The Imaginary Nation #nlpoli

Look at the shelves in any bookstore around town these days and you will likely see endless copies of Greg Malone’s book Don’t tell the Newfoundlanders. 

The piles of books show that few people are actually interested in Malone’s malarkey.   Well, very few people beyond the crowd who – like Malone and open line regular Agnes – already had swallowed the load already, without question.  Malone’s book contains the sort of crap Malone and others have been getting on with for years.  Back in 2009, for example, the Canadian Press gave their  fact checker a day off and asked Greg some stuff about Confederation in time for a piece for the 60th anniversary of the momentous event. 

Drew Brown, he of the recent paper and public talk on nationalism, has a piece in The Scope this month that has a go at the conspiracy theory.  Not surprisingly, he trashes the notion completely. 

History’s Bitch #nlpoli

A half century ago, a bunch of very smart fellows – some of the smartest fellows of any generation ever – wanted to build a massive  plant in the middle of Labrador to make electricity.

One of the problems the project faced was a combination of costs and markets.  As Philip Smith recounts in Brinco:  the story of Churchill Falls,  the very smart men were concerned right from the start that nuclear power offered an almost unbeatable alternative to hydroelectricity for generating large amounts of electricity at relatively low cost.  The markets needed power and nuclear could do it cheaper.

Nuclear power also had a huge advantage hydro couldn’t match:  you can turn the plant on and off when you wish.  With hydro, you can make power only when you have the water.  Even with a massive reservoir, the generating output of the plant will go up and down during the year depending on how much water is available.

You got cash? They’ve got a party. #nlpoli

The party that brought the province its first and only election finance law in 1991 is currently in the midst of a campaign to select its own leader, but the race has absolutely no rules of any kind on campaign financing.
The Liberal Party’s constitution and 2013 leadership rules are absolutely silent on campaign finances except for setting the $20,000 entrance fee every candidate had to offer up to enter the race.

Candidates are free to spend as much as they want in any way they want without any rules requiring disclosure to anyone. 

And any potential donor – individual or corporation – from anywhere on the planet can give as much as they want to the person who will lead the party after the election and who could well wind up running the province in 2015.

Nut up or shut up #nlpoli

The Liberal leadership is not even a couple of weeks old and already reporters are getting inundated with the suggestions from anonymous turd-mongers wondering why they are not covering this angle or that aspect of one candidate

The Telegram’s James McLeod wrote a blog post about it on Tuesday, rattling off some examples of the stuff he’s been getting.  McLeod offers a few simple explanations of why reporters don’t cover the sort of crap that these tidbits of excrement.

In the process, he actually gives publicity to the stuff he says wouldn’t be covered for journalistic so there is a bit of a contradiction in there.  For the most part, what you can see are the sort of small-minded points offered up by people who have nothing much to say and on top of that don;t even have the stones to identify themselves.  The world is full of those sorts of sorry specimens of humanity;  politics just makes it seems like there are more of them attached to political parties.

On change #nlpoli

One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen might change the world, as Malala Yousefzai says.

The pen and book are of no use, though,  if the student and the teacher are not interested in finding things out. The horror of the Taliban is the same horror one finds in religious fanatics of any sort, or political zealots for that matter.  They do not wish to know anything.  They believe they have already been handed the complete set of answers to everything.  They fancy the information comes from God or from some local manifestation of some god but the root of their brand of evil is their belief that they already know everything.

They lack inquisitiveness.

What holds us collectively from changing the world is not the absence of a pen or a book. 

We are held back by a lack of inquisitiveness.

"The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know,” wrote Stephen Fry in the second volume of his autobiography, titled The Fry Chronicles.  “They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is."

-srbp-

Learn Now. Pay Later. #nlpoli

A college or university education has an undeniable value both to the student and to the society as a whole.

But should either party bear a disproportionate share of the cost of the education? 

Of course not.  The challenge for policy makers in the provincial government and at the university and the colleges in the province is how to strike a balance between the two. The one that’s been in place for the past decade works extremely well for students whose representatives  – not surprisingly – are pushing for an even sweeter and sweeter deal regardless of the financial implications to the university and the provincial government. 

Free tuition is fundamentally unworkable.  There’s no reason to believe that free tuition would improve participation rates,  successful completion rates, or any other desirable outcome for society.  By the same token, forcing students to bear the full cost of tuition up front would likely serve as a powerful deterrent since few individuals and families could afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars post-secondary education costs these days.

There might be an alternative.

Antle changes dynamics of Liberal leadership race #nlpoli

Last November, it was easy to dismiss Paul Antle as another potential Liberal leadership candidate who lots of people talked about but who sounded more like he had better things to do.

Two things in July changed that.

First, Antle raced around at the last minute and joined the leadership race.

Second, and more importantly, Antle delivered the best campaign kick-off of the lot.

Telly exclusive on SNC Lavalin???? #nlpoli

Screaming headline across the top of the front page of the Saturday Telly:

SNC-Lavalin shut out of Hydro-Quebec projects

And right underneath,  the claim that it is a Telegram exclusive.

That would be right except for the fact someone else reported it months ago.

The problems first surfaced in April, as reported by Radio-Canada.

And La presse had the specific Muskrat Falls angle in early May. The recent decision on the Romaine project reported on Saturday by the Telly is just the same as the La Presse story…only much later.

Where’s the exclusive?

-srbp-

Yvonne - math #nlpoli

Liberal member of parliament Yvonne Jones is pissed off.

She told VOCM that “there are 1,016 people that are payrolled  [sic]under the Muskrat Falls project. 201 of those are Labradorians. So we have less than 10 per cent of Labrador people employed as part of that project.”

