The Others, a.k.a the Ghost and Mrs. Dunderdale #nlpoli

Regardless of any change in the cost of other forms of energy,… we will have stability in this province that few parts of the world could depend on with the same reliability.

Did Premier Kathy Dunderdale say that? During the provincial election last fall, she told The Scope that Muskrat Falls is:

…i the way forward that will provide us a new energy we are going to need to run the place, but it will stabilize those energy prices because we don’t have the volatility of oil anymore.

In January 2012, she told the St. John’s Board of Trade that:

Our government firmly believes developing the hydro-power resources of the Lower Churchill is the key to a sustainable future for our province over the long term. Muskrat Falls is a venture that will pay for itself through lower energy costs, new export revenues and new opportunities for economic development here at home.

Maybe natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy tweeted it one day:

Hydro avoids the volatility of oil.

Might have been Nalcor’s Ed Martin:

Muskrat Falls translates to lower and stable rates for customers.

None of them did.

Premier Frank Moores said it in 1974 when local politicians first turned their attention seriously to developing the Lower Churchill. No matter what happens in other parts of the world, no matter what other technologies exist, hydro-electricity would be the future for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Economics had nothing to do with it, if you follow the comments from others involved in the project.  As Philip Smith notes in his account of the development of Churchill Falls*, the Lower Churchill generated more power than the island part of the province needed in total. Environment and technology made difficult the task of running lines across the narrow gap between Newfoundland and the mainland.

The provincial government found some of the finest minds of the time, American consultants, to look at the project.  They pronounced the scheme “economically viable and socially desirable.”  Advances in underwater transmission in Scandinavia made the underwater link to the mainland a better bet than it might have been a decade earlier.

Moores was sold:

It is the intention of the provincial government to use power created from the Lower Churchill within the province only.  It is clear to us that this position is in the best interest of all Newfoundlanders.

A second consulting firm, more smart minds from Winnipeg and Montreal, took on further studies.  They predicted that there were “excellent prospects” for new industries to use the power.  Their forecasts held that the whole 1800 MW output of Gull Island would be absorbed on the island by 1988.  With the federal government helping to underwrite the project, the Canadian consultants predicted that island consumers would get the power for 14 mills per kilowatt hour, at a time when the going wholesale rate for power if sold to or through Quebec was less than eight mills.

The past weighs heavily on the mind of politicians in Newfoundland and Labrador.  They go back to it regularly.  Kathy Dunderdale, Jerome Kennedy, finance minister Tom Marshall, and the crowd at Nalcor have invoked the historical totems of Churchill Falls and Bay d’Espoir to justify their Muskrat Falls project.

What they are talking about is not the actual events, of course, but rather the imagined version of events they or others hold to be true.  They are a form of cultural short-hand.  They are metaphors for other ideas. They are coded speech.

What we are talking about here is not an academic abstraction, nor is it about competing interpretations – narratives, if you will – of local history.  Newfoundland history, as used by politicians, is a living language.

But it is a language that has no basis on reality.  It is entirely fictitious. The people who speak about the past are, like Paul Oram, fundamentally ignorant of the past.  Oram was not an historical revisionist, as the title of that old post suggested.  To be a revisionist requires a familiarity with both the events themselves as real occurrences and the competing stories of what those events mean.

Rather, Oram was a typical political actor of the modern Newfoundland stage.  History for such an actor is not about concrete events involving people who behaved in the sort of complex world in which all of us live, simultaneously at the moment.

Their history is plastic. It can be moulded to suit any need.

Their history is not, to paraphrase Calvin, an exercise in interpreting the past to suit our current biases.  Nor is history solid.  Rather, history for them is air. 

Former Premier Brian Peckford intruded into the Muskrat Falls world on Tuesday.  His letter to Premier Dunderdale is a simple thing. The second sentence of the first paragraph is the basis for his understanding of the project and the issues:

Of course, as you know, I was heavily involved in this enterprise when I was Minister of Mines and Energy and as Premier.

Dunderdale dismissed Peckford with her characteristic arrogance:

But a message from afar, about a debate that you haven’t been engaged in, or public information sessions that you haven’t participated in, then you know it’s difficult for me to deal with.

But before she got to that she started from a very curious place:

I don’t know how close Mr. Peckford ever was to the energy files here in the province in terms of a new development. I know a great deal of work went into (Upper Churchill) redress.

