial fishery in Canada. it builds off the sustainable fisheries framework announced in 2009.

Click on the picture to head off to the part of the website where you can leave your comments online.

Here’s how the DFO website describes it:

Canada is blessed to be rich in natural resources, including the longest coastline in the world. It is estimated that 80,000 Canadians make their livings directly from fishing and fishing related activities.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is committed to supporting the economic profitability of those fisheries, while striving to ensure that fish stocks are healthy and abundant for future generations. The Department is modernizing the way it does business to enable the industry to address both current and future challenges. This will ultimately lead to fisheries that are more sustainable, more profitable and more globally competitive for the long term. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has already taken some important steps after considering feedback from industry, Aboriginal groups and others. But more needs to be done.

The Department is talking with Aboriginal groups, the fishing industry, non-governmental organizations and fisheries experts, as well as the Canadian public. We recognize the importance of transparency as we move forward with specific elements of fisheries management modernization. We also appreciate the value that diverse perspectives can bring to the development of these policies. Together, we will build a path towards a more sustainable, stable and economically prosperous fishing industry.

There’s also a consultation document [pdf] that lays out the basis for the discussion.  You can also find the bits of it and some presentations broken down for easier reading online at the DFO website:  here.

This will get you started.  Your humble e-scribbler will be looking at some specific aspects of this consultation over the next week or so as well as on some of the other issues that people in this province should be addressing but aren’t.

A warning:  if you think that this set of 1980s solutions to 1970s problems from the last provincial election represents the cutting edge of fisheries policy for the 21st century, you will probably not be too comfortable reading any of this stuff.

- srbp -

In the democratic have-not province… #nlpoli #cdnpoli

For all those who have really been paying attention, here’s a simple question:

How many independent reviews of the project people call Muskrat Falls  will there have been have there been by April 1, 2012?

While you are pondering that one take a gander at what is happening in Nova Scotia.  On the second day that the gang from Nalcor was facing the public utilities board hearing, the front page of the Chronicle Herald carried a story in which the Nova Scotia Tories challenged that province’s ruling New Democrats to study the costs of Muskrat Falls.

Pursuing the megaproject to ship hydroelectric power to Nova Scotia from Labrador by subsea cable from Newfoundland would mean more money for the power company but might not be in the best interests of taxpayers, [PC leader Jamie] Baillie said. He said Nova Scotia Power has incentive "to build the biggest, most expensive project around" because its profit is based on a fixed percentage of its assets. If its asset base goes up, its profit rate also goes up.

"They're guaranteed a rate of return of 9.2 per cent on equity," Baillie said. "So they want to build as big a balance sheet as possible because they get 9.2 per cent of a bigger number.

"But that's their interest.

Premier Darrell Dexter blew that idea off by saying that Nova Scotia’s utilities regulator would be doing that job. The utility and review Board would have to approve the project according to Dexter.

An Emera spokesperson rattled off all the benefits of the deal.  Of course, there is no deal yet.  Emera and Nalcor are still talking.

Still pondering the poser from the beginning?

Let’s give you some more time and look at two more things going on in Nova Scotia.

The bluenoser provincial government issued two more news release on Valentine’s Day. One praised five new small electricity generation projects:

One of the applications in Cape Breton is a 5.4 megawatt large-wind project, jointly owned by Cape Breton University and Cape Breton Explorations Ltd. near Sydney.

"Wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of electricity in Canada," says John Harker, president, Cape Breton University. "This project is a testament to CBU's commitment to foster innovation and offer unparalleled research opportunities and hands-on training for students interested in renewable energy technology."

The other proposals are:

-- a 3.5-kilowatt wind project owned by the Lemoine Development Association, the Harbour Authority of Grand Etang and SuGen Research Inc. in Grand Etang, Inverness Co.

-- a 50-kilowatt small-wind project on Brown's Mountain in Barney's River, Pictou Co., owned by Northumberland Wind Field

--a 4.6-megawatt large-wind project owned by Watts Wind Energy and the Mi'kmaq Rights Initiative (Kwilmu'kw Maw-klusuaqn) in Ketch Harbour, in conjunction with Brookfield Asset Management and Katalyst Wind

--a 500-kilowatt tidal project in Petit Passage,

Wind and tidal energy.  Innovative stuff. And all pretty affordable.

The other release was about a new tidal energy project getting underway in the Bay of Fundy.

And now to go back to our question.  Some of you may have already guessed that the answer is none and if Jerome and Kathy get their way, the Muskrat falls project will never be subjected to a thorough, critical, independent review.

The joint federal-provincial panel studied two dams – Gull Island and Muskrat Falls – tied back to Churchill Falls.  They didn’t look at the line to the island and they never got a look at the Nova Scotia feed.

The public utilities board is only looking at the plan to build a dam and a line to the island, with some discussion of later thermal energy.  The provincial government was very careful to set up the PUB reference in such a way that the PUB couldn’t do a thorough, independent review. 

What’s more, the provincial government structured the reference in such a way that the outcome is rigged.  The PUB has no choice but to say what the provincial government and Nalcor wanted them to say. 

You can tell the whole thing is rigged by looking at the number of questions submitted to Nalcor that the provincial energy company refused to answer.  Anything related to the Nova Scotia deal, the line, and the presence of Emera in the provincial market, all of which bear on the project and what it means to consumers gets the Nalcor stock answer:

Q. Consumer Question: Will Emera fully own transmission  lines located on the Island of  Newfoundland? If so, will they be subject to the regulatory authority of the PUB?

A. The information requested does not assist consideration of the Reference Question, as the neither the Terms of Reference nor Reference Question addresses matters related to Emera.

The PUB hearing is exactly what the provincial government wanted it to be:  a gigantic political fraud.  If Newfoundlanders and Labradorians want to find out what is going on in their own province, they’ll have to depend on the Nova Scotia utilities regulator. 

In this province, first one administration – Beaton Tulk’s – and then the two Tory ones wiped out any independent oversight of anything they do with public money.

- srbp -

The Fragile Economy: addictions management #nlpoli

The provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador spends more per person on delivering services for most things than does any other provincial government in the country.

Health care is the one the Premier highlighted a couple of weeks ago.  There are others.

This is not something new.  Here’s a snippet from a post in 2009 back when Paul Oram lit the issue up from inside the current administration.  Note, though, that the quote highlights the situation three years earlier:

That level of per capita spending [second only to Alberta] is unsustainable in the long run. As a recent Atlantic Institute for Market Studies assessment concluded:

“If the province fails to reign in its whopping per capita government spending (about $8800/person [in FY 2006]) and super-size me civil service (96 provincial government employees /1000 people) it will quickly erode any gains from increased energy revenues.”

The reason for all this spending and the generally high cost of government in this province is simple:  government spending is all about paternalism, patronage and pork. 

Note that the largest employer in Grand Falls-Windsor these days is the local hospital.  The town is also a centre for government services and, as in Stephenville, the major provincial government response to the mill closure was to push in more public service jobs.

Public spending is all about jobs.

The problem with public spending is that it is easy to get hooked on it.  Not surprisingly, a recent post at the Monkey Cage went with the title “The Narcotic of Government Dependency”.  It’s a pretty concise discussion of the issue from the American perspective with plenty of interesting links.  Follow the links and you’ll find plenty of stimulating stuff. 

Canadians might find it especially interesting to see reference to David Frum’s assessment of the inherent contradiction in conservative arguments.  While they rave and rant against public spending on a ideological basis, on a practical basis, American conservative constituencies are also among the biggest beneficiaries of federal government programs.

