James McLeod’s Telegram front-pager – above the masthead no less – on John Noseworthy’s $150,000 contract with the provincial government got all the facts right.
He nailed it all, in detail.
Plus he provided the complete explanation offered by Joan Shea, the minister of the department that gave Noseworthy the contract.
That was one.
Effects on the George River herd
Generally speaking, the proponent’s optimism with respect to the effects of the project on caribou cannot be justified merely by its very selective description of the effects on certain herds.
The George River herd was arbitrarily excluded from the impact study:
“More recently, the GRH has wintered west of the northern end of the Study Area in Central and Southeastern Labrador. Since the Study Area receives inconsistent seasonal use by this herd, any use of the area is likely to be by individuals or small groups rather than thousands of caribou. Due to the limited nature of any likely Project interaction with the GRH, it has not been carried forward in this assessment.” (EIS, p. 12-102)
It is arbitrary to exclude the herd since in its EIS, Nalcor recognized that the herd had recently been present in the study area chosen by the proponent:
“Migratory caribou are typically tundra dwelling and are characterized by their extensive seasonal migrations between winter and calving grounds (Bergerud et al. 2008). Currently, the 15 province recognizes the George River Herd (GRH) as the migratory ecotype. This herd has recently wintered in the vicinity of the Study Area in Labrador (such as observed by the Study Team in the winter of 2009 to 2010).” EIS, p. 10-93
In its addendum to the EIS however, Nalcor makes no mention of the George River herd.
Yet according to the results of an aerial survey conducted jointly by the Quebec Department of Natural Resources and Wildlife (MRNF) and Newfoundland Department of Environment and Conservation, together with the Institut pour la recherche et la surveillance environnementale (of which the Council of the Innu of Ekuanitshit is a member) and the Torngat Wildlife, Plants and Fisheries Secretariat, the George River herd population declined from 74,000 in October 2010 to 27,600 in July 2012.[1]
The Joint Review Panel, which studied Nalcor’s proposed hydroelectric generating facilities at Gull Island and Muskrat Falls, had recommended (7.10) that the proponent “monitor interactions of the George River caribou herd with Project activities and facilities and identify any impacts”: Joint Review Panel Report, p. 31.
It is surprising, to say the least, that given the urgent situation of the George River herd, the proponent could deliberately exclude the potential effects of the transmission lines from the environmental assessment. Nalcor has indicated no intention of monitoring “interactions of the herd” with this phase of the project.
[1] http://www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca/presse/communiques-detail.jsp?id=9880
-srbp-
For the second day in a row, CBC Radio’s On the Go had a go at Frank Fagan, the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador. Or as host Ted Blades described him on Tuesday, another old, white guy.
In Wednesday Blades decided to interview NDP leader Lorraine Michael. Blades started out by asking if he had been right to bring “gender” into the discussion.
Michael responded by referring back to the Premier’s recent Ovations event.
There are at least a couple of things you can take out of the interview and the mini-flap that has erupted the Fagan appointment.
In 2010, the provincial government appointed Captain Mark Turner to look at the “province’s offshore oil spill prevention and response capabilities.”
He produced the 273 page report and the provincial government dutifully released it along with a lovely news release.
Then-natural resources minister Shawn Skinner committed that the provincial government would “study the report, and consult with the responsible stakeholders to ensure all recommendations are considered.”
According to Voice of the Cabinet Minister, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is looking for back-up electricity generation in case another one of the oil-fired generators at Holyrood goes down.
Among the alternative fuels under consideration: natural gas.
Here’s the online story, since it will soon be disappeared:
Newfoundland Hydro is exploring generation supply options should it lose another generating unit like the one at the Holyrood plant that was damaged in last month's storm. The manager of system operations and integration support, Rob Henderson, says they're looking at a number of gas, diesel, and combustion mobile generating units that can be used where needed if something catastrophic should happen.
-srbp-
What you see depends on what people show you.
Take a news story that ran on Monday trumpeting the fact that 30% of motor vehicle accidents involving deaths investigated by the RCMP in the province were caused by drunk driving.
30%.
Holy crap.
What should we do about it, the Ceeb asked.
They interviewed someone from Mother’s Against Drunk Driving who talked about putting breath analysing devices on cars to stop drunks from driving. She talked about copying British Columbia where the government impounds cars for people who blow point zero five on the breathalyser.
Tough stuff.
Local pollster MQO released some previously confidential polling data on Thursday that showed the ruling Conservatives were getting about 25% of public support in July and August and only slightly better than that until November.
The Tories got a bump up in December to about 35%, likely from the Muskrat Falls announcement.
But that vanished the next month. Current Tory support is around 30% of all respondents.
If the word from the west holds true, Randy Simms won’t have too much time to worry about caribou and on-air meltdowns.
The talk show host is going to be locked in a fight for his seat as Mayor of Mount Pearl from former Conservative cabinet minister Dave Denine in this fall’s municipal election.
Apparently, Denine can’t find something better to do with himself and his hefty pension(s) than go after the part-time job he left when he got into provincial politics.a decade ago. According to word coming from the Pearl, Denine is about to start raising cash and getting set for the municipal election in the fall.
Despite claims from Conservative circles in December 2010 that Tory incumbents would all run again, Denine was one of the crowd elected on Danny Williams’ coat-tails who cashed in his chips before the 2011 general election.