This is not Dunderdale admitting her lack of knowledge of Peckford. Far from it.  That is Kathy Dunderdale dismissing Peckford out of hand as knowing nothing about the subject.

If he had something useful to say, then she’d listen. But he doesn’t know anything so just pay no attention to him.

But it is Dunderdale who clearly doesn’t know anything.  She is ignorant, both in the sense of not knowing anything and in the local sense of being rude.

The Premier is profoundly uninformed of events that happened in her adult lifetime.  She can’t be posing or pretending. One must be not only completely unaware of the truth but also assured of its irrelevance in order to make such an obviously ridiculous comment with such complete self-assuredness.

What is truly remarkable about Dunderdale, Kennedy and Marshall is that they speak of history.  They tie their decisions to the past. “We must learn from the mistakes of the Upper Churchill,” tweeted Kennedy last month.  “I don't want to spend my nights wondering if I'm going to be the new Joey Smallwood,” Kennedy told an audience in Corner Brook.

For all that sort of comment, Kennedy, Dunderdale, Marshall and the others have no sense that they are displaying exactly the characteristics – arrogance and tunnel vision, among them – that led to the events in the 1960s they wish to avoid.

Such is their understanding of what our history is.

- srbp -

*  Philip Smith, Brinco:  the story of Churchill Falls, (Toronto:  McClelland and Stewart, 1975)

NDP MHA not helping consumers #nlpoli

George Murphy is the NDP member of the provincial legislature best known for pushing the government gas price gouging scheme that forces consumers to pay prices for gasoline that benefits the provincial government and the gasoline retailers.

Murphy says he is on the side of consumers.

Now Murphy thinks that a jump in food prices is caused by ferry rates:

According to Voice of the Cabinet Minister:

The MHA for St. John's East says he's concerned about the latest inflation numbers from Statistics Canada, and says those numbers are linked to Marine Atlantic's rate hike. According to Stats Can consumer prices in January are up by 2.5 per cent in metro compared to last year. Murphy says the hike of 4.9 per cent in food prices can be directly traced to the four per cent increase in Marine Atlantic ferry rates.

He says it's time for the federal government to step in and keep Marine Atlantic rates low and stable so that the people aren't gouged at the grocery store.

A small increase in the cost of sailing on a ship for a few miles caused food prices to rise dramatically.

Not the fact that the food comes from places like California on the other end of the friggin’ continent, and is brought here in trucks that burn diesel fuel, the price for which is pretty high these days.

And the solution to that problem is for the federal government to pour tax dollars into lowering those evil ferry rates.

Murphy likes spending federal tax dollars to help people.

He also wants the federal government to support development of Muskrat Falls.

That’s the Newfoundland Tory/Dipper scheme to force the taxpayers of Murphy’s district to pay full cost plus profit for electricity so that the private sector company that sells electricity to people in Nova Scotia can get the juice for free.

Murphy likes spending public money to help people.

You just gotta know that those people Murphy winds up helping aren’t consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

- srbp -

Reminder: Jerry Bannister on political myths in NL #nlpoli

With the provincial government and its proponents deploying Churchill falls and bay d’Espoir as part of their arsenal of argument in favour of Muskrat Falls, there couldn’t be a better time for some old-fashioned myth busting courtesy of historian Dr. Jerry Bannister.

Wednesday, February 22, 7 pm at The Rooms

The Limits of Myth Busting:
Popular and Professional Histories of Newfoundland and Labrador

What is the relationship between myth and history? And are myths rooted in history? Join Dr. Jerry Bannister as he shares his thoughts on the role of historians and popular mythologies in understanding our province’s past.

Just a reminder.

- srbp -

Partisan hypocrite? #nlpoli #cdnpoli

or just full of it?

Leo Abbass on news that no one wants to use Goose Bay as a supersonic flight training venue:

“From what we were told the base has a bright future, they're working to come up with that operational requirement,” Abbass told CBC News. “As long as they're working towards that, I'm content with that.”

For the record, you don;t have to work at finding an “operational requirement”.  It is usually so friggin’ obvious that only an idiot couldn’t find it.

Anything else would be bullshit.

A big, steaming pile of it, in fact.

Now this is not the first time that Leo has soft-pedalled a failure by his political friends to deliver on yet another of their promises to Goose Bay.