Now in this province, the local conservatives don’t really have an ideological basis to argue against public spending. They aren’t really caught in that trap.  But it is interesting to notice the gap between their self-image of being fiscally conservative, debt- fighting wunderkind and the reality of running up the biggest debt load in the province’s history and wanting to jack it higher.  Plus they’ve increased dependence on government spending and increased the public service to an unprecedented size.

looked at from that perspective, Kathy Dunderdale’s recent speech about the need to tighten public spending wasn’t so much about putting the province on some kind of methadone program for patronage junkies so you could get ‘em off the junk.  It seems more likely to have been about another type of addictions management, more like “b’ys we gotta lay off the pipe for a while and just do the oxys and some percs”.

- srbp -

Makkovik Fact Check #nlpoli

Simple truth:  fourteen year old boys are not supposed to freeze to death, alone,  on the ice.

Other simple truth:  in their grief and despair in such a situation, people are angry, and hurt.  They want to know why this happened and what could be done to prevent it.

Sometimes in those situations, people get hold of wrong information and go tearing off in the wrong direction full of great intentions but definitely on a fruitless quest.

In their joint news conference last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Forces officials released a great deal of information about the events in the search for Burton Winters. 

The RCMP were the lead agency, since ground search and rescue for a missing person is their responsibility.  The Canadian Forces officials were there because so much mistaken information had led people to chase after the federal government for failing to do their jobs.

But still, there was a great deal of useful information.  Lots of it didn’t get reported, as it seems, or people missed it.

One of the most useful pieces of information you will find is CBC’s Timeline.  It’s on the provincial CBC website and it’s been there since at least the end of last week.  Walk through and you will have no trouble understanding what happened and when it happened.

You’ll also start to understand why sections of CBC’s online story “Call back protocol for searches to be reviewed: MacKay”  contains inaccurate or misleading information.  CBC’s not alone in making mistakes in this story, their errors happen to be glaring in light of the tick-tock they have online.

Take this bit for example:

When the military was initially called the morning after Winters was reported missing, weather and then mechanical problems kept two Griffon helicopters in Goose Bay grounded. Civilian choppers joined the search.

That makes it sound like the first-line responsibility belonged to DND but they couldn’t do the job.  As a result, civilian helicopters wound up carrying the ball.

Check the CBC Tick-tock:

January 30, 2012

9:00

Fire & Emergency Services NL (FES) requests Govt Air Services. Contract helicopter (Universal) unable to fly. FES contacts JRCC Halifax but SAR unable to assist due to "flying capacity and weather." [FES] Weather conditions were "below limits" for safe operations of aircraft. At CFB Goose Bay, one Griffon helicopter out of service, and problem with oil line discovered on the 2nd one. [JRCC - Admiral Gardam]

The usual government contracted helicopter service comes from Universal, a civilian company.  In these situations, their helicopter would get the job of providing air support.  They couldn’t fly for unspecified reasons.  So, then the provincial authorities called National Defence.

Then check the tick-tock one hour later:

January 30, 2012

10:00

Woodward Aviation's helicopter arrives on scene to volunteer. [RCMP/Vardy] Poor visibility, "It was like a wall...I could not see any landmarks." [Searcher Barry Anderson in helicopter] Woodward helicopter encounters mechanical problems and returns to base. [Edmunds]

This entry puts a helicopter on the scene by 10:00 AM on Jan 30, less than 24 hours after Burton Winters went missing.  Note the reference to poor visibility, a problem that plagued the search efforts, as well as the mechanical problems on the helicopter.

Then 40 minutes later:

January 30, 2012

10:40

RCMP advised Universal Helicopter now able to assist on behalf of Govt Air Services, "precluding a further request to the Canadian Armed Forces [RCMP/Graham]

The Universal helicopter arrived in Makkovik by noon that day, according to the tick-tock.

By that evening, searchers shut down their efforts.  The next day, (January 31), an RCMP fixed-wing aircraft arrived with equipment to help in the search of a spot of open water where searchers had found tracks.

Let’s flip back to the CBC story on MacKay’s announcement on Monday:

Under the current protocol, the onus then reverts to the searchers to call the military a second time.

In the Winters case, that didn’t happen until more than 48 hours after the boy was reported missing.

True in the first sentence, misleading in the second. In this case, the search team didn’t need the DND help – by their own judgment – since they had other air assets.  They didn’t call for additional help until the RCMP airplane spotted the snowmobile in an area the searchers couldn’t reach by land later on January 31.

The tick-tock:

January 31, 2012

16:54

FES requests air support from JRCC. A CH-146 Griffon helicopter from Goose Bay joined by Aurora plane stationed in Greenwood NS search through night (both) using "forward-looking infrared equipment" with no further success. [RCMP/Graham] [FES] [JRCC/Gardam] Vardy tells CBC, Aurora was conducting patrols in the St Anthony area.

The search shut down at about 0105 the next morning.  The aircraft had seen tracks but found no signs of the boy.

According to the tick-tock, a Universal helicopter joined the search on February 1.  They continued the air search and found the body, about 10 kilometres as the crow flies, east south east of the snowmobile, and headed away from the community.

- srbp -

Busting the boom in central #nlpoli

Headline:  “Grand Falls-Windsor growing without mill”.

Sounds marvellous.

Then you read the story.

Turns out that the central Newfoundland town is doing well without its major private sector employer because people are shifting there for the public sector jobs and services.

There’s a passing reference to mining, and then this:

But more importantly the community is a service centre for towns in the Exploits River Valley and communities on the northeast coast.

The hospital in Grand Falls-Windsor was already the town's largest employer before the mill closed and the community has a shopping mall, restaurants and car dealerships.

Some people from nearby communities have been moving in for those services.

Regular SRBP readers have seen this before, like in 2010.  The core of the story is still the same.  People – mostly retired people on fixed incomes – are headed for town where it is easier to shop and get medical attention when they need it.

Nothing surprising in that at all.  That’s what we’ve been expecting them to do, in fact.  Government demographic assessments dating back 20 years all pointed to this as one side-effect of the aging population. 

But any economic assessments at the time anticipated there’d be a large private sector employer that would be bringing new money into the economy from export sales.  That new money would help drive the economy in the form of wages and help pay for municipal services through various taxes.

That employer is gone and so central newfoundland, like so many parts of the province, is depending very heavily on the bloated provincial treasury to keep pushing out cash as it has been since the Tories took office.  There’s absolutely no question about the relationship between public spending and the local boom in central when the public purse is the source of the boom. Cuts to public spending, whether in Grand Falls-Windsor directly or in the surrounding communities, will have an effect on the town’s economy. 

The boom might soon start to bust, at least if the provincial government actually does what Premier Kathy Dunderdale says they’re going to do. Tighten those belts, folks.

- srbp -

PUB concerned about Nalcor capex and electricity rates #nlpoli #cdnpoli

The province’s public utilities board is concerned about the impact Nalcor’s capital works programs will have on consumer rates even without taking Muskrat Falls into account or considering any increase due to fuel costs for thermal generation.

The comments are in the board’s approval, issued January 24,  for Phase I of  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s capital works application for 2012. Hydro is a Nalcor subsidiary.

On page 10 of its order the board expressed concern “about the impacts of the proposed and forecast level of Hydro’s capital spending on customers.”.  The board said that “this level of spending raises concerns as to whether this approach is sustainable given the significant impact on revenue requirement.”