Denine held a bunch of posts during his time in cabinet. After a couple of controversies in municipal affairs over disaster response and fire service, Williams stuffed Denine into a few inconsequential portfolios. He racked up his pensionable time quietly after that. Williams could always count on Denine to nod on cue.
-srbp-
Not one, not two, but three provincial cabinet ministers announced a five year ban on hunting George River caribou on Monday.
This is a very serious situation, they said.
It must be serious. They had very glum faces.
If people don’t stop killing caribou, then bad things will happen, they said.
Justice minister @King_Darin said law enforcement officials were around and well…you know what that could mean.
Uh huh.
As the story goes, the crowd currently running this place were all set to issue a news release that the first woman premier in the province’s history was announcing the appointment of the first woman clerk of the House of Assembly.
Then someone quietly pointed out that another Premier had already done that.
In the 1970s.
Her name was Elizabeth Duff.
Every day in Newfoundland and Labrador, the news is like some kind of perpetual, live edition of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Here’s a sample of what your humble e-scribbler learned on a sick day:
Why would a member of parliament visit his own riding? Only in Newfoundland. Or in this case Labrador.
A mayor wants people with money to come to his city and invest it! The truth is really stranger than fiction.
Politics in Newfoundland and Labrador involves lots of patronage. Freaky, man, even if the CBC online story doesn’t actually give any kind of back story to it.
-srbp-
The Auditor General’s annual report on departments, agencies and Crown corporations doesn’t have any one bit that would kill any provincial administration.
What the report does contain is a collection of examples of fundamental rot within the administration. From the hiring problems at College of the North Atlantic, to lax inspections for liquor licenses and pesticides, to the string of problems in municipal affairs you get a picture of a government that simply doesn’t have any sense of purpose or direction.
For the English crowed in Newfoundland and Labrador, @cbcnl gave its audience one story from the Auditor General’s report.
They focused on horrendous salary increases in one government agency.
From the Radio Canada desk in the same newsroom comes a completely different story that fits exactly with the Big Story that has been dominating headlines since the Premier warned of layoffs and spending cuts late last year. The Radio Canada headline translates roughly to “Alarming increase in public spending in NL”.
Right after Ross Reid’s new job, Jerome Kennedy’s trip back to the finance ministry was the second most overblown story of the past week or so.
Most seem to think Kennedy is headed back to finance in order to tackle the public sector unions as part of the upcoming budget. That gives a bit too much credit to the individual in all this. The budget isn’t handled by one person: it is the productive of collective action by a committee of ministers called the treasury board and ultimately by cabinet.
As the recent Telegram editorial on Kennedy’s appointment noted, the budget is all but finished at this point. They are absolutely right. What has normally happened in January since 2003 is essentially about the government delivering some kind of message or other. In January 2008, part of the message was about a pile of new spending right after the 2007 election. And then right on the heels of that - in the same year - was finance minister Tom Marshall and his debt clock warning about impending financial doom.
Sound familiar?
Right on cue in the controversy over the population growth “strategy”, a provincial cabinet minister issued a news release late on Monday and assured us that everything will be all right.
There is lots of bureaucratic jargon, like the trendy use of the word “inform”:
The Provincial Government has developed strategies focusing on youth, immigration, seniors and others. These efforts will help inform the development of the Population Growth Strategy.”
Aside from that, there’s very little of consequence in Joan Shea’s release.
CBC’s Heather Barrett had a solid commentary this weekend on the recent revelations about how much young people in the province’s university don’t know about stuff.
Lack of inquisitiveness.
Well, young people aren’t the only ones who don’t know basic stuff.
Remember this cabinet minister? As we told you in 2009,
According to Oram, the cod moratorium took place in the “early to mid-1980s”.
If you think that was a slip of the tongue consider that according to Oram, once the moratorium started, we then turned to diversifying the economy with mining for things like iron ore and uranium. Iron ore mining dates back to the 1890s, not the 1980s and as for uranium, there isn’t a functioning uranium in the province at the moment. There never has been one. There are prospects but no actual mine.
The Lower Churchill will start up within the coming year (i.e. 2009) according to Oram, even though the thing had not even started the environmental review process when he did the interview. It won’t complete the process until 2010-2011.
Oram wasn’t the only politician at the time who suffered from this problem, nor has it gone away. Plenty of politicians today are afflicted with general ignorance.
Fortunately lack of information is a correctable problem. It just might not be correctable before the pols do massive damage.
-srbp-
A retroactive appointment announcement issued Thursday secured Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s record for the most changes in the senior ranks of the public sector in recent history.
On December 11, Dunderdale announced an appointment that brought her total of appointments to 47. On January 16, though, she announced that Ross Reid had taken up a new job, effective December 16.
That brings her total of actual appointments in 2012 to 48.
SRBP forecast in October 2012 that the Premier was on track to hit a record 49 changes in the provincial public service. She passed the previous record – 39 – in October.
But wait. An announcement on November 01 included two implicit future changes. If we followed the accrual method of accounting for this stuff, then you would add those two to Dunderdale’s total for the year. Bingo: 51 changes in the senior public service that, according to the Telegram, comprises 85 positions.
-srbp-
A bit more digging has turned up a CBC story from December 2010 that first reported Nalcor’s plan to include fibre optic cabling with the Labrador-Island Link for Muskrat Falls.