She said that was unacceptable.

Someone forgot to point out to the mathematically challenged politician that 201 is a teensy bit shy of 20% of 1,016.

Not less than 10%.

But about double that.

19.7% to be super-accurate.

So if someone pointed out to Jones that there are twice as many Labradorians working at Muskrat Falls as she thought, would she be only half as pissed off?

-srbp-

Jerome Kennedy: ace hole digger #nlpoli

Score another one for the Telegram’s James McLeod.

He interviewed finance minister Jerome Kennedy and wrote a story that centred on Kennedy’s contention that his party’s 2011 election promises weren’t really promises at all but a general blueprint or platform intend to implement depending on the cash available.

The story caused Kennedy such problems that he took to the Thursday morning open line show to claim he was misquoted and that the comments were taken out of context.  Later on he issued a news release that claimed the Conservatives had actually delivered on 43% of their promises.  The short release include a long list that someone apparently cut and pasted from the original list of Conservative not-promises.

Kennedy just made a bad situation worse.

Highly Diffused Government #nlpoli

By now, plenty of people in Newfoundland and Labrador have likely heard finance minister Jerome Kennedy’s comments about his party’s last election platform.

“You used the word promise,”  Kennedy said to the Telegram’s James McLeod.  “I’m not sure that the Blue Book can be described as a promise.”  Kennedy said that the platform contained a bunch of what he called “initiatives” that his party planned to implement between 2011 and 2015.  Everyone had to bear in mind that “there’s always the caveat that the commitments will be made having regard to the fiscal situation of the province.”

Make out of that what you want.  Some people have already made fun or harrumpfed through the odd Tweet or two.  McLeod noted in an story on Wednesday that Kennedy’s new warning about calling them “promises” is at odds with the Conservative during the election.

What’s more interesting thing to what McLeod might call a political uber-nerd is what the transcript reveals about how the Conservatives operate.

Autonomy for Memorial University #nlpoli

One of the things about writing SRBP is that posts sometimes show changes in thinking as your humble e-scribbler gains more information.

Over the last few posts and on Twitter, some of you may have seen a comment to the effect that you could replace the government subsidy to the university with a tuition hike and be cash to the good.  Well, that just is’;t the case.  As Tuesday’s post showed, the government grant covers about 71% of the university’s operating revenue every year.  Tuition covered about the same percentage (11%) as it did in 1977.

Taking a hard look at the current numbers showed that tuition and fees from the 18,700 graduate, undergraduate, and distance students  at the university, full- and part-time brings in slightly less than $60 million annually.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the starting point of this mini series from last Friday:  the university needs cash.  The question is how to get it.

Paul Antle’s Opening Shot #nlpoli

Here’s the e-mail that’s making the rounds:

I am running for Leader of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. I have no confidence in the current government. We've come too far to go backwards. I love this place and I understand its DNA. Our province has no leadership. That's about to change.

Please join me for the launch of my Liberal Leadership Campaign on Thursday, July 11th, 12:00 noon.

Manuels River Hibernia Interpretation Centre//7 Conception Bay Highway//Conception Bay South, Newfoundland [sic]//A1W 3A2

Paul

-srbp-

“China is already so yesterday” #nlpoli

Memorial University’s dean of graduate studies wasn’t so keen on China as a source of students in February 2011.  In a post on her blog Postcards from the edge, Noreen Golfman wrote;

The point is that Memorial, if it is to play seriously in the realm of international recruitment, cannot afford merely to be part of the bandwagon. It has to get ahead of it. China is already so yesterday.

The academics even invented a word for the trend – surprise, surprise  - at universities to seek more and more of their student population from other countries.  They call it “internationalization”.

The motivation is simple:  money.  Golfman acknowledged that point up front in the same blog post.  The available pool of young people is getting smaller, thanks to the fact that birthrates are dropping off in the developed world.  As a result, universities have to go on a hunt for students to keep everything operating:

And, so, yes, the motivation has been, in the first instance, largely economic.

None of that is a surprise.  Nor would anyone be surprised to find that by November 2011, Golfman was in China on a student-hunting safari. She was back there again in 2012.

Some inconvenient truths: goring some educational sacred cows #nlpoli

Friday turned out to be Post-Secondary Education Day with a post here on the impact of the freeze on tuition fees and a fascinating Telegram article on the Conservatives’ 2011 campaign pledge to replace student loans with needs-based grants.

Tuition was a bit of an issue in the 2011 provincial general election.  The Tory pledge is basically a variation on the New Democrat campaign platform plank in the same election to make wipe out tuition altogether. 

Supporters of the low or free tuition argument claim that by charging a tuition fee at all, “we are basically discriminating against poor people and the middle class.”  The Canadian Federation of Students likes the current tuition freeze and is loving up the idea of grants that would make tuition even cheaper or free.

The local rep commented in the Friday story in the Telegram that the current system “is the envy of people across the country.”

Really? 

VOCM more like Fox and Sun #nlpoli

VOCM’s newsroom is taking a massive step downward with a headline on the Liberal leadership.  On Friday, Dwight Ball stepped down as interim leader.  The caucus will decide his replace – officially – at a meeting they’ll hold in a couple of weeks.

The entire VO story consists of these few sentences under the headline “Liberal Party Leaderless”:

Dwight Ball has submitted his resignation as lnterim Leader of the Liberal Party.  Ball is joining business leaders Paul Antle and Cathy Bennett, MHA Jim Bennett, and former MHA Danny Dumaresque in the race. Party president Judy Morrow says the process should ensure a strong, united party in the next general election.  Voting will take place in November.