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro showed the percentage change in revenue requirement “as a result of the five-year projected capital spending”, a table the board reproduced on page 10 of the Phase I order:

The board then notes that even allowing for offsetting some of the costs through depreciation, “the impacts of the projected capital spending are significant.”

The board also noted that “these increases do not reflect increases in operational costs which may be expected in the normal course.” That’s code for the cost of oil used to generate electricity at Holyrood for three months of the year.

One of the main arguments in favour of Muskrat Falls has been steady increases in electricity rates due to rising fuel prices.  Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy, for example, claims that electricity prices in the province will increase due to fuel costs and that Muskrat Falls will cost consumers less than if they stuck with oil.

However, neither Kennedy nor Nalcor have apparently included any of the costs for the proposed capital works program into their imaginary rate calculations they developed in late 201o and are still using today.  In its 2012 order, the board noted that it “is concerned that the significant increases in proposed and projected capital expenditures in 2012 and subsequent years were not forecasted by Hydro as recently as one year ago.” [italics added]

This new information suggests that any increases from Muskrat Falls would be on top of significant increases that neither Nalcor or the provincial government have forecast. 

Apparently not included in the Phase I order was more than $200 million in capital spending Nalcor wants to spend to upgrade the interconnection across the isthmus of Avalon.  The board separated that project out since it was a last minute addition by Nalcor.  It is now considered as Phase III of the 2012 capex application.

SRBP readers will recall that this upgraded line could actually delay the need for a Holyrood replacement.  The provincial government’s current plan is to replace Holyrood with Muskrat Falls and later add more oil- fired generation than the island system currently has at Holyrood.

- srbp -

Strengthening Search and Rescue, revisited #nlpoli

A couple of years ago, in the aftermath of Cougar 491, SRBP made some suggestions about how to improve search and rescue services on the east coast of Canada.

The recent tragedy in Makkovik had nothing to do with the Canadian Forces search and rescue service.  There’s been a huge public outcry aimed at Ottawa, egged on by politicians from all political parties who have misled people.  The Premier and the municipal affairs minister are just two of those politicians, even though they know or ought to know the rights of who was responsible for what.

The fact is that the ground search and rescue in Makkovik was all provincial.

Some of the ideas from that older post still apply, even if they likely wouldn;t have made a difference in Makkovik. If a major disaster occurred – like say an airliner crash – all the SAR and emergency response would have to come from the south, by air.  It’s a long way from Greenwood, Nova Scotia to Goose Bay and longer yet again to get up around Nain.

Some of those suggestions for improvements in the federal side still stand.  But what about the province?  Well, that’s where the people responsible could do a lot more than they have been.  The ground search and rescue system actually works quite well, despite the neglect or under-funding.  It largely works because of the huge number of volunteers, not because of the great attention paid to it by the political types.  Sure they are the first ones to claim credit but they are usually the last ones to do anything beneficial. 

So for starters let’s change that.  If Kathy Dunderdale really wants to do something in response to the tragedy in Makkovik, then here are some simple ideas. She should clean up her own act before she points fingers at anyone else.

Here’s the SRBP list for starters:

• The provincial government should create a system of volunteer SAR teams in all parts of the province. Right now it’s all volunteers who, like Rovers – have to ask for public donations to buy equipment and keep the lights on.  The provincial government should kick in some dedicated cash for ground search and rescue.
• The provincial government should beef up training support to these groups. 
• The provincial government should build and maintain GSAR operations centres, staffed by a cadre of Fire and Emergency Services personnel who keep the flashlights and radios charged up and ready to go.

 

- srbp -

Does he believe anything he says? #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Now that he’s safely latched on the public tit in Ottawa, Noob Bloc-NDP MP Ryan Cleary says that everything he ever wrote was just to stir debate.

Well, that’s what he says now when a journalist confronts him with some of past comments, like bashing the crap out of Quebec, the seal hunt,  the European Union, the New Democrats, the Lower Churchill or any of the other tubs Cleary’s thumped over the years.

The accident waiting to happen now tells the Globe and Mail that you gotta look at “the context”.

Before he went to Ottawa at public expense, Cleary used to bash “Quebec” as the bane of Newfoundland’s existence.  More recently, he was  lovin’ Thomas Mulcair to be the Bloc-NDP leader. 

These days he may believe something else. It’s hard to know. Maybe the context has changed. The context for Newfoundland, one wonders, or the context for Cleary?

Even that isn’t clear. 

The context of the context depends on the context, at least in the slippery world of the classic Newfoundland blow-hard politician’s most recent incarnation:  Ryan Cleary.

Ready for a better tomorrow, or maybe ready for a better tomorrow now?  They are truly all the same creature.

So in the end, does Cleary believe anything he says? Should Cleary’s constituents believe him?  And should they believe what he said then or what he says now?

That’s the thing, you see, you can never be sure if the guy really believes what he is saying at any one moment, anymore. After all, by his own admission, he wrote it or said just to stir up debate and it all depends on the context.

No wonder people are starting to call him Climb-down Cleary.

- srbp -

Makkovik SAR Questions #nlpoli

Ground search and rescue is a police responsibility. 

Police forces in Newfoundland and Labrador report to the provincial justice minister.

According to the Fire and Emergency Services website:

Emergency Air Services Program

Fire and Emergency Services – NL is called upon to assist the police forces (Royal Newfoundland Constabulary & Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in search and rescue activities. This assistance is usually in the form of air services support for lost and missing persons. The program is also utilized by FES-NL during emergency response activities.

So:

• How come no media outlet has asked provincial officials for an account of how they conducted the search for Burton Winters?
• How come CBC has interviewed both the Premier and the minister responsible for FES and asked neither of them to explain how provincial officials conducted the search?
• How come neither of them has volunteered to correct the fairly obvious public misunderstanding about roles and responsibilities in this case?
• Did Kathy Dunderdale and or Kevin O’Brien receive regular update reports from the police and FES on the search?
• If they did, how many did they get and when did they get them?
• How will the provincial government change its protocols for ground search and rescue?  Will the provincial government provide additional resources to for GSAR, such as pay and training for search and rescue teams across the province and the creation of a provincial GSAR agency to co-ordinate their emergency response?

- srbp -

Response and Irresponsibility #nlpoli #cdnpoli

The premier whose government was responsible for directing the search effort for a young boy in Makkovik is now calling for an investigation into the actions of the people who weren’t responsible for the search.

From CBC:

Newfoundland and Labrador's premier is calling for a review of the military's role in the search for a 14-year-old boy who was found dead off the coast of Labrador last week.

“There are a number of questions that I don’t believe we have had satisfactory answers to. The family needs them, the community needs them and the people of this province need them," Kathy Dunderdale told the CBC News show On Point about the search for Burton Winters.

But as DND’s internal report makes plain in the third paragraph:

…the local RCMP in Makkovik has the mandate to lead all GSAR [ground search and rescue] efforts within its jurisdiction, including the decision to request CF assistance.

The RCMP are under contract to the provincial government and report to the province’s justice minister.

Despite that report – posted to the CBC’s website - Dunderdale claims there are outstanding questions about the military role in the search. 

Evidently neither she nor her officials watched the video of the DND news conference from February 8 either.  CBC posted it the same day.  It covers the whole thing and addresses all the questions Dunderdale claims haven’t been answered.

- srbp -

Good news #nlpoli

In all the hullaballoo the past week or son you may have missed a couple of fine examples of local reporting.