CBC reported that “Nalcor will use some of this [fibre optic] capacity. The rest will be for sale to companies like Bell Aliant.”
For some reason, though, that option has vanished from any public discussion. The only reference to fibre optics in the submission to the public utilities board was to a system that would do nothing more than allow for Nalcor’s control of the transmission system. That doesn’t appear to take up all the fibre optic capacity that is planned or that could be included in the LIL.
The sale of fibre optic capacity to private sector companies could deliver high speed Internet service to some parts of Labrador more cheaply than current arrangements. It could also be a source of new revenue to both Nalcor and to Emera. The Nova Scotia company has a minority interest in the LIL project separate from its interest in the Maritime Link.
Curiously enough, in 2010, the provincial government cancelled a request for proposals issued in 2007 for management of a high speed internet system in the province. In January 2010, cabinet cancelled the tender, citing escalating costs.
A report by the province’s auditor general in January 2011 included this comment from the province’s innovation department:
Feasibility and Status of Line to Labrador
The department views network connections to Labrador as a priority and an essential part of advancing broadband infrastructure in the province. INTRD remains committed to finding a feasible way to achieve this goal. In this regard, discussions have been ongoing between INTRD and Nalcor Energy on ways to achieve Labrador-related GBI objectives.
-srbp-
Nalcor has awarded a contract valued at more than $106 million to Nexans Norway AS to construct the underwater cable for the Muskrat Falls project, according to a news release issued on Tuesday by Nexans.
Neither Nalcor nor Emera apparently issued any new releases on the tender. The only reference to the contract award on Nalcor’s website is a tiny mention buried away on the project benefits and tendering page.
The news release from the successful company included a passing reference to a fibre optic cable of unspecified capacity to be included with the high voltage direct current electricity lines.
The expressions of interest document from Nalcor issued when the competition started in 2011 included reference to fibre optics “for temperature sensing and potential telecommunications”.
According to the Nexans news release:
The HVDC cables will be manufactured at NVC, Nexans’ factory in Tokyo, Japan. Nexans will supply: three lengths of mass impregnated submarine power cables rated at 350 kilovolt (kV), with an integrated fibre optic element; three underground cables that will be used for the land connections at either side of the strait; accessories comprising of joints, spares, and terminations.
According to Nalcor’s submission to the public utilities board review in 2011-2012, the Labrador Island Link will include fibre optic cable along its entire length on the island in order “fulfill the communication requirements between the converter stations.”
-srbp-
Cuts.
Layoffs.
A couple of tight years.
Hard times.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale, finance minister Tom Marshall, and natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy have been preaching that since before Christmas.
Apparently, a couple of Conservative politicians didn’t get the memo.
From the Chronicle Herald:
Emera CEO Chris Huskilson says there are several options available to Nova Scotians to meet future energy needs, but he insists the arrangement with Newfoundland and Labrador represents the best opportunity.
“It is not something (Nova Scotians) must do because Emera is bringing it forward, it is something they can consider and decide,” Huskilson said in an interview Tuesday.
“We have not signed anything that would obligate Nova Scotia customers to take this energy. All we’ve done was sign something that creates that opportunity.”
-srbp-
Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy admitted over the weekend that he had not done the calculation to figure out if the equity stake in Hebron was worth the cost compared to just a change in the royalty regime.
CBC’s David Cochrane put the question to Kennedy after seven minutes or so of Kennedy’s recitation of talking point after talking point about the Hebron project and the impact of the massive increase in costs. In response to Cochrane’s relentless, detailed questioning, Kennedy tried every folksy analogy in his arsenal of banalities. He talked about putting away money for your children’s education. He tried the bland admonishment that the government would look after the future, not just do what was immediately popular.
Kennedy even tried to suggest questions about public finance - and the impact of spending billions on resource projects – should go to Tom Marshall. Since the provincial government struck a deal with the Hebron partners in 2007, the estimated cost of the project has tripled. Cochrane noted the cash commitments.
And finally with his acknowledgement he hadn’t done the math himself, Kennedy blinked on a basic element of the provincial government’s strategic plan.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale wants to have a “conversation” about the provincial government’s financial mess and the ways we might fix it. That’s what she told CBC’s David Cochrane in her year-end interview.
One of the things Kathy wants to talk about is taxes, specifically the number of people not paying the bulk of the taxes the provincial government collects.
Kathy doesn’t really want to have a conversation, of course. Kathy likes jargon. She uses jargon a lot. She thinks it makes her sound smart. It never has. Kathy uses jargon so much that It just makes her sound like someone trying to sound smart.
Two cabinet ministers trekked up the Southern Shore on Wednesday to hand over a cheque for some government cash to a local group of seniors.
Of course, they dragged their political staff with them.
The value of the cheque was $2,000.
Another perspective on Muskrat Falls, via the Ottawa Citizen, and a previous attempt to run electrical power from Labrador through Nova Scotia:
Pickersgill took the matter to the R.B. Bryce, the cautious deputy minister of finance, who identified several problems in a memo to his minister. First, the federal government could only provide a loan at per cent as Ottawa had done for transmission lines between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, amortized over 40 years. Second, the federal government had to avoid the impression that Ottawa was conspiring with Smallwood to outflank Quebec.