So either VO is now openly employing the Sun and Fox News stylebook in the newsroom or someone at VOCM is applying for a job as a government communications director. 

-srbp-

Great Political Quotes: Tax Shelter edition #nlpoli

“We lost, but that passion for fighting the injustice of a retroactive law change — that passion I will bring to the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, and to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador…”

Liberal leadership hopeful Paul Antle

CBC reported on Friday that a “Federal Court of Appeal judge ruled in 2010 that a trust set up in the Caribbean by the wife of Liberal leadership candidate Paul Antle was a ‘sham’ used to incorrectly shield [sic] more than $1 million from capital gains taxes.”

That sounds like a great campaign slogan:

Paul Antle:  fighting for tax shelters

His team has their work cut out for them.

-srbp-

The price of subsidy – MUN Tuition

In early June, a CBC investigation revealed that Memorial University is charging special fees for some international graduates students. That was just one of a series of problems with the international student programs noted in the report. 

Some of the students were Chinese.  As it turns out, 36% of [all] Memorial’s grad [international] students are from China.*  That’s a figure that turned up in a news release on June 27 that came out of the recent junket by the Premier, a couple of her retiring ministers, Ed Martin from Nalcor and Memorial president Gary Kachinowski.

One agreement signed on the trip set up “the China Scholarship Council and Memorial University of Newfoundland Joint Funding Program, which will support up to 20 qualified doctoral students who will be jointly funded by Memorial University and the CSC to pursue doctoral studies.”

A long way from best in class #nlpoli

Cathy Bennett’s leadership launch event was organized as one would expect.  Her speech was scripted and, hand gestures and all, well rehearsed.

From the start there was the flush of jargon that one expects these days from business people getting into politics.  A “decision process’ had led her to this spot.  The province must be “best in class”.  Things must be “actioned”.  We must “start a conversation.”  Energy, passion and fire -  especially passion – occurred in the speech with  as much frequency as “strong voice” used to turn up with others.

She pledged to be “open and accountable” as well as honest and persuasive.”

Bennett didn’t offer much beyond stock phrases on anything, though,  except on three points:  increased immigration,  full-day kindergarten, and Muskrat Falls.

The Campaign Starts… #nlpoli

Okay anyone who believed Cathy Bennett was “thinking about it” over the weekend know that she was already getting her Liberal leadership campaign in gear.  She’ll be launching later on Wednesday morning.

You see, as much as some people might fancy that her media line was true, you just can’t get a campaign website organized and a leadership launch event with all the bells and whistles done in two days.  Well, you can.  The problem is that it would look like Jim Bennett’s announcement in Corner Brook on the Friday before the Canada Day long weekend: not a serious or well financed contender.

Cathy Bennett is the opposite.  She’s serious and she’ll have money. Most likely, Cathy will wind up sparring directly with Dwight Ball for the job. Danny Dumaresque  - who launched on Tuesday - will give a brave show but both he and Jim will drop off after the first ballot come November.

For all that, at the start of the campaign, each one of the contenders will face some common issues, problems, or challenges. Here are a few.

The Politics of Fashion #nlpoli

As it turns out, Corporate Research Associates president Don Mills had lots to say to the St. John’s Board of Trade besides a few guesses.

Newfoundland and Labrador can’t create economic booms in every nook and cranny.  Instead, we should focus on growth centres where people are moving anyway.

Such radical - dare one say revolutionary  - ideas. How blessed the Board of Trade members were to hear these comments the likes of which they have never heard before.

Surely.

Never heard the likes of it before, except for the 1992 Strategic Economic Plan.

The Great War and Newfoundland Nationalism #nlpoli

This is a revised version of post that originally appeared on July 4, 2012.

___________________________________

Mark Humphries is an historian at Memorial University.  He spoke with CBC’s Chris O’Neill-Yates on July 1, 2012 about the impact of Beaumont Hamel on Newfoundland and Labrador.

Humphries does an interesting job of putting the 700 dead and wounded on that day into a larger context.  He likened it to 161,000 Canadian males between 19 and 45 years of age dying in 20 minutes today.

Then, in response to a question from Chris, Humphries turned it into a unifying event for the country.

Commemoration Day, 2013 #nlpoli

Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow!
You let your soul go down upon its knees
And with bowed head, and heart abased strive hard
To grasp the future gain in the sore loss!
For not one foot of this dank sod but drank
Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men.
Who for their faith their hope – for life and liberty
Here made the sacrifice – here gave their lives
And gave right willingly – for you and me.

-srbp-

Did his nose just grow… again? #nlpoli

According to Nalcor boss Ed Martin,  the absence of a mere $15 million of old-fashioned 2D seismic was an obstacle to multi-billion dollar global corporations doing business offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

“The strategic investments we are making in our geoscience program in offshore Newfoundland and Labrador is laying the foundation, by lowering barriers, for major international petroleum companies to invest their capital for further exploration in the province,” said Ed Martin, Nalcor Energy’s President and CEO.

Seriously?

Ed Martin thinks people will actually believe that.  People are actually that dim.

Pinocchiosis is truly a horribly disfiguring disease.

-srbp-

The Crucible #nlpoli

If the Conservative Party in Newfoundland and Labrador threw out people who had been a Liberal or a New Democrat before, there wouldn’t be enough people left in it to have a game of cards.  Pretty well all the old Tories from the 1970s who rose to any prominence started out life as Liberals.

John Crosbie?

Alex Hickman?

Brian Peckford?

Tom Rideout?