For starters, check out Curtis Rumboldt’s profile of a man who was disfigured in an industrial accident but who has made a truly inspiring recovery.  This is award-winning stuff.  Curtis tells the story simply without being overly melodramatic even though that’s what the story could easily lead a less experienced reporter to do.

On another subject altogether you can find a six part series by Ashley Fitzpatrick over at the Telegram on the offshore regulatory board.  This is an excellent example of the sort of reporting newspapers can do exceptionally well and other media just can’t.  The series is chock full of basic information that should help to shape any future discussions of an organization that is often dragged into controversy  by political shagging around and shag ups.

- srbp -

Best interests #nlpoli

Fisheries minister Darin King rejected Ocean Choice International’s proposal for exporting and processing fishery. He held a news conference on Thursday.

King claimed the decision is in the best interest of the people of the province. 

King also said the decision did not mean he was opposed to reform in the fishery.  By his decision in this instance, King was insisting that he  - as fisheries minister - must have the right to dictate what private sector companies will take as losses in order to maximise work in a fish plant in his own district.

That’s not reform.  That’s just more of the same fundamental premise that has created the financial, social and political mess that is the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador today.

At no point did King indicate how his decision was in the best interest of the province, although he went back to the same idea a couple of times to justify his decision.  There’s no surprise in that.  Politicians like to use that sort of self-righteous bullshit to justify all sorts of things.

There’s also no surprise that King and his cabinet colleagues took this decision at the start of the current polling period.  The provincial government’s pollster is in the field this month.  King’s announcement is a populist move to appeal to certain interest groups. King should know he’s in a very bad spot, though, simply by virtue of the fact the provincial Liberal fisheries critic is slapping King on the back and giving him a hearty “atta boy!”

The Liberals have perhaps the most backward, outdated policy in the fishery anyone could imagine.  Its elements look to the fishery long since past, not to the one that is emerging. 

In the fishery of the very near future,  fishing subsidies like federal employment insurance wage subsidies,  state-sponsored marketing schemes and the stalinist political control of the economy typified by King’s decision will all go by the wayside. International trade talks are already laying the groundwork for massive change. 

That looming change is one of the reasons decisions like King’s aren’t in the public interest at all.  They do not solve problems. They do not get people ready for what is coming.  They merely build up pressure such that when changes come, they are more likely than ever to be radical, uncontrolled and potentially financially and socially brutal. 

We are just in the early days of a period of revolutionary change in Newfoundland and Labrador.

You can see it coming.

All you have to do is look at how hard politicians of all three political parties and the FFAW are struggling against it.

- srbp -

Conservatives and knowing stuff #nlpoli #cdnpoli

What is it about some political Conservatives and ignorance?

There really isn’t another word for it except ignorance.

In the most recent example, Rick Santorum proves it isn’t just a local phenomenon.

- srbp -

No kittens were harmed… yet #nlpoli #cdnpoli

It is wonderful to be proven right.

Sometimes being wrong is nicer.

In this case, wrong would be the prediction from this corner that the Great VO Muskrat Falls debate would be like tossing kittens off the overpass into oncoming traffic. 

The reaction to the hour-long radio program seems to be that the thing was alright.  No one scored any huge knock-out blows.  No one let slip some gigantic new piece of information.  And no one died.

That last bit understates the case.  Recently minted Liberal leader Dwight Ball impressed some people by holding his own with his more experienced colleagues.  Surviving would have been good.  Keeping pace with the others was better.

Now make no mistake about it.  Neither the Liberals nor the NDP have decided to oppose the Muskrat Falls project.  Their comments, as related by VOCM or the Telegram, raise some questions about how government is handling the thing, not with the proposal itself.

In the scrum afterward – here’s a short clip via the Telegram – note that natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy goes after the NDP.  As SRBP noted before, that’s a sign the Tories think the NDP are the main competition.  It’s also an incredible NDP weakness.  Lorraine Michael scrummed on environmental contamination. Odd then that she didn’t think of that before she campaigned for a loan guarantee to make the project happen.  Maybe Kennedy will make a sharper slice in the future but he let Michael off easy in the “debate”.

Other than that, Kennedy fell back on a few items that are so utterly ludicrous that it is amazing none of his colleagues laughed him off the stage. Among the gems (taken from the VO account:

• “He says gas right now at $3/million BTU's is not economically feasible to be developed, Kennedy says it would have to be more in the range of $10-12/million.”  In other words, offshore gas is too cheap for us to use.  makes no sense.
• “Kennedy says until Labrador industry needs the power it can be sold to the United States, and then taken back as need be.”  Well it could be if they had markets.  Truth is Nalcor can’t find anyone to buy Muskrat Falls electricity.

Kennedy’s whole discussion of Labrador power was largely fictional, at least as far as having Muskrat falls meet any needs was concerned.  It’s telling that neither of the other parties seem to have belted that one out of the park.. 

As for Ball and the Liberals, he asked a good question of Kennedy.  Ball wanted the price per kilowatt of the electricity at Soldier’s Pond.  Kennedy wouldn’t provide it.  Either he can’t because they don’t know what the numbers will be or he won’t because the number will frighten the shit out of people.  There’s no upside to that for the Muskrat proponents.

This is an old issue, though.  And it’s long beyond the point where this was the most significant one.  We know the thing will be a costly one for the public.  We know there are cheaper alternatives.  we know Nalcor hasn’t done its homework.  We know they are basically making this up as they go along.  T

The PUB documents show Nalcor and the provincial government started looking at this configuration in mid-2010 only a few months before they announced it was a done deal.  They cobbled together their basic documents from a bunch of different studies that may or may not cover needed work on this particular configuration of Lower Churchill development.  Manitoba Hydro pointed to some glaring management issues, any of which would cause people to slow down the project if not abandon it altogether.

Anyone who firmly opposes this project can safely make broad statements about repeated failures by government and Nalcor. The whole discussion is at the point now where the case against Muskrat Falls is made.  We can cut to the only sensible conclusion:  scrap the “Infeed” plan and send ‘em back to the drawing board.

The fact that the NDP and Liberals keep shying away from the blatantly obvious conclusion on Muskrat Falls gives the provincial government the room they need to slide the whole thing through.

While no kittens were harmed in the Great Debate, the 514,000 who will pay for this mess of a proposal might get crushed later on, if Jerome gets his way and Lorraine and Dwight can’t get their thumbs out.

- srbp -

Jumpin’ Jack Flash #nlpoli

It’s-uh gas, gas, gas


An 824 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine electricity generator plant would cost roughly CDN$950 million.

The gas to power the plant is readily available from the local offshore.  It can be landed using a conventional gas pipeline that would cost around CDN$500 million to build.  That’s based on a 2001 2005 engineering estimate.

The cost of the gas itself would be functionally zero if the provincial government took the supply of gas as  part of royalty payments for offshore production.  Alternately, Nalcor could take its equity share of White Rose and other fields in kind, i.e. in gas, rather than in cash. 

The only question to be settled would be the valuation the provincial government would apply to the gas for the purpose of calculating royalty.

That works out to about $1.5 billion, all up.  Since you can build it on the island near existing power lines, the cost to hook it to the grid would be negligible.

The Oil and Water Option


By comparison, the hydro-electric generating plant proposed for Muskrat Falls would be rated at 824 MW but would only produce the equivalent of about 570 MW on average. You can find the numbers in Manitoba Hydro International’s recent assessment.

Nalcor estimates that the Muskrat Falls dam and plant  would cost about $2.9 billion, or about three times the cost of the 824MW CCGT plant.