When Smallwood discussed the matter with Pearson and finance minister Walter Gordon in Ottawa in February 1965, they offered no help and advised him to work and resolve his differences with Lesage. Ottawa’s decision narrowed Newfoundland’s choice to a single option: negotiate with Quebec or leave Churchill Falls undeveloped.
-srbp-
The Premier, the finance minister, and their favourite economist are talking about tax increases, layoffs, and spending cuts.
They are talking about cuts and layoffs at a time when the provincial government has more money coming into its accounts than any government in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador before 2003.
The provincial government finances are in a mess.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale, quoted in the Globe and Mail in a story on sanctioning of the Hebron project:
Our goal has been to ensure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are the main benefactors with respect to our natural resources,
Benefactor.
A benefactor is someone who delivers a benefit to someone else.
She is a bit like Dubya sometimes.
-srbp-
The partners in the Hebron project sanctioned the development on New Year’s Eve and announced the decision on Friday.
The new cost estimate to build the gravity base and bring the oil field into production is $14 million. As CBC noted on Friday, the capital cost estimate for the project increased from $8.3 billion to $14 billion over the past 18 months. That’s a 69% increase for those doing the math.
“But much of the increase of billions relates to increased construction and drilling costs,” CBC reported on Friday, “ plus current market and foreign exchange rates.” The partners expect to produce first oil from the field in 2017.
Pity Tom Johnson.
The St. John’s lawyer landed a steady source of billable hours when the provincial Conservatives made him the consumer advocate at the public utilities board.
Tom has been doing a fine job of advocating for consumers, even if his version puts an interesting twist on what he is advocating for consumers to do.
Take last year, for example. Johnson advocated during the Muskrat Falls hearings. He advocated for the Muskrat Falls project. That means, in effect, that consumers will be forced to pay for the entire Muskrat Falls project in their electricity bills, plus profit for the companies involved.
Well done, Tom. Consumers will be thanking you in the future.
In the meantime, though, Tom is not resting on his laurels. This time, Tom is hard at it advocating during an application by Newfoundland Power for its return on equity.
On SRBP’s eighth anniversary, a sampler of some January commentaries:
-srbp-
“One thing that I respect about Ed is, he’s got balls enough to put his name to stuff. He’s not anonymous, so I respect that.”The word “democracy” derives from the Greek words for people and power. Democracy is a form of government in which everyone may participate equally and fully in making decisions that will affect them.
The publisher’s blurb:
The waters off Newfoundland, in the North Atlantic, held the world’s most abundant supply of codfish, which, when discovered, was in great demand. Unlike the fur trade—the other major early commercial activity in what is now mainland Canada—the production of codfish did not require year-round residence. It did, however, require numerous men, young and old, for the fishing season, which ran from spring to early fall.
This successful English-Newfoundland migratory fishery evolved into an exclusively shore-based, but still migratory, fishery that led to the formation of a formal colony by 1818. Shannon Ryan offers this general history as an introduction to early Newfoundland. The economy and social, military, and political issues are dealt with in a straightforward narrative that will appeal to general readers as well as students of Newfoundland and Labrador history.
And if that whets your appetite, you can also hunt down a copy of Jerry Bannister’s The rule of the Admirals: law, custom, and naval government in Newfoundland, 1699-1832.
-srbp-
Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s year-end talking points for 2012 were pretty grim.
As she told CBC’s David Cochrane, the provincial government is facing an enormous deficit. The deficit is the result not of government spending but of the up-and-down nature of the commodities on which government revenues depend.
The result is that government will have to raise taxes or cut jobs or some combination of both in order to cope with the deficit next year.
This should sound awfully familiar to people.
The Telegram’s Saturday front page story on Tory efforts to manipulate online polls and comments garnered two equal and opposite reactions over the weekend in that political echo chamber called Twitter. [The story isn’t free. it’s in the online subscriber edition]
Some people got into a lather over it.
Some other people tried to blow it off as something we’ve known all along, something everyone does everywhere, and no big thing.
Equal and opposite, if you will, but the big issue here is in the middle of these two opinion poles.
Flip over to the Occupy NL blog and you’ll see a critique of some recent SRBP posts on the provincial government’s bonus cash for live babies program.
Let’s summarise the critique and then go from there. While this summary will get you through this post, to be fair and to make sure that nothing gets missed, go read the full post with all the charts included at Occupy NL.
The author takes issue with the SRBP approach in the initial post in the December series, which looked at the total number of births. He contends that we should look at “the average number of live births a woman can expect in her lifetime based on age-specific fertility rates in a given year. Secondly, his analysis doesn't acknowledge that declining birth rates is a trend nation-wide and that provincial rates should be compared to what is happening in other provinces.”
Air New Zealand capitalizes on Peter Jackson and his love of Tolkien:
-srbp-
Here they are, folks, the 10 most-read posts of 2012 at SRBP.
-srbp-
Via Occupy Newfoundland and Labrador, a different take on the success of the bootie call from the one presented in this corner recently.
-srbp-
then get serious about blogging.
From the Harvard Business Review:
Writing is still the clearest and most definitive medium for demonstrating expertise on the web. But as thought leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk have shown with video blogging and fellow HBR blogger Mitch Joel with podcasting (i.e., audio blogging), as long as your content is rich and thoughtful, you can still build up a massive following and reputation regardless of your channel. In an information-hungry world, there will always be a need for expert content. And there will always be more readers and "retweeters" than there will be creators.