All good Liberals once.

Lately, you could even add Ross Wiseman to the list of former Liberals who are now Conservatives.

Water and beans #nlpoli

You don’t make the kind of telephone calls Cathy Bennett has been making if you aren’t already headed toward an announcement you will go after a political party leadership.

What CBC got was the talking point, nothing more.

What NTV got was the talking point, written down.

Bennett has been calling Liberals like Dwight Ball and Siobhan Coady plus a raft of others.  She’s been looking for support in some cases and in other cases, she has been inviting people to join her campaign team.  That’s not what you do if you are still pondering the possibilities a week before the nomination deadline. 

If Bennett is still on the fence about a run for the Liberal leadership, then Ed Martin is still iffy on Muskrat Falls.

Cathy Bennett to seek Liberal leadership #nlpoli

SRBP expects that Cathy Bennett, chair of the Bennett Group of companies, will announce her bid for the provincial Liberal leadership next week.

 

More to follow…

-srbp-

.

Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act and municipal politics #nlpoli

You mean the Hell’s Angels won’t be deterred by a committee of people telling Doc O’Keefe what they think he should do?

-srbp-

Will he bring more than guesses? #nlpoli

Corporate research Associates president Don Mills is in St. John’s on Wednesday to speak to the Board of Trade.  He’s already teased up his visit with a news release on Tuesday. 

On top of that he gave James McLeod of the Telegram an interview that will appear in Wednesday morning’s edition.  James teased it up via Twitter but after looking at the release, here’s hoping that the head of a market research firm will offer more than unfounded opinion and pure guesses to his audience.

The Year of Living Dubiously #nlpoli

Conflict of interest is great thing to deal when there is a chance of stopping it or dealing with it, not six or seven years later.

Back in 2006, conflict of interest was all the rage.

Noting the problems with conflict of interest wasn’t.

Cost Creepy Crawlies #nlpoli

Maybe it’s the lack of independent corroboration in this Telegram article that just sends a chill up your spine.

That’s the one where Nalcor officials insist they are doing a great job keeping costs on the megaproject under control.

The Article 82 Question #nlpoli

Statoil announced on Wednesday that it had found an unspecified quantity of oil in its Harpoon property about 500 kilometres offshore Newfoundland.

That would be about 310 miles and therefore is obviously outside the Canadian 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

It’s still within 350 nautical miles so Canada still has the right to exploit the resources.

But it is far enough out to trigger Article 82 of the Law of the Sea convention.

The New Chinese Connection #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale took off for China on Tuesday as part of a new effort to get Chinese state-owned companies to invest in the province’s mining and offshore oil and gas industries.

The story brought to mind three things.

Why aren’t they happy? #nlpoli

Here are some screen captures for your consideration.

CBC’s Jeremy Eaton took the video as part of his coverage of a great announcement. 

The provincial government is putting money into a pilot project that would let some personal care homes take in residents needing higher levels of care than the home might currently be rated for.  That’s a big thing given the rapidly aging population and the shortage of beds for all the people that are going to need them.

The Ever-Changing Provincial Energy Plan #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale told delegates to the provincial offshore oil and gas industries association on Tuesday that the provincial government wants to see more exploration offshore.

“Newfoundland and Labrador is past peak production from existing fields,” Dunderdale told delegates at the NOIA conference.  “To sustain growth, we need to find new fields.”

To compete globally for the limited exploration dollars, Newfoundland and Labrador is “not just open for business, … we are aggressively pursuing it.”

That’s was government policy from the 1970s onward.  More exploration means more oil and gas to develop.  Through the local benefits provisions of the Atlantic Accord (1985),  local companies could gain the experience to compete globally on other projects. That has been the successful policy in places like Norway and Scotland and local politicians and industry experts.

But that hasn’t been government policy since about 2009.

Arse-lighting #nlpoli

Nothing says make me leader of a party that seems to have accidentally struck a chord with voters than spreading false information and then admitting it.

Sexism Alive in Canadian Politics #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Sexism is alive and well in Canadian politics but it isn’t coming from any of the places you might expect.

Donna Dasko is a co-founder and past board chair of Equal Voice, a non-partisan group dedicated to increasing the number of women in elected politics at all levels in Canada.  In an opinion piece for the Globe and Mail on Monday, Dasko argued that “none of the pundits has pointed to the gender factor and how having a female leader [in British Columbia] may have boosted Liberal support.”

Montana Time #nlpoli

Both CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane and Telegram editor Russell Wangersky had opinion pieces this weekend telling the provincial Conservatives that they have a big political problem now that they are in third place in a CRA poll. 

The Conservatives need to change what they are doing.

Wangersky had some specific suggestions on changes.  Cochrane added the tidbit of news that there is a cabal  inside the Tory caucus that is growing increasingly frustrated with the inaction of people running the cabinet and caucus.  They live inside The Bubble apparently.

This is pretty much the same thing SRBP has been on about for the past year or so.  The Tories are in a hole.  They need to stop digging.

Great minds think alike, eventually.

The fools differ.

Ministerial Whimsy #nlpoli

Ever wonder why the provincial government passes laws and then never puts them into force?

Like the Sustainable Development Act that the Conservatives pushed through the House in 2007 and then abandoned.

Or the Court Security Act they passed in 2004, ignored for six years, then brought back with a couple of minor changes to the wording, repealed the old Act they’d never implemented, and passed through the House the new one as…wait for it… the Court Security Act, 2010. <fake dramatic music noise>Dunt…dunt… dah.