In addition, you have to build a transmission line from Labrador to the island at a cost currently estimated at about $2.1 billion.

That works out to about $5.0 billion, all up.

Then  you have to add about $1.4 billion to cover the cost of 520 MW worth of oil-fired generation Nalcor plans to build, along with the cost of the fuel to go with it.

Manitoba Hydro puts the all-up cost, including fuel at about $6.6 billion.

Neither Nalcor nor MHI looked at natural gas as an option.

When you look at the numbers, you have to wonder why they didn’t.

- srbp -

Response and Responsibility #nlpoli #cdnpoli

“How satisfied are you with what they [DND officials] had to say?”

And with those words, CBC Here and Now’s Jonathan Crowe asked the man whose officials were responsible for directing the search for a missing 14 year old boy in Makkovik last week what he thought of explanations offered by people who weren’t directly responsible for the search efforts.

Municipal affairs minister Kevin O’Brien took the opportunity in his reply to obfuscate, to hide provincial responsibility for directing the search either through Fire and Emergency Services or through the police.  His officials were just responding to requests from the police, in this case the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The uninformed – and there are plenty of those out there – might assume that because the RCMP are a federal police force, therefore this was a federal option.  The provincial officials were just helping out as good citizens.  That’s not the case at all:  the police work for the province, but O’Brien was apparently quite content to slough this off on the feds, even if implicitly.

A federal failure is an implicit theme local media reports have taken up and O’Brien went right along with it.  He talked about the need for clarity, by implication from the Canadian Forces, on timelines and why they made key decisions.

Over the past couple of days, other politicians have taken up the same sorts of commentary.  For his part, Crowe, was just running with the same tunnel vision that has gripped some local media in covering the story of a search that ended in tragedy with the discovery of the young boy’s body.

There’s nothing new in any of that.  The politicians and the media have tried to pin responsibility for other tragedies – like Cougar 491 – on the air force search and rescue teams as well.  Then, as now, though, the effort to find a scapegoat for a tragedy is powerful and wrong.

National defence officials didn’t help themselves on Wednesday.  In a joint news conference with the acting commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s B Division, Rear Admiral David Gardam talked about the military role in the mission.  Gardam and his senior air staff officer talked about when things happened and why the military did certain things.  You’ll find the raw video in this CBC story.

But while Gardam may have understood where he fit into the scheme of things, you could tell by their questions, reporters didn’t.  As a result, they never really figured out who was really supposed to answering questions about how the search went and why things happened.

Gardam also appeared tense and uncomfortable. At the end of the newser, as if it wasn’t already bad enough, Gardam interrupted the air staff officer who was answering a simple question simply.  Gardam then took responsibility for deciding to use CH-146 Griffons, instead of CH-149 Cormorants, as if that made a fundamental difference.

Gardam may have thought he sounded leader-like with his abrupt “I’ll answer that” interjection. He was wrong. His reference to moving air assets around to meet the mission may work in the mess, but the talk of what he does during lobster season – in Nova Scotia – came off as a load useless macho posturing.  The mainland reference and his complete inability to pronounce the name of the community grated on ears and confirmed for local audiences that the feds are out of touch with anything in this province.

The real answer was not that Gardam’s balls were big enough to make the tough decisions.  It was that the 444 Squadron aircraft were closer to the scene and had the capability (apparently including forward-looking infrared) to get the job done. By cutting off the questions and walking out, Gardam just made a bad situation that much worse. 

As a result of the DND newser, the Department of National Defence wound up taking it on the chin for something that they didn’t do. Gardam didn’t cut off the story.  He guaranteed the anti-DND turn the story has taken will have legs and the controversy will grow. 

His political masters will be still be dogged out by the likes of Jack Harris and Ryan Cleary. Since Gardam took responsibility for aircraft movements, someone will soon wonder why he thought it a good use of Cormorants to heli-lift the defence minister out of a fishing camp but that a search for a 14 year old boy would compromise his primary mission.

No one should be surprised if Gardam’s Career Indicator Light blew out in the gust of wind as he left the room.

Most of that is Gardam’s fault, not because he’s the boss but because he just screwed up so badly.  What isn’t Gardam’s fault belongs to the idiot who thought it was a good idea to use people to talk to the media  who didn’t actually direct the operation.  The old axiom for military public affairs stills works:  the closer to the pointy end, the better.  The people who do the job know best at every level.   Everyone else is a know-nothing REMF, and it usually shows in embarrassing ways. 

For all the political posturing by the ghouls and for all the media tunnel vision on this, nothing will change the simple tragedy that is at the centre of this:  A young boy died cold and alone.  He died not because of anything anyone did or failed to do but because sometimes really bad things happen no matter what you do.

The family will grieve.  Time will help them move on but they will never get over their loss.

For the police, volunteer searchers, provincial officials, sailors, air crew and all the others who tried desperately to find young Burton Winters, they know they tried and that sometimes this is what happens despite all the good efforts. That may be true but it won’t help them sleep at night.

As for the ghouls and the REMFS and the other shitbirds?

All the rest of us can do is just carry on.  There is nothing you can do about them anyway. They hold no real responsibility and they deserve no better response.

- srbp -

Perspective, and the lack thereof #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Take an elementary level classroom in small town school on the northern coast of Newfoundland.

Add a bunch of 10 year olds.

Toss in some smoked capelin one of them had for lunch.

A few taunts and a squirt or two of Febreze later and you had a fine batch of bullshit stew for the talk radio fanatics in Newfoundland to chew on all day Tuesday.

All this agitation because a teacher sprayed a little air freshener on a boy in her classroom who was suffering the taunts and jeers of his classmates over the fact he smelled of cooked fish.  She did it outside the classroom, discretely as it seems, but that was not to be the end of the tale.

The young fellow told his mother about the incident when he got home. And mom, not to be denied a scalp, called the teacher to berate her, then called the school the next day and wasted no time at all in getting herself on the local media. 

Her only goal?  To get the teacher fired from her job.

Mom was evidently not thinking much about her son.  After all, the louder that Mom screamed the more people knew about the story. By the time Mom got into full fury, little Christian’s few capelin became an incident known around the globe.

If he had been embarrassed by the jeers and the freshener, he must well be on the way for extensive psychiatric treatment after Mom got on the job.

Scarred for life.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Every time he looks at a plate of the little fish? 

Instantly paralysed with fear.

From now on trout may send him into a catatonic state from which he may never recover.

Let’s not even talk about what herring might do to him.

The majority of callers thought that firing the teacher was not good enough. Skinning alive might have satisfied some, such was their bloodlust.  The young teacher had insulted their nationalist honour, defiled the birthright of the nation, spat on her own heritage.

Fired, disgraced and never allowed into a classroom again would have been letting her off lightly.

Hysterical is one word for the comments. 

Absofriggin’lutely-nutso-out-of-all-proportion-to-the-incident would be much closer to reality.

Take the comments on this news story as typical. Note the number.  On Tuesday night, it was rapidly creeping up on 400.

Meanwhile, the government agency responsible for looking after injured workers revealed this week that one of its employees had been accessing confidential client records he wasn’t supposed to be looking at. They talked about a dozen files over the course of three years.

According to CBC, the chief executive at the agency said this was the first incident of its type at the agency. Take the numbers of comments on this story as typical of the public interest in a pretty significant privacy breach.

As for it being the first of its type, that seems to be true.  But it certainly isn’t the first privacy breach at the agency.  Four years ago, the same agency suffered a significant breach.  How the agency and its government masters handled the story was as amazing as the incident itself.