If you want to have an impact, you might as well be the one setting the agenda by blogging your ideas.
-srbp-
This was the second filibuster this year and the Telegram’s legislative reported posed a simple question via Twitter before the House closed.
What does it say about current Newfoundland and Labrador political culture that we’ve had two such filibusters in a single year?
Normally a filibuster is an opposition tactic to hold up a government proposal the opposition doesn’t like. That was the case with the Bill 29 filibuster in the spring.
As it turns out, the Muskrat Falls filibuster was different things for different parties.
As the last instalment in our survey of birth rates, let’s take a look at the group 15 to 19 and the other end of the scale for statistics, women aged 40-44 at the time of the child’s birth.
The blue line is the number of births to mothers between ages 15 and 19. From 810 births in 1991 down to 321 in 2010. Note, though that the low point on the blue line is 2005 at 254. Since then the number of births to mothers between 15 and 19 has risen steadily. The rate is lower, though: one in 32 in 1991 compared to one in 46 in 2010.
The numbers of babies born to women between 40 and 45 remains relatively very low. Still, it has doubled in the past two decades from the 52 births in 1991 to the 100 that occurred in 2010.
The red line is the births for mothers aged 35 to 39. It’s there for comparison. In 1991, women in their late 30s gave birth to 387 babies. That is just less than half the number of children born to mothers 19 and under. Two decades later the teenagers are not having as many babies and the older women are having more. Notice, however, that the 2010 moms in the 35 to 39 category still were not having as many babies as the teenagers 20 years earlier.
[Note: This is a revised version of the original post. The earlier one was based on the wrong tables]
The 2007 provincial government bounty on live births appears to have had little impact on trends in birth rates among the 20-somethings in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The same is true for the 30-somethings.
As we told you a couple of weeks ago, it doesn’t look like the provincial government’s policy of paying cash for live births produced any improvement in the birthrate in the province except for the year they announced the bonus cash.
When you look at the birth rate by age of mother some other interesting things appear.
Let’s start with the 20-somethings. Note: this is a revised version of the post. The original post was based on the wrong Statistics Canada tables.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale likes to pretend that the critics haven’t been able to find a problem with Muskrat Falls.
Well, that’s simply not true.
They’ve found tons of problems with the project that Kathy Dunderdale is finishing on behalf of Danny Williams. Dunderdale either doesn’t understand the project at all on any level, has deluded herself into believing what she says is true even when it obviously isn’t (the PUB loves Muskrat Falls!), or she just doesn’t give a rat’s bollocks about anything.
That’s pretty much what it comes down to. Take your pick but that’s it: one of those three
Regardless of any of that, though, you can be assured of one thing. Muskrat Falls is not a very good idea. It is not the lowest cost option for taxpayers.
Absolutely.
Without question.
Not the lowest cost option.
The provincial Conservatives will guarantee that taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador will be forced to pay for Muskrat Falls no matter what happens to oil prices or with new technology. They are closing the electrical markets on the island portion of the province so that consumers and businesses in Newfoundland can only buy electricity from Nalcor.
Under changes to the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994 currently being debated in the House of Assembly, the same provincial Conservatives who fought for years for open access to markets outside the province will close the electricity markets on the island portion of the province to competition.
Section 14.1 (1) of the new bill allows that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro – a Nalcor subsidiary – will have the exclusive right to “supply, distribute and sell electrical power or energy to a retailer or industrial customer in the province.”
Retailers or industrial customers will only be allowed to purchase electrical power or energy from NL Hydro. Another clause of the bill prohibits companies from developing electrical power on their own land for their own use.
So it turns out the provincial government is going to build the Muskrat Falls project.
There’s a total shock.
The one thing that came screaming out of Monday night’s extravaganza was the desperate intensity of it all. The longer the thing has dragged on the more extreme the rhetoric has become, the grander the claim of spectacle, and the shorter the relevance of the language to what is going on in the province.
If they say it often enough, the government and its backers might just believe half of it.
-srbp-
The Premier will announce something this evening at 6 PM.
If she announces that cabinet has already sanctioned the project, no one will be surprised.
If she announces that the project is already sanctioned, then the odds rocket up that this post from a couple of weeks ago will become the big story of the coming weeks and months.
Think of the post as a bit premature, that’s all.
Tom Marshall already confirmed he’s leaving.
And they are talking cuts and layoffs again.
-srbp-
Just to put the provincial government budget in perspective, here are the top five sources of cash that come into the treasury from what are considered the province’s own sources.
This table is based on the Estimates for Budget 2012. Oil royalties are the major source of revenue by quite a margin. They make up 40% of the province;’s own revenues.
All federal revenues added up to about $600 million in the 2012 Estimates. If you listed the revenue sources by dollar amount, federal revenues would go into the list below right after corporate income tax.
The last column in the table indicates whether the revenue is up or down in the latest forecast compared to the original budget.
Provincial Sources
|
Source |
Share of Provincial | |
| Oil Royalties | 40 | D |
| Personal Income Tax | 17 | U |
| Retail Sales Tax | 16 | U |
| Corporate Income Tax | 13 | D |
| Mining Royalties | 9 | D |
-srbp-
“Muskrat Falls is a project that will not impact net debt by a single dollar,” finance minister Tom Marshall said in a provincial government news release.