Inquiring Minds? You don’t want to know. #nlpoli

Denial and evasion, wrote Andrew Coyne last week, are only making worse three political scandals. He’s referring to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and allegations of substance abuse, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Mike Duffy Affair, and former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and a police investigation into McGuinty’ s staff, missing e-mails and a gas plant.

Coyne is his usual insightful self.

What’s more, added Telegram editor Peter Jackson, these three have made matters worse by making “false or misleading statements”. Not a good idea, sez Peter, since people “are naturally suspicious.”  You can’t have a good conspiracy because people will sniff out the foolishness.

And in some cases, people will even make stuff up. Peter points to the 9/11 Truthers and the Obama birthers as examples of people who will connect the unconnected.

In short, it’s bad enough when irresponsible rumour-mongers start the ball rolling. 

The last thing politicians should do is feed the flames with fibs and subterfuge.

Wonderful stuff, that, if only we could all safely rely on those inquiring minds to quickly ferret out the truth. 

Concerning Partisan Communications from Non-Partisan Government Officials #nlpoli

Keith Hutchings issued a news release on Tuesday to respond to”inaccuracies on CETA negotiations.” That’s what the headline on the release said it was about.

He did so in his capacity as a cabinet minister, a non-partisan provincial government official, not as a Conservative.  The media contact name listed is for the departmental communications director.  If this person didn’t write the release, then she approved it, as did the minister and at least one senior official in Cabinet Secretariat.

If you want to understand the communications problem facing the provincial government, then you have a tidy example in this release.

And then magic will happen: Kennedy #nlpoli

Corporate Research Associates obscures what little useful information there is in its quarterly polling by converting party choice numbers to a share of decideds instead of a share of all answers.

Nowhere has this been more obvious lately than in its second quarter polling in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Report the numbers as CRA released them and you get what CBC and the rest of the conventional media will tell you:  big Conservative drop; Liberals and the NDP in a tie, with the NDP down slightly, but within the margin of error for the poll. Liberals up a bunch

Yeah….well…no.

If at first you don’t succeed… #nlpoli

Shoot your self in the foot yet again.

The Conservative candidate in Cartwright – L’anse au Claire is committed to proving his party runs the government to suit its own partisan interests not what’s in the best interests of all the people of the province.

And this is not the first time Dennis Normore has told the people of the district that his party is deliberately punishing them for voting for someone other than the Conservative candidate.

Get worried-er #nlpoli

Here are a bunch of stories all of which would deserve a post of their own but that are presented here cut down to the barest of bare essentials.

King of the Keystone Kops Strikes Again:  Not content to demonstrate his incompetence with his earlier budget shag up, justice minister Darin King (Twitter:  @King_Darin) announced on Thursday that 25 fisheries officers his department had booted out the door in the 2013 budget cuts would be rehired to a man and/or woman in very short order.

What can King possibly do to top this besides light his own underwear on fire during a live television interview?

Hide the matches, Tory staffers.

The other king named Darin:  Darin Pike will head the new Anglo school board for the entire province come the fall, the head of the provincial selection committee announced on Wednesday.

Pike’s experience includes a stint running the Eastern School district, which was the bureaucratic trial project for the creation of a single board for all English-speaking students in Newfoundland and Labrador.  Pike’s appointment is the penultimate act in the bureaucratic plan to eliminate public oversight of public education and replace it entirely with a system run by education bureaucrats who answer to no one except a cabinet minister who has no meaningful authority within the department. 

The plan started in 2004 when education department bureaucrats pitched the idea to the noob provincial Conservatives as a way of saving money.  In the event, they didn’t save a penny, but that was never the real purpose of the scam, err scheme. 

The plan did successfully consolidate de facto power in the hands of the deputy education minister and his four key subordinates, the chief executives of the districts.  The four district boards created under the re-organization scheme were powerless to do anything except as they were told.  This was perhaps most evident in the Eastern District where, from the chair, down to the lowliest anonymous character the board was populated with faceless cowards intent primarily on avoiding any public accountability for decisions they rubber-stamped.

Pike’s experience in implementing the plan makes him the ideal candidate.  D‘uh.

Faithful readers will recognise the similarity between an unaccountable education bureaucracy and the unaccountable provincial energy corporation, Nalcor.

Parochial or what?:  Apparently IOC has laid off some people.  The company won’t say how many.  The CBC story only talks about events in this province. 

The Quebec weekly Le Nord-Cotier broke the story a couple of days ago.  SRBP linked to it a couple of days ago.  The Quebec paper mentioned all the towns and cities where people got the boot, including the ones not in Quebec.

The World Stops at Donovans:  In Nova Scotia, the province’s utilities regulatory board is up to its eyes in the Muskrat Falls controversy.  Search the Internet and you’ll find a raft of stories about the UARB hearings and on public debate about the project.  On this side of the Cabot Strait, you’d be hard pressed to know there is anyone living there. 

The only local mentions of the story have been questions posed to Nalcor boss Ed Martin, who was characteristically vague and uninformative. 

Nice to be wrong Update (7:50 AM):  Telegram.  Top of Page 4.  Canadian Press story on Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter’s lack of concern about the Nova Scotia opposition to Muskrat Falls and the Maritime link.

The Norwegian Model:  Norwegian energy giant Statoil announced this week that was reconsidering a major offshore project in part because of changes to Norwegian tax rules. 

"In addition, the Norwegian government has recently proposed reduced uplift in the petroleum tax system, which reduces the attractiveness of future projects, particularly marginal fields and fields which require new infrastructure. This has made it necessary to review the Johan Castberg project," says Øystein Michelsen, Statoil's executive vice president for development and production in Norway.