The Febreze teacher story is going viral on the Internet, the teacher is suspended and the school board is apologising left and right as they start a full-on investigation into the incident.  If the teacher keeps her job it will be a miracle at this point.

In the privacy story, the whole thing is just sliding quietly on by with very little notice.  Odds are very little of consequence will happen to anyone involved.

Take a look at these two stories and you get a very interesting perspective on Newfoundland and Labrador and what matters to people.

- srbp -

It just smacks you between the eyes #nlpoli

Digging back through some old posts on Monday evening, your humble e-scribbler came across one titled “Abuse and power”.

This sort of thing happens every now and then when you start skimming back through old posts:  a pattern starts to emerge out of what prompted the post in the first place.  It could be something you saw before and were conscious of at the time.  Or it could be some old issue that looked like a one-off at the time but instead turns out to be linked to other events or issues.

The thing is almost exactly one year old and it is amazing how easily things slip out of your mind.

The issue at the heart of the post is very much the same as the one this year involving the Auditor General and secrecy:

On the face of it, what the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are seeing here is yet another example of how the current administration has steadily reduced, muzzled or eliminated any means by which someone may question its decisions.

Sometimes stuff like that just leaps up and smacks you between the eyes.

Just take a second and go back and read the post from last year.  See if it strikes you.  The writing’s not bad either.

- srbp -

Thriller it ain’t #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Transcon’s Michael Johansen on the latest twist in the Lower Churchill saga:

Creak, creak, creak … rattle, rattle, rattle … snap! Screeeeeeech … kerplunk!

Hear that? That’s the sound of the wheels once again falling off the Newfoundland government’s 30-year-old Lower Churchill campaign bus.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle-Herald editorial crew think that the Nova Scotia government should send the Muskrat Falls deal off to their utilities review board for an assessment.

They’re worried about getting stuck:

But from a Nova Scotia viewpoint, there are other options, like imported power from Quebec or access to swelling U.S. supplies of natural gas, that were not examined by the PUB. So it makes sense for Mr. Dexter to frame some reference questions of his own for our URB, to address whether Muskrat Falls is the best bet from a Nova Scotia perspective.

And for those who think there could be exports to help pay for Muskrat falls, guess again.  Ontario is facing such a glut in generation that they may have to shut down some of their nuclear power plants temporarily.  That’s significant because nukes give 57% of Ontario’s generating capacity and you can;t spool them back up quickly.

Last June 8, for example, … Ontario was exporting “everything we could to keep supply in line only to declare an energy emergency alert just 12 hours later. Demand climbed to the point where we were using every available megawatt in Ontario to meet that demand.”

- srbp -

Literacy plan still MIA #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Newfoundland and Labrador has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country.

There’s a huge demand for skilled labour in the province and that illiteracy level doesn’t help.

The 1992 Strategic Economic Plan recognised the connection between literacy and economic development:  it’s not like government officials weren’t generally aware of the concept.

And yet:

“There are no province-wide initiatives to deal with family literacy, aboriginal literacy, English as a Second Language, GED (General Educational Development) preparation or workplace literacy and essential skills,” [Literacy NL executive director Caroline Vaughan] said.

That’s a killer quote taken from a story the Telegram ran Monday about a news release from Literacy Newfoundland and Labrador.  They are wondering where the heck the strategic literacy plan went. 

The Telegram again:

Literacy NL said is was told by the province last September the plan would be released in the 2011 calendar year.

In case you are left scratching your head, be assured that the provincial government started work on a literacy plan in 2008.  They even had consultations.

As you can see from the picture, they started work on it so long ago that the link is dead from the news release announcing the consultation to the consultation document. In fact if you try and find anything on “literacy” in the education department, you’ll find yourself out of luck.  Most the links in this search your humble e-scribbler tried on Monday night turned up 404s – page not found. Ditto another search run from the front page of the government website.

You really couldn’t make this shit up.

If you want a strategic literacy plan from the government, you can find one.

It’s a link to one developed 11 years ago when Judy Foote was education minister.

You really, really couldn’t make this up.

And if you want to find the adult learning and literacy section, you will have to guess that it is now part of Joan Burke’s new department of advanced learning and skills development.  The government’s website won’t tell you where it is, though.

A search of the advance education department website for “literacy plan” redirects to a search of the old human resources, labour and employment department. That’s foolish since adult literacy belonged to education before the recent re-organization. Luckily for the government types, people who have a problem with literacy likely don’t have enough computer knowledge to get totally frigged up by the government’s website. They wouldn’t be able to get to the advanced education site to get misdirected by the search engine.

You really, really, really could not make this stuff up.

That’s not to say that successive ministers of education haven’t done something about adult literacy.

In 2010, education minister Darin King issued a news release that endorsed an awareness program on literacy being launched by the four Atlantic provinces.

In 2009, the education department issued a news release on behalf of the Council of the Federation to announce the Council had recognised someone here for achievement in adult literacy.

Aside from those news releases, though, the education department hasn’t been able to deliver the latest update to the provincial literacy plan. 

Regular readers of these e-scribbles will be noticing a familiar pattern here.  For whatever reason, the current administration cannot seem to deliver anything. They’ve got a chronic problem.:

• Serial Government:  the “Northern Strategic Plan” that was out of date before they released it.
• Serial Government:  the original business department.
• What plan was that again? The NSP also wasn’t much of a plan;  it was pretty much just a list of spending.  Sounds suspiciously like the $5.0 billion infrastructure “strategy” in the most recent Auditor General’s report.
• A list as long as your arm:  Check the section on building maintenance in the AG report and you’ll find another example of government’s fundamental management problems.  Hundreds of buildings need repairs.  Some need so much overdue maintenance work it would be cheaper to tear the buildings down and build a new one.
• The missing oil royalty regime:  according to the energy plan from 2007, the Tories were supposed to deliver a natural gas royalty regime (under development since 1997) as well as a completely new oil royalty regime.  They posted something called a gas royalty in April 2010 but the thing isn’t back by regulations.  Is it real or just a fake?
• There’s also the churn in senior management.
• And the fact that massive cost over-runs and delays are now the norm in provincial government public works.

The literacy plan joins a long list of commitments that are missing in action or went missing for years.

You can read Literacy NL’s  submission to the consultation on the literacy plan here.

- srbp -

Duty of care defined

18.   [Defendant] also owed plaintiff ... a duty of care not to drink under age, or to file bottle rockets out of his anus.

This seems like one of those things that just didn’t really need to be stated.

You kinda think people would understand either bit of it separately.  Certainly you’d think that people would appreciate that underage drinking and shooting rockets out of your arse are not good ideas if put together.

Maybe the obvious things are just not so obvious after all.

The Toronto Sun ended its coverage of this story with a reminder that “[s]tatements of claim contain unproven allegations.”

- srbp -

Ridiculous is all the rage #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Fresh from her triumphant speech about co-operation and consultation as the way to develop the north, the potential for developing uranium in Labrador and  - of course – the glories to come from Muskrat Falls, Premier Kathy Dunderdale is off to Atlanta as part of an Atlantic provinces’ trade mission.

Regular readers will recall then-business minister Paul Oram’s insightful interview on Newfoundland and Labrador history during one of his trips to Georgia.

Yes, friends, this is not the first time people from this province have gone off to the southern United States to see if we could increase trade with the Americans.  It has been a popular destination.  Danny Williams took one of his last over-seas trips to Mississippi as part of one of the trade junkets.