Unfortunately for taxpayers, they won’t pay the net debt. That’s an accountant’s calculation of what the provincial government owes less any assets they could theoretically sell off if they had to clew up business in a hurry.
What taxpayers will have to contend with is the total liabilities and Tom plans to make those liabilities get a whole lot bigger than they are today. On the day that Tom Marshall predicted that his current budget will have a deficit three times what he forecast in the spring, Marshall also forecast billions more in borrowing to pay for Muskrat Falls and to pay for the government’s day-to-day expenses.
You’d think that a finance minister would understand that.
Evidently, Tom Marshall doesn’t.
Either that or he thinks the rest of us are so stupid that they would accept his ridiculous comments as if they were true.
Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy was in an exceptionally candid mood in the House of Assembly on Tuesday.
He explained that under legislation that will pass before Christmas, Nalcor would be setting electricity rates for industrial users in Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, we need a guaranteed revenue stream in order to assure the bond rating agencies and the federal government that there is going to be monies to satisfy the requirements of paying the project. It is as simple as that. So, therefore, there has to be a restricted role of the PUB.
The interesting thing, though, is that Jerome couldn’t explain later on during debate in the House how the policy for Labrador would guarantee a revenue stream when the whole idea was to compete to Quebec so they couldn’t undercut Nalcor on price.
Combine the two of them, [generation, set by Nalcor, and transmission, set by the PUB] …, and that is where we will come up then with the approximately $56 or $57 [per megawatt hour] rate that will be charged. Again, it is very competitive and comparative to Quebec. However, if there is a process where Quebec either drops their rate to try to get business or increases their rate, Mr. Speaker, there will be a review mechanism in place whereby that can also be done by the minister.
The guaranteed revenue stream is actually somewhere other than in the industrial rates. The guaranteed revenue stream is coming from the consumers on the island.
Some people might be getting confused on how all the prices compare, what with the talk of megawatt hours and kilowatt hours. Well, industrial users in Labrador will be paying 5.6 or 5.7 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity that will come from Churchill Falls and from Muskrat Falls. Consumers on the island will pay a blended price for electricity that includes Muskrat Falls electricity at 20 cents per kilowatt hour according to the most recent estimate Kennedy gave the House.
To switch to megawatt hours, for a second, that would be $56 per megawatt hour for industrial consumers. Muskrat Falls delivered at Soldier’s Pond would be $200 per megawatt hour.
-srbp-
Premier Kathy Dunderdale on where the money will come from to pay for Muskrat Falls, from the House Assembly on Monday:
So, unless there is some catastrophe in Newfoundland and Labrador and everybody decides not to pay their light bills, Mr. Speaker, in that circumstance we might lose the generation facility. I cannot imagine who will buy it with nobody paying their light bills, Mr. Speaker.
-srbp-
Mr. Speaker, when the PUB produced its report it concurred with Nalcor – and it is in the executive summary right in the front so you might want to read it. It concurred with Nalcor and MHI that based on Decision Gate 2 numbers that we did need the power and indeed it was the least-cost alternative. [Muskrat Falls]Premier Kathy Dunderdale on the PUB and its review of Muskrat Falls [December 11, 2012]
We did try to bring this project under the scrutiny of the PUB. Over nine months and over $2 million later, they would not give us a recommendation.Incidentally, what the Premier said on December 11 is correct.
In the House of Assembly on Tuesday, natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy was pretty clear about the sanction process:
“What we have done … [is ] we have slowed down the process in terms of the sanction.”
Asked about slowing down the sanction process on Wednesday, natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy told the House of Assembly:
“I could be wrong; I do not remember saying anything about slowing down the process.”
Interesting. And an Interesting choice of words.
Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy on the financial typhoon of glorious benefits he and his colleagues are about to unleash via called Muskrat Falls:
The Province will make a lot of money off this project at some future point in order to not only to pay for the project but to pay for social programs and to allow us to transition from a non-renewable resource economy to a renewable resource economy. [Emphasis added]
We are always ready for a better tomorrow, Jerome. Too bad no one can tell us when that day will come.
-srbp-
“What we have done,” natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy told the House of Assembly on Tuesday, “[is] we have slowed down the process in terms of the sanction.”
Kennedy offered no explanation why.
Your ref:...Date: 29/11/2012
IMMEDIATE PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
I am The Rt Hon David Cameron MP,Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service British Government.
This letter is to officially inform you that (ATM Card Number 5454 7168XXX1 0640) has been accredited with your favor.[<---bit of a grammatical give-away] Your Personal Identification Number is 1090.The VISA Card Value is 2,000,000.00(Two Million, Great British Pounds Sterling).
This office will send to you an Visa Card/ATM CARD that you will use to
withdraw your funds in any ATM MACHINE CENTER or Visa card outlet in the world with a maximum of ?5000 GBP daily. Further more,You will be required tore-confirm the following information to enable; The Rt Hon William Hague MP First Secretary of State for British Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs. begin in processing of your ATM Card.
(1)Full names: (2)Address: (3)Country: (4)Nationality: (5)Phone #: (6)Age: (7)Occupation: (8) Post Codes
Rt Hon .William Hague MP
First Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Email;minister.affairs@XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com
other person(s) or office(s) different from the staff of the State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to avoid hitches in receiving your payment.