The Norwegian government is a majority shareholder in Statoil.  Norway manages its state-owned companies like all others, though, subjecting them to the same laws as private sector corporations. 

The Nalcor Model:  On May 31, Nalcor cleared the final bureaucratic hurdle for the Labrador-Island transmission link for Muskrat Falls with news that the provincial environment department had accepted the company’s environmental impact submissions. It’s all in the minister’s hands now.  He must recommend to cabinet whether to approve the project or not.

What are the odds Tom Hedderson would suggest to cabinet  that Nalcor stop work?

More than Muskrat Update (7:50 PM):  On the top of page three of the Friday Telly, there’s a second story by Ashley Fitzpatrick about the Nalcor AGM.  The headline:  “More than Muskrat discussed at Nalcor AGM”. 

Sure there was.

According to the story, Nalcor senior management talked about how Nalcor spending (i.e. cost) is up across the board. 

The reason they didn’t want to discuss as such? 

Muskrat Falls: it’s been driving up everyone’s costs and that’s going to get worse before it gets better.  "It would be easy to blame Muskrat," according to Nalcor vice president Derrick Sturge.

Easy, yes.

Accurate?

Absolutely.

What else wasn’t Muskrat Falls? 

Energy marketing, which, of course, has nothing to do with Muskrat Falls except when the gang at the AGM talked about selling surplus power from Muskrat and all these other sales into markets that are not there.…
that’s right there in the story with the “Not Muskrat”  headline.

Big sales potential over the next three or four decades, according to Ed Martin. 

Really?

Interesting then that Nalcor hasn’t been able to nail down any long-term sales already (hence the reason to force taxpayers to buy 100% of Muskrat for only notionally using 40% of the power.

Sure.

They talked about a lot that wasn’t Muskrat Falls.

-srbp-

Get Worried #nlpoli

Not surprisingly,  a band of familiar faces turned up at Nalcor’s annual public meeting to put questions about Muskrat Falls to Ed Martin, the man more and more people are calling the de facto Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

And equally unsurprisingly, Ed Martin continued with the sort of uninformative or misleading comments of the sort he made most notoriously about water management and generating capacity in 2012.

The fact that Martin does not speak plainly and therefore honestly about anything Nalcor is doing should make people extremely nervous.

Rumpole and the Big Smoke #nlpoli

Here’s the official summary of a judge’s decision in a recent arson case:

Accused was charged with arson. The Crown failed to prove beyond a  reasonable doubt that the fire was deliberately set and, if it was, that it was the accused who did it. The accused was acquitted.

Failed to prove anyone deliberately set the fire in the first place, let alone that the accused did it.

That’s pretty much the definition of epic fail.

-srbp-

Fluidity #nlpoli

As a rule,  cabinet ministers should be able to tell you exactly what government policy is on any given subject.  They all sit at the same table and they each have an obligation to support the policy they collectively decide.

When two ministers say starkly different things, then, you can understand that people tend to notice the discrepancy.  The difference usually signals a major problem or controversy and that simply cannot stand.  The principle of cabinet solidarity means that in public they must all sing the same song..

It’s bad enough when two ministers disagree. But when the difference is between the Premier and a minister, the matter becomes very serious. If there is one person who must know what government is doing, that person would be the first minister.  If there is one person who gets to set government policy, it is the first minister. Everyone else just has an opinion.

IOCC cuts staff #nlpoli

The Iron Ore Company of Canada has made cuts to its offices in St.John’s, Montreal, Labrador City and Sept Iles, according to the weekly newspaper Le Nord-Cotier.

The company would not confirm how many positions were eliminated or how many people were affected.

IOC spokesperson Natalie Rouleau told the newspaper that the positions were redundancies and affected permanent staff, temporary employees and contract employees.

-srbp-

Off track betting #nlpoli

That big, ginormous phone-banging-up, trade dispute thingy with evil Ottawa?

So not happening any more.

"We seem to be back on track.  We have alignment," Premier Kathy Dunderdale told reporters on Tuesday at an event announcing fitness grants to community groups.

Familiar tunes amid the Shifting Balance of Power #nlpoli

All the talk the past week or so about negotiations between the crowd in Confederation Building and the crowd in Ottawa  brought out the conventional wisdom about premiers using fights with the feds for political purposes.

The coincidence of a talk on nationalism the week before linked the two ideas together neatly for some people. Kathy Dunderdale was having a row with Ottawa, possibly to boost her polling and maybe as a show of nationalist fervour that we all love.

Yeah, maybe that’s true.

And then again, maybe it just isn’t.

No Surplus to Supply #nlpoli

Critics of the Muskrat Falls development pointed out over 18 months ago that the project would have problems meeting its electricity commitments.

Nalcor disputed that.

But this weekend, CBC’s Paul Withers told On Point host David Cochrane that Nalcor has refused to commit in writing to supply Nova Scotia with electricity beyond the original block of free electricity Emera will get as part of the basic deal.

That’s interesting. 

Very interesting. 

The original term sheet and the final capacity agreement basically commit the parties to work it out in the future on two conditions.  First, Nova Scotia has to want the power for the long term.  Second, Nalcor has to agree to supply it.

In the future.

If Nalcor had electricity to sell and Nova Scotia wanted it, then Nalcor should be locking them down and taking their cash.  After all, a long-term power purchase agreement for an export customer is exactly what the Lower Churchill was supposed to be about.

Instead, Nalcor has decided to force local ratepayers in Newfoundland to cover the full cost, plus profit and ship electricity to Emera in Nova Scotia, effectively for nothing.