As you can see from that post on Williams’ trip, the Americans are looking for people to come to their states, invest money and start creating jobs for their people. There could be no better time to talk to them about investing in our province and creating jobs here.

Obviously.

And if you wanted to find some place to sell stuff we make then surely there can be no better time to do that than when our largest trading partner  - the United States – is struggling to come out of a recession. 

Again, a bit obvious, but apparently not quite so obvious to some people.

In a province where even the finance minister said the economy was fragile,  the provincial government can’t quite seem to get the concept that looking for new markets might be a good idea.

Other people certainly get the point.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been talking about expanding trade with Asia and Europe.  In British Columbia, they’ve got a new natural gas strategy  - h/t to David Campbell in New Brunswick – that talks about developing natural gas as an export to places like Asia.

Meanwhile, in Newfoundland and Labrador, there’s no serious interest in finding new markets for stuff. A couple of years ago, the current provincial government refused to take part in trade talks with the Europeans.  The locals were more interested in the seal hunt than in creating jobs. Just last year, one local politician said it would be like doing a “back-room deal with a group of serial rapists”.

You can see the level they are working at.

As for natural gas, developing it for any practical use at all is about as popular an idea in government circles as a one cheek sneak sliding across the pews on Sunday morning.

Any talk of it as a means of generating electricity gets them raising the completely absurd idea of buying liquefied gas from somewhere else and importing. 

Too expensive, the government’s favourite economist clucked, to be a viable alternative to the favourite economist’s preferred project. He didn’t really even need to hold a match to his straw-man to watch it burst into flames.

And the local natural gas? 

Well, it’s just not possible.

Because, well, it just isn’t.

Never mind that you wouldn’t have to liquefy the stuff to bring it ashore.

Never mind that there is enough of it out there to power a 500 megawatt plant all day long, every day, all year long for a century.

Never mind that they could get it from one field today where it is getting costly to re-inject the gas they get during oil production. 

Never mind that the provincial government need take only as much gas as they needed to run a gas-to-electricity plant. 

Never mind they could put a price on it and take the gas as a partial credit for offshore royalties.

Never mind there’s likely tons of it onshore Newfoundland.  The same people pushing the very expensive electricity scheme actually found gas in 2011 in not one but two wells drilled at Parsons Pond. Nalcor shut down drilling on a proposed third well because they found gas, not the oil the company hoped for.  And, as CBC reported:

Vice-president Jim Keating said there is no need for a third well as it would likely produce the same result.

Same result being gas.

Gas?

What could they possibly do with gas?

Sheesh!  <insert eye rolling>

The government crowd want to go with their Labrador project and that is really the end of it as far as they are concern.

It is a green project, you see.

Just don’t bother to notice that their “green” scheme includes building – wait for it – more oil-fired generation than the current plant they want to replace with the hydro one.

Not gas.

Oil.

Yes, their argument is ridiculous, but then again, it’s no more ridiculous than giving up a market worth billions for new products in order to posture about a product almost no one wants any more.

Or heading off to the sort-of recessionary United States for the umpteenth year in a row to talk trade with people we already trade enough with.

Ridiculous, you see, is all the rage.

- srbp -

Here kitty, kitty #nlpoli

Apparently natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy, Liberal leader Dwight Ball and NDP leader Loraine Michael will debate Muskrat Falls on VOCM this week.

Okay, leave aside for a second the fact it is Jerome versus party leaders and not the three party leaders or Jerome and the natural resources critics for the other parties.

How do you have a debate among representatives of three political parties who,  at worst actually all support Muskrat Falls.

In order to debate you need to have some sort of genuine disagreement.

At best, VO has a party that supports the project openly (The Tories),  one that pretends it doesn’t back the project unequivocally now that people are starting to oppose it (the Dippers) and a third party that can’t figure out WTF its position is (the Liberals).

Telegram columnist Bob Wakeham dared the Ceeb to organize a genuine public debate or discussion to promote awareness of the project and the issues around it. 

Voice of the Cabinet Minister took the challenge instead. What VOCM is offering looks to have both the information and entertainment value of throwing kittens off the overpass into traffic.

- srbp -

That’s the best he’s got #nlpoli

As a rule when you start attacking the other guy’s character or attributing motives to him, you’ve admitted you don’t have much of an argument of your own

Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy went back to the line on Wednesday that critics of the Muskrat Falls project are “politically motivated” and therefore can never be satisfied.

Uh huh.

Some of the leading public critics of the provincial Conservative government’s plan are – wait for it – provincial Conservatives. 

Cabot Martin was a senior policy advisor for Brian Peckford in the 1980s and before that worked for Peckford when he was energy minister in Frank Moores’ Tory administration.

Ron Penney?  Tory.

John Collins?  Tory finance minister once upon a time.

What they share with others of other political backgrounds and some with no partisan affiliation of any kind ever, aside from a concern for the best interests of the province and its people, is an extraordinarily rich body of personal knowledge about Hydro and the Lower Churchill from the very first talk of it down to the current day.

The signatures at the bottom of a letter in the Thursday Telegram come from people of different political backgrounds.  Their common interest, aside from what’s best for the province, is assuring that this project go through due process:

A refusal to give the Public Utilities Board the time it requires is unacceptable because the validity of a proceeding that does not follow due process of law will be unreliable.

As criticism of the project mounts, as the arguments in favour of the project crumble, Jerome Kennedy wants to try and impugn the integrity not of the arguments against his project but the people presenting them.

Argumentum ad hominem.

That’s the best Kennedy’s got.

Take that for the admission of failure it is.

- srbp -

Inadvertent humour, the MHI report edition #nlpoli

The Telegram editorial on the Manitoba Hydro review of Muskrat Falls is a tidy bit of work with some sound advice:

The bottom line? Anyone who wants to say anything — either for or against — about this project should read the whole report carefully, and with an open mind.

Read the whole editorial, though.  It also notes a key point missed by so many reporters in the past 48 hours.  They are the ones who say that the report concluded Muskrat Falls is, indeed, the “least-cost” option to meet the power needs.  Even accomplished writers buggered up the simple logic behind the grammar.

Least-cost suggests the Muskrat Falls bested more than one alternative.  It hasn’t. it is the lower of the two choices, based, as the Telegram notes, on the parameters and assumptions MH got from Nalcor.

Then there was a “but”.  It’s the stuff after the “but” you need to pay particular attention to.

What’s funny about that?  Well, nothing, actually.

What’s funny are comments under the editorial in the online version.  A few government agents using pen names or pseudonyms proclaim their support for the project.  One even says he read it;  after all the MHI report was short.  Evidently he confused the e-mail from his boss with the talking points for the actual report.

If the report had condemned the project those fellows would not have read it or cared.  They’d simply be cranking out the same drivel they are handed.

Another commenter, a critic of the project, goes on at length challenging the demand forecasts.  That’s pretty much a mugs game.  We will need power just as we need air.  We need to replace Holyrood with something.

The question is what we do (how much generation and what mix of types) and when we do it.

The MHI report makes it plain that the current proposal – a big hydro plant built first coupled with more thermal generation than we currently have – ain’t really all it’s cracked up to be. it has plenty of big risks, some really faulty assumptions and way too many serious  management shortcomings in the project thus far.

Of course, to even get that bit about what the project really entails (about more thermal than we currently have) you’d have to read the report, something that too many people evidently haven’t done.

- srbp -

Get politics out of fishery: report #nlpoli

A strange as it may seem after years of evidence that political interference in fisheries management has caused nothing but grief, there are still people – all politicians – who think the answer is yet more political interference.