TAKE NOTICE: That you are warned to stop further communications with any
Regards,
Rt Hon David Cameron MP Prime Minister
Take notice indeed. Count the spelling mistakes and assorted other grammatical errors in this little piece of Nigerian shite.
-srbp-
Not content to rest on her laurels for changes in senior public sector management, Premier Kathy Dunderdale announced two more changes on Monday.
That brings the total for 2012 to 47, not including the two other changes implicit in the November 01 announcement.
Based on previous announcements, there would typically be at least one more announcement of senior management changes before the end of the year.
Dunderdale is on track to make 49 changes to the senior management in 2012.
-srbp-
“If we hadn’t expropriated, the company still would have gone into double-C double-A protection or into bankruptcy protection, and we would have been left with nothing but the contaminated assets,” Marshall said.And federation of labour boss Lana Payne [@Lanampayne] tried the same thing via Twitter:
[In my opinion] expropriation was right decision. Otherwise we'd be left with clean-up and no assets.The only problem with this argument is that is it more supposition and rationalization than fact.
…
As the saying goes, can't get blood from a turnip. AB was restructured under bankruptcy law. Because of restructuring, NL would be where it is today: one of many parties in a long line.
In the House of Assembly on Monday, Premier Kathy Dunderdale said that the provincial government decided to seize assets of three companies in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2008 because it knew that one of the companies – AbitibiBowater - was working on a sale of some assets to other parties.
When we took a decision to expropriate Abitibi, it was something we had to do quickly, Mr. Speaker, because we knew the intention of the company was to sell the assets.
…
we decided that we would move quickly. We only had the weekend to prepare, but we all agreed that whatever risks were ensued…that it was the right thing to do and that our legislation should protect us
The following originally appeared at nottawa on September 2, 2009 as a comment on the emergency session of the legislature to deal with changes to legislation about the Churchill River.
It includes a mention of an earlier political controversy, the December 2008 expropriation bill. The two are linked and in light of Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in case related to the expropriation, Mark Watton’s observations at the time are worth reading again.
Danny Williams, thee Premier at the time of both these incidents, may be gone from the political scene but the ministers who were integral parts of the policies remain in positions of power. One of them - Kathy Dunderdale – is William’s hand-picked successor.
The policies and the attitudes that bred them remain in place, as finance minister Tom Marshall made plain on Friday.
Nothing has changed in Newfoundland and Labrador. And that is why these comments from three years ago still resonate:
Consider the latest failure of a lawsuit launched by the Greatest Legal Mind and Premier Ever in light of another case, Henley v. Cable Atlantic, a post that originally appeared in August 2006.
“Forgive us for believing NalCor, Premier,” about the Abitibi expropriation former Liberal leader Yvonne Jones pleads on Twitter, in the wake of the latest court decision against a Williams scheme.
“No!” comes the reply shouted from every rooftop in the province.
It’s not like the good reasons to doubt Williams and Nalcor weren’t right in front of our faces in December 2008.
-srbp-
If the Brothers Grimm were alive today in Newfoundland and Labrador, they’d be politicians.
That’s because so much of politics these days is about fairy tales.
To be fair this isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s just that since 2003, the chief purveyors of fairy tales – the nationalists – have predominated. Danny Williams, the former Premier, used to say lots of things that just weren’t true and some of his biggest fans believed stuff that just never happened.
There is something truly frigged up in a world where the Premier who has admitted to fiscal mismanagement by she and her colleagues for years and hasn’t done anything to correct the problem can be named the best fiscal manager among provincial Premier’s in Canada.
In her current budget, Kathy Dunderdale calls for a billion dollar cash shortfall.
And the Fraser Institute wasn’t being sarcastic when they issued a news release that began with these word’s:
Premier Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador has governed with the best fiscal policy among 10 provincial premiers, according to a new report released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank.
Clearly, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank has some serious thinking to do.
Gabriella Sabau is an economics professor at Memorial University's Grenfell campus out in Corner Brook.
Sabau thinks Muskrat Falls is wonderful idea for three reasons.
For one thing, it’s green. For another thing, the electricity rates for consumers are supposedly low.
And for a third thing, "there will eventually be affordable power that will help attract business and investment."
Sabau noted the overall cost, though:
“The initial cost of the infrastructure is really high and those initial costs need to be paid up front,” she said.
Hmmm.
Paid up front.
And "eventually" the power will be affordable for consumers.
As it seems, Professor Sabau doesn't know much about Muskrat Falls. If she did, the economics professor would know that the project costs won't be paid up front. In fact, the project financing is deliberately set up to push the costs off to the distant future.
And it is consumers in the province who will be passing those costs later rather than sooner. “Eventually” will be a long time for consumers.
On the affordability thing, Sabau will evidently be quite happy. Business will find the power eminently affordable up front. Because consumers are paying all the costs plus profit, business and export customers get a gigantic deal right at the beginning.
"Eventually" comes quickly for them. In fact you could say that businesses and export customers will get the huge benefit immediately.
And those consumers for whom “eventually” really means eventually? Well, they won’t likely see profit from their considerable investment during the current century.