What’s more, if they sell any electricity from the project to industrial customers in Labrador, Nalcor will sell the power at a huge discount.  According to Nalcor’s plan, everyone will get the benefit of Muskrat Falls except the people who will pay for it.

-srbp-

If they do it, it is wrong #nlpoli

On Monday, Kathy Dunderdale said it was wrong for the federal government to try and jam her up by connecting the federal loan guarantee on Muskrat Falls to free trade talks, Kathy Dunderdale acknowledged on Friday that she has been connecting the free trade talks to search and rescue.

When someone else does it, that would be wrong.

But when Kathy does it, she thinks it is sheer genius.

-srbp-

The Divide Deepens. #nlpoli

David Cochrane called it right the other day in the scrum with Kathy Dunderdale.  He asked if she was laying the groundwork for a failure at the trade talks, a failure of her personal position.

Dunderdale denied it in the scrum, but her latest claim – full of the same vague and largely unsubstantiated claims as on Monday – sounds like someone who is trying to blame someone else before the talks finish and the end result doesn’t match what she’s been personally staking out as a position.

There’s something to be said for eloquence #nlpoli

Russell Wangersky is a fine writer with a keen and insightful mind.

He is also an editor at the province’s largest circulation daily.

That’s the same place where former fisheries minister Trevor Taylor has been scribbling a column every week.

Dunderdale and Dalley tell different trade talk stories #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale (via NTV):

We’re looking for a ‘carve-out’ on the minimum processing regulations … so they’ll be exempted, and we want access to the European market on a number of our fish lines…

Carve out. 

Hideous jargon for “not going to trade away” minimum processing regulations.

Period.

Fisheries minister Derrick Dalley (via the Telegram):

Fisheries Minister Derrick Dalley was at a media event in St. John’s Tuesday, where he assured reporters that the provincial government is not going to give away minimum processing requirements unless it’s a good deal.

Not going to trade away minimum processing requirements.

Oh wait.

There’s more.

Kathy Dunderdale's Give-Aways #nlpoli

There is something about Kathy Dunderdale’s speech to the Board of Trade that leaves you decidedly uncomfortable.

Part of it is the mention of her grandson  - yet again - at the front end end of the speech.  Kathy told a story about the advice the little fellow gave her in case someone one should break into her house.  This was apparently back in the spring.

Another part of it is the story about the loan guarantee.  “I’ve got to tell you, I never worked for anything so hard in my life as I worked for that loan guarantee,” Dunderdale told reporters in the scrum after her speech. That quote is from the Telegram account by James McLeod.

Do we have it? #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale had a pretty easy audience on Monday for her relaxed, ambling speech about a whole bunch of stuff.

It was the St. John’s Board of Trade. 

As a rule, the townie business community have the guts of political guppies.  They’ll run along with whatever the government says and Monday was no different.  When the Conservatives were spending and spending beyond what the province could afford, the crowd at the Board of Trade cheered wildly.  And now on cue they are repeating the Conservative line on spending restraint – when there really isn’t any – and the glories of Muskrat Falls, which is the proof the government is continuing to spend beyond the public’s means.

The crowd at the aptly named BOT know what side their bread is buttered on so they applauded in all the right spots in the Premier’s stock speech.

Well, almost stock.

Like Father. Like Son. #nlpoli

So after a teaser column in the Telegram last week that was more creative fiction than serious history or memoir, John Crosbie explained why he loves the Muskrat Falls project in this Saturday’s instalment of Geriatric Townie Pass-times.

It’s really simple.

The project will be splendiferous.

Phantasmagorical.

Amazingly, marvellously, Keebler-elves-kinda-magical.

Lowest Cost Option #nlpoli

Note:  The words glory hole and shaft in this post are terms used in the mining and oil and gas industries.

The provincial government is almost finished “remediating” the environmental contamination left from the old American Smelting and refining Company (ASARCO) mine at Buchans.

According to a news release from Tom Hedderson, tenders are due to go out on May 25 for the final phase.

Read the release and the one thing you will notice is that there’s no description of what the provincial government is actually doing to reduce the environmental risk to residents from the mine tailings and other debris from the old mine.

There’s likely a reason for that.

Polling Voters #nlpoli

If you are still mulling over the British Columbia election result and the polls, take a look at this post by Eric Grenier at threehundredeight.com.  It includes a link to his piece in the Globe on Wednesday on the same topic.

Pollsters tend to weight their samples to match the population as a whole.  Problem:  that isn’t the same as the demographic profile of voters.voters.

Grenier shows how Ipsos, for example, weighted a poll equally across three age groupings.  In the 2013 election, those age groupings didn’t turn out equally.  The over-55s made up half the total voter turn-out, not one third.

It just doesn’t stop #nlpoli

There’s a new anti-Conservative picture around town. 

This one is via Twitter (@openionated ).

-srbp-

Beth and Expenses #nlpoli #cdnpoli

All this talk of Senator Beth Marshall and her hefty annual stipend for chairing a committee that has met once in two years brings to mind the good senator’s role in the House of Assembly patronage scam, a.k.a. the spending scandal.

Marshall is credited with first sniffing something was amiss when she went hunting for Paul Dick’s expenses in 2001-ish.  She was barred from the House by the legislature’s internal economy commission.  The members were Liberals and Tories and, as accounts have it, they unanimously wanted to keep Beth’s nose out of their files.

But if you go back and look, you’ll have a hard time finding any indication Beth thought something else was on the go.  While we didn’t know it at the time, subsequent information confirmed that members had been handing out public cash pretty generously by that point. Yet Marshall has never, ever indicated she felt something more than a few wine and art purchases might have been amiss.