Expect all of them to be out in force responding to this fisheries report because it appears to criticise only federal politicians.  The usual band will be pointing fingers and proclaiming ‘Aha!”.  But make no mistake:  they stand steadfastly for more political interference in the fishery.

You know who they are.  you know because you have heard them on open line shows and the Fisheries broadcast.

The Royal Society of Canada report is on the mark.  If Gus and Phil will take a chance to let this sink in, they’ll know why cod stocks remain in dismal shape:

“But the re-openings took place at the discretion of the minister. They were not based on science, they were not based on an overall recovery plan consistent with our national and international obligations,” Hutchings said.

And all those discretionary re-openings came from the plaintiff bleating of the voices in this province who insisted that the scientists knew nothing, fishermen knew better, there were a few fish in the bays and people should be left to get them while they could.

If Climb-down Cleary wanted to do something constructive about the fishery and the people who depend on it for a living, he’d ditch the sealskin bowtie, stop making a complete arse of himself and push for fisheries management based on scientific principles.

No one should hold their breath for that. Buffoonery from the backmost bench is still too fashionable.

- srbp -

So haunted by ghosts #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Hear what comfortable words our Premier sayeth:

For generations gone by, the undeveloped hydro-power resources of the Lower Churchill were, for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, like a treasure just out of reach, tantalizingly close but never close enough to enjoy. The gatekeepers of the natural transmission route through Quebec were denying us fair opportunity to get the power to market, and having been burnt once on the Upper Churchill, we were determined not to let that happen again.

Churchill Falls remains as powerful a totem for some politicians in this province as it ever was.  The crowd currently running this place use it more frequently as their beloved Muskrat Falls project encounters more and more problems.

Their only problem is that they know only the illusion of the thing, not the reality.

Take that bit from Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s marathon oration a couple of days ago as a case in point.

At the time of the 1969 contract to sell power from Churchill Falls to Hydro-Quebec, the Lower Churchill was supposed to be a source of energy for the province itself. You can find the very idea in a piece from the People’s Paper from back in the day, as the hideous saying goes.  Only later on did politicians think about trying to sell the bulk of the power outside and use any  money from those sales to pay for a line to bring electricity onto the island, if need be.

The idea of Quebec as an obstacle is an old one, as well.  The truth is that since the early 1990s they haven’t been a problem.  No one developed the Lower Churchill because they could never make the economics of it work out.  The fools never thought of making the people of the province foot the bill for the whole thing  so they could ship the discount juice outside.

In any event, Kathy Dunderdale herself should know that Quebec isn’t an obstacle any more. In April 2009, her predecessor announced a deal to sell electricity from Churchill Falls to the United States through Quebec.  Surely the Premier remembers these words attributed to her in the official news release three years ago:

“This is a significant development for us to share our excess green renewable energy with the rest of North America through our transmission access through Quebec and our subsequent arrangement directly with Emera Energy,” said the Honourable Kathy Dunderdale, Minister of Natural Resources. “These markets are seeking clean, reliable energy, which we have in abundance. The recall block availability and this arrangement allows us to build our reputation and experience as a reliable supplier of clean energy now and into the future.”

There it is in black and white:  “through our transmission access through Quebec”.

Not around Quebec.

Not under Quebec.

Not over Quebec.

Through Quebec.

Through the "natural transmission route", in the words of the craftsman who put them in Kathy’s mouth.

Nalcor has been losing money on the deal, though.  Electricity prices have dropped through a combination of lower demand in the United States and abundant cheap energy from natural gas.  The reason Nalcor isn’t developing the Lower Churchill for export is that no one wants the power at the prices Nalcor would have to charge for it.  As it is, Nalcor had to promise Nova Scotia a block of power for 35 years for free to get them on board the Muskrat Falls Express.

But through it all, dear friends, based on all that stuff which turns out wasn’t exactly fully, totally and completely in correlation with what we colloquially know as true, “we were determined not to let that happen again.”

And so determined was Kathy Dunderdale “not to let that happen again” that she and her boss tried for five years to lure Hydro-Quebec into taking an equity position – an ownership stake, if you will – on the prized Lower Churchill with the electricity going into Quebec and through Quebec.

We know this because Kathy herself told us all, even if no news media in the province have ever reported it lo these two and a half years later.

Hear what comfortable words Kathy sayeth back then:

Y’know, the Premier has gone to Quebec, and gone to Premier Charest, and, y’know, we’ve had NALCO(R) visit y’know Hydro-Quebec, I’ve been meeting with Ministers and so on. And we say to them, okay, y’know, we’ll set the Upper Churchill to one side, but, y’know, let’s sit down and have a talk about this Lower Churchill piece. Y’know, we know that we have to have a win-win situation here. Because we, as I’ve said earlier this week, we know that if you don’t have win-win you have win and poison pill. Because that’s what we’ve got with the Upper Churchill. So we can have a win-win situation. We know that if you come in here as an equity player that you have to have a good return on your investment. And we want you to have a good return on your investment. But it also has to be a good deal for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now we have been with that message back and forth [i.e. to Hydro-Quebec] for five years. No, sir. No, sir. There is no takeup on that proposal.

In fact, so determined was Kathy that she not let that 1969 contract happen again, so firm was she in her resolve on the matter that she and Danny Williams told the folks at Hydro-Quebec to forget all about it:

we’ll set the Upper Churchill to one side, but, y’know, let’s sit down and have a talk about this Lower Churchill piece

For good measure, Kathy wanted to make sure that Hydro-Quebec actually got a “good return” on their investment in the Lower Churchill.  How good?  Maybe as good as Nova Scotia will get – free power – but alas we will never know. 

Hydro-Quebec, as it turned out, just wasn’t interested.

There are some people, as it seems, who are haunted by the infamous Upper Churchill contract.  They see its ghost at every turn, beckoning them onward. 

And so they follow, mesmerised by the rushing of water and the humming of generators,  deeper and ever deeper into its lair until they can no longer tell what is real and what is illusion.  They talk as though one was the other and that both were the same.

It is then  - and only then – that you know the Ghost in the Turbines has claimed another victim.

- srbp -

Rumpole and the Better Half #nlpoli

You likely won’t hear much mention of this provincial first but in the midst of the hoopla over Muskrat Falls on Wednesday, the justice minister announced a first for Provincial Court:  a husband and wife will sit as judges at the same time.

Former director of public prosecutions Pamela Goulding, Q.C. will sit in St. John’s. 

Her husband is Chief Judge Mark Pike.

The scuttlebutt in the clerk’s room at Number 3 Iniquity Court has it that Pike and Goulding also have the distinction of being the first married lawyers to take silk at the same time. 

Well, sort of. 

In 2008,  the list of new Queen’s Counsel appointments included Pike and Goulding.  A few days later came the announcement of Pike’s appointment to the bench.  As it turned out, Pike got to the bench before the ceremony to hand out the silk robes.  As a result, he never really got the chance to wear them.

Sometimes judges have to do a spell in the hinterland before getting the plum spots in Sin Jawns.  One of Goulding’s predecessors sat in Harbour Grace for the longest while waiting patiently until a spot opened up in town.

Included the announcement with Goulding was Laura Mennie, Q.C. who will sit in Stephenville.  Mennie took silk in June 2011.  At the time of her Q.C. appointment, Mennie was working for the child, youth and family services department in western Newfoundland and also completing the requirements for a master’s degree in family law at Osgoode Hall Law School.

- srbp -