"Eventually" for the people paying the bills really will be "eventually" as in some undefined point in the far distant, almost incomprehensibly far away future.
You really have to love economists who pay attention before they offer opinions.
-srbp-
David Brazil, member for Conception Bay East-Bell Island, on how he and his political colleagues approach the task of governing:
Mr. Speaker, we do not govern by polls. We want to know what the people really think.
Someone forgot to tell Brazil that public opinion polls do exactly that: they tell you what people really think.
Maybe Brazil just doesn’t like what the polls have been saying lately.
-srbp-
During the 2007 general election, the provincial Conservatives announced a policy under which they would pay $1000 to any woman in the province who gave birth to a live baby or or adopted one.
SRBP called it the bootie call. Danny Williams tried to claim the idea was similar to an idea Hilary Clinton announced in the United States while she was trying to get the Democratic Party presidential nomination. It wasn’t and SRBP explained the difference between the two and why the Bootie Call was unlikely to work. It wouldn’t work because it hadn’t really worked in any of the other xenophobic places where they’d tried it.
Williams famously told reporters at the announcement in Corner Brook that “we can’t be a dying race.”
You don’t hear much about the Bootie Call from the Conservatives these days, but a look at the birth statistics will tell you what happened after the the provincial government started handing out the breeding bucks in 2008.
Another part of the Premier’s Office assault on reality Monday was a puff piece by Paul McLeod in the Chronicle Herald on Kathy Dunderdale. In some respects, the timing is a coincidence but the thing has been in the works since last month, at least.
“She won’t make Joey’s mistake” was the title, with a subhead that Kathy Dunderdale “is leading the charge” of a Newfoundland and Labrador that is now in a power position in the country.
The focus, as you can gather from the title is a presentation of recent history in Newfoundland and Labrador centred on the 1969 Churchill Falls power contract.
History holds powerful political totems in Newfoundland and Labrador and none is more potent than the contract between Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation and Hydro-Quebec signed in 1969.
The Chronicle Herald piece is a fascinating bit of insight into the mindset behind Muskrat Falls. it shows the extent to which the Churchill Falls totem is based more on fiction than fact.
Last week, some people wondered if Premier Kathy Dunderdale was out of the loop on negotiations over a federal loan guarantee when she seemed to say she did not know anything about an announcement in Labrador.
Some other people wondered if perhaps she knew about the talks but for some reason opted to claim she didn’t know what the Prime Minister would be announcing. If you want an example of the media reaction, take a look at the first story on the Here and Now broadcast on Thursday.
Reporters found her comments on Thursday afternoon so odd that one of them raised the issue with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his news conference after the announcement. Harper replied that he did not believe the Premier was unaware of the talks and the announcement but that she was being a wily politician.
That was just part of the confusion. Later on Thursday, the announcement seemed to be off. But almost as quickly, things were back on. A story in the Chronicle Herald on Friday credited Nalcor boss Ed Martin with salvaging the deal.
How interesting, then, on Monday morning that a an entirely different story appeared, apparently from the Premier’s Office.
Given that the local media missed the single major story of the 2011 provincial general election until after it was over, the editors and journalists in the province might want to think about how they can better cover the next provincial election.
While lots of people were busily cheering Friday’s announcement of a federal loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls, they probably noticed a small but very significant detail.
The loan guarantee doesn’t exist until Emera decides to sanction the Maritime Link. Under the agreements announced earlier this year, Emera has until July 2014 to opt in to the Maritime Link. Until that happens, there is no loan guarantee for anyone.
That doesn’t mean that Newfoundland and Labrador will will put everything on hold until then. Nosirreee.
From the Group’s new release issued December 2:
Muskrat Falls Term Sheet Must Be Released For Public Scrutiny
“The term sheet for the federal loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls must be released for public scrutiny," say lawyers for 2041 Group.
Prime Minister Harper made it clear that the term sheet he signed is not a loan guarantee. No such guarantee yet exists for the Muskrat Falls project.
Prime Minister Harper also said that if Emera decides not to build the Maritime Link there will be no federal loan guarantee. Emera has until July 2014 to decide whether it will do so.
Group 2041 says: “Premier Dunderdale has said her government will not sanction the project without a federal loan guarantee. There is now plenty of time for the Dunderdale Government to finally commit to due diligence and a full regulatory review."
Group 2041 concludes: "It is clear that: 'No Nova Scotia' means 'No federal loan guarantee.' The November 30th term sheet must be made public immediately.”
Let’s see if the governments release anything.
-srbp-
Now that Muskrat Falls is sanctioned, it is only a matter of time before Kathy Dunderdale quits politics.
How long will we wait?
“We are potentially paying 6.4 Billion for 170 MW of firm power, which will just be enough to meet the Emera commitment,” notes JM in discussing one scenario in his latest commentary The Water Management Agreement and Peak Load Delivery to the Island.
The scenario JM is referring to involves irregular production by Churchill Falls of 20 days at full capacity and 11 days at a minimum level. Nalcor laid it out in one of its presentations to the PUB:
This adds a significant new technical dimension to the ongoing water management agreement controversy.
For posterity, here are Simon Lono’s 10 reasons to oppose Muskrat Falls. He tweeted them on Wednesday, November 28.
Your humble e-scribbler buggered up the list from Twitter so Simon sent along the correct versions, now updated (4 December)