Leo’s boundless optimism about Leo’s federal friends is understandable. Their promises are sure, after all. Goose Bay doesn’t need flight training, what with those hundreds of soldiers now living and working in Goose Bay.

Or not.

And when he wasn’t cheering one crowd, Leo was changing his position from one deal to another.  The second one is the favoured one of Leo’s buddies.

Their promises are sure, too.

Nor is it the first time he has been rather obviously full of crap.

Leo Abbass:  partisan hypocrite or just full of shit?

Take your pick.

There’s no difference in the two.

- srbp -

If she said that about the fishery… #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale, answering media questions about the future of the province’s last paper-making machine:

“[Kruger are] going to run their operation in consultation with the union on how they can manage their operations here in Corner Brook so that they can compete and compete globally because that's what they need to do,” she said.

Manage operations of the plant so they can compete globally.

Sensible idea.

And the provincial government isn’t going to interfere.

Watch the whole scrum.

Dunderdale talks about the company needing to run efficient, lean operations, “especially in this kind of a climate”.  She means a globally competitive business climate in which plants are closing up because they can’t compete.

Note as well that Kathy Dunderdale acknowledges that neither she nor natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy know about running paper making operations.

Then the scrum switches to the fishery and immediately Kathy Dunderdale changes her headspace.  Suddenly she knows so much about the fishery that she needs to have overwhelming control of the industry – by her account – in order to sort things out.

Dunderdale’s premise in the fishery is that everything should continue as it is, with the government presumably dictating how much companies should take in losses each year.  After all, that’s what fisheries minister Darin King was talking about recently when he told the world that he and his cabinet colleagues had rejected OCI’s processing proposal.  The provincial government looked at the company’s financial statements and made up its own mind about how much work needed to be done in the province.

Now neither Dunderdale nor King know more about the fishery than they do about forestry and papermaking. Yet,  King insists that when it comes to the fishery, the government is interested in getting the most out of the industry for the province.

Two resource industries.

Both facing significant economic pressures that come, ultimately, from the need to operate lean, efficient operations in an intensely competitive global economic environment.

And yet the provincial government follows a policy in one diametrically opposed to the policy they follow in the other.

No need to wonder for a moment why the fishery remains in a mess.  The current provincial government is just the last in a long line of cabinets that simply lacked the political will to come to grips with the fishery problem and fix the problems.  The simplest fix would be to treat the fishery the same way they treat the forestry.

Kathy Dunderdale knows, though, that if she said about the fishery what she said about the forest industry, the dinosaurs would lace into her from all sides.  When you listen to what King and Dunderdale told reporters and how they said it, you’d be making a pretty big ass of yourself if you assumed that King and Dunderdale even thought of doing such a thing in the first place.

- srbp -

The future of Goose Bay, seven years later #nlpoli

Anyone following the ongoing saga of the Goose Bay air base could hardly be surprised to find out that no one is interested in supersonic flight training in the Big Land.

People have been chasing after this idea for years, just as they have been trying for years to keep the military in Goose Bay.  They are trying not because Goose bay is militarily relevant but because some people want to keep public money flowing into the town. Go back to February 2005 and you will find a post here at SRBP on exactly that idea of trying to keep the town firmly on the public tit.

So seven years later, the future of Goose Bay remains the same:  not with the military. 

When will the provincial and federal governments, and some of the people in Goose Bay get the message?

Seems like they are all – like the provincial Liberals – destined to be clueless on this issue.

- srbp -

Protesting too much? #nlpoli

FFAW boss Earle McCurdy responded on Friday to comments by OCI’s Martin Sullivan that the FFAW, among other things, had threatened to shut OCI down and had proposed closing the Fortune plant in exchange for trying to get some provincial government money to help OCI refurbish the Marystown plant.

Here are Earle’s comments as reported by CBC:

“What Mr. Sullivan is saying is a total fabrication and misrepresentation of any discussions we’ve had…”

So it is entirely false.

But at exactly the same time, it is something FFAW representatives said taken out of context?

Then McCurdy went off on another tack:

“What you do when you don’t want to debate the issues is you start making personal attacks.  About the only thing he didn’t accuse us of is child molesting. …He’s making it up. He’s smoking something. I don’t know what he’s doing. But what he should do is stick with the issues."

Sounds a wee bit fishy, if you will pardon the choice of words.  you see, the other thing you do when you can’t deal with the comments is protest noisily that you have been abused and attacked.