That’s important because of Marshall’s record once she got into the House herself as a member in 2003.

There’s no crap like old crap #nlpoli

And John Crosbie’s recent column (May 18) in the Telegram about Churchill Falls contains some of the oldest  - and completely unsubstantiated – crap on the go.

Political Grab-Bag #nlpoli

For the first day back after a long weekend, here are some short snappers on some issues swirling around these days at the national scene.

Stagnation and Decay #nlpoli

The House of Assembly finished its spring session on Thursday after what appears to be one of the shortest sessions in the past 30 years.

The government presented only seven bills for debate, only a quarter of the normal load for the major sitting for the House.  That seems to be a record as well, and not of the sort any government would wish to hold.

For good measure,  the people of Newfoundland and Labrador could watch some of the most abysmal behaviour in recent memory, including a political lynching aided by a partisan and incompetent Speaker of the House.

What they are really watching, though, was nothing as trivial as a finance minister Jerome Kennedy’s second session of embarrassing  verbal attacks on other members.  People are watching a governing party that is in the advanced stages of stagnation and decay.

The NAPE Poll Income #nlpoli

As it turns out, Harris-Decima used household income not individual income for weighting the poll they did for NAPE. Keith Dunne, NAPE’s communications co-ordinator tweeted the correct information on Thursday morning.

Your humble e-scribbler thought it was individual income and therefore concluded – wrongly – that there was a skew in the poll toward higher income urbanites.  That didn’t invalidate the survey results but it might have explained the strength of the rejection of the provincial government’s budget.  The Tories might have had a chance to bounce back politically, especially among the lower income types out there.

Turns out that hope was pretty much dashed.

Self Skew-ered #nlpoli

Two thirds of tax filers in Newfoundland and Labrador report incomes of less than $35,000 per year.

The Harris-Decima poll released by the Newfoundland and labrador Association of Public Employees on Wednesday has only 27% of the sample with an income less than $40,000 per year.

Still, the results show that the provincial government either didn’t have a communications strategy or whatever strategy they had failed miserably.

In fact, it was a stunning, utter, complete, abject failure of their entire communications effort.

The Fruits of A Very Poisonous Tree #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale said on Tuesday that the province will have problems now that it doesn’t have a federal cabinet minister from this province.

As CBC quoted her from a scrum outside the House of Assembly, Kathy said:

“It always makes it more difficult when you don't have somebody inside the tent,…”

This is not just a difficult position, it is a stupid position, but it is exactly the stupid policy that Kathy Dunderdale advocated.

The Decline of the Forest Empire #nlpoli

While an official with Corner Brook’s municipal government  understandably has to say wonderful things about the economy in the west coast city, a look at some numbers shows the city is feeling the effects of a larger problem in the province.

SRBP took a look at newsprint production levels and the value of newsprint exports from 2003 to 2012.  The numbers are all from the annual editions of the budget document called The Economy.

The picture is not pretty.

Steep Curves and Third Place #nlpoli

Liberal leader Dwight Ball told CBC’s David Cochrane this past weekend that his job as Opposition Leader came with a steep learning curve.

Indeed it does and on Monday, Ball proved just how steep the curve is.

The $150K Communications Audit #nlpoli

Poor Jerome Kennedy.

They sent him out Monday to explain to reporters what the government got for its $150,000 audit by Fleishman-Hillard in later 2011.

Kennedy had a hard time explaining it.

He went all over the mass of talking points floating around in his head.  he said – without a hint of a joke – that the departmental communications directors are not political staff.  on paper, maybe, Jerome, but in practice, they are either partisans or have been heavily politicised.

Keep on churnin’ #nlpoli

You can add another five changes to the record of senior executive appointments cabinet has made since the beginning of the year, according to orders-in-council posted to the provincial government’s website.

That brings the total for Calendar Year 2013 to 20.

Six the 20 are acting appointments, meaning that cabinet will either have to confirm the appointment or put someone new in the job.

Cabinet remains on track to make 60 such appointments in 2013, setting an all-time record for changes in the 121 deputy minister and assistant deputy minister positions in the provincial government.

-srbp-

Where was Fairity’s contract chopper? #nlpoli

In the wake of the tragic death last week of Joseph Riche, it shouldn’t be surprising that some people, including some politicians, are blaming the tragedy on the Department of National Defence.

That’s what politicians do in this province.  Blame Ottawa is a time-honoured political strategy even if it is usually a political lie.

As with the Burton Winters tragedy, these provincial politicians are aiming public concern in the wrong direction.

More on the 2009 Rift #nlpoli

The Kremlinology post on Trevor Taylor, Paul Oram and the apparent policy disagreement in cabinet in 2008/09 generated two contacts (a tweet and an e-mail) that are worth discussing.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Kremlinology 44: the 2009 Rift in Cabinet #nlpoli

Trevor Taylor left politics in 2009 in an unseemly hurry.

One minute he was there. 

Next minute?  Gone from cabinet and the House of Assembly.

Very odd.

Then right on his heels went Paul Oram, who muttered something about unsound financial management by the Conservatives as he ran from the Confederation Building.

A very big clue to what was going on at the time turned up on Tuesday in Trevor Taylor’s column in the Telegram.

Tom Marshall’s Dead Muskrat Sketch #nlpoli

Tom Marshall used to be the finance minister. 

He’s the guy who consistently, year after year, spent more than the people of the province could afford. Tom didn’t do it by himself:  he had the support of all his colleagues in cabinet.

And since 2009, Tom and his colleagues have admitted that