You can hear both interviews on this week’s On Point Saturday at 7:30 PM.

- srbp -

The Backdrop Problem #nlpoli

A picture from a recent Eastern Health news conference shows why at least a portion of their news conference backdrop needs to be tossed in favour of a new design.

Chief executive Vicki Kaminski looks like she’s in an advertisement for a freak show.  Kaminski appears to have a giant head coming out of her shoulder. Even without that big head over her right shoulder the pile of faces staring out is hideous and distracting.

Meanwhile,  another part of the back drop shows a different part of the background display that works reasonably well.

you can see Oscar Howell clearly.  He’s the focus of the shot and nothing distracts from him or his air of authority.

Vicki on the other hand looks like someone’s holding a small turd under her nose. Not a good image.

- srbp -

Natural gas and electricity #nlpoli

Cabot Martin knows what he is talking about.  His speech to the St. John’s Rotary Club on Thursday opened a great many eyes to the potential for natural gas as a means to produce electricity locally.  By extension, martin also got at a key aspect of why the Muskrat Falls proposal is just wrong.

For an account of the speech check the Telegram.

“Nalcor has not conducted due diligence in its examination of this option, the White Rose option,” he said. “They can wave their options all they want, but they can’t produce one single study by a competent engineering firm to focus on this option. And White Rose gas happens to be probably the most viable long-term energy resource that we have in this province.”

For more on Martin’s background material, check his website;  muskratinfo.ca.

Meanwhile, in the same Telegram article,  Paul Barnes of the petroleum producers association says that the natural gas is being used to help produce oil. 

That’s true, but as Barnes knows, the White Rose operators are looking to get rid of some of their gas. They don’t need all the gas for oil production.  He also knows that the province can take the gas today and compensate the operators for it, regardless of the price.  Or the province can take it as part of their royalty.

- srbp -

Fishery reform: the deeper story #nlpoli

NTV’s Thursday report on Loyola Sullivan focused on the union protests and accusations of a conflict of interest from Liberal Jim Bennett.

But the more interesting news on Thursday came from Michael Connors’ tweets about Sullivan’s speech to the employer’s council.

Sullivan is now talking about the economic problems in Europe. He says world's faltering economies are a result of living beyond means.

He's veering back to the debt issue now.

Sullivan talks about governments spending irresponsibly so they could get re-elected.

Sullivan now talking about his own tenure as finance minister. Proud that he brought down first balanced budget in 2006.

Now talking about how province can bring down per capita debt. Dunderdale wants to cut that number in half in 10 years

Sullivan raising concerns about province's debt to GDP ratio.

Sullivan says government should commit to balanced budgets and debt reduction.

Connors called it surreal but what he was really seeing here is a clue to some pretty big political backstories.

Go back in time and it doesn’t take too much imagination to think that Sullivan left the Tory cabinet abruptly in 2006 as a result of a huge disagreement over financial policy.  The 2007 budget – an election year budget  - that they would have been discussing when Sullivan quit saw a huge increase in pork-barrel spending and set the tone for the rest of Danny Williams’ tenure.

Sullivan wasn’t any great shakes when it came to sound fiscal [planning but his couple of years as finance minister are a model of tight-fistedness compared to the Dipper-esque spending sprees of the Danny Williams/Tom Marshall era.

There was something serious on the go at the time.  Danny Williams announced his resignation around the same time. In the months after Sullivan left, Williams got increasingly testier.  That’s when the Old man tossed a public threat at your humble e-scribbler and started musing about getting rid of free speech in the legislature.

Slide forward in time to the current day and you can see signs of a pretty big split in the local Tory party that just got a whole lot wider.  This OCI versus the government story is about more than the fishery.  The Sullivans are a crowd of Big Tories. The family has lots of friends and supporters across the province. Loyola’s a former leader of the party.

When Sullivan made some pointed comments about the current crowd’s lack of financial prowess, he was likely speaking for a large number of local Tories.  His comment about the debt was a very clear shot at Tom Marshall and Kathy Dunderdale.  You could also add a poke at the Muskrat Falls plan into Sullivan’s comment about the public debt.  Muskrat Falls, after all, is about increasing the public debt.

Things are not sunshine and roses inside Tory circles and they haven’t been for some time.

Loyola Sullivan’s speech on Thursday is a sign of how big a rift there is

- srbp -

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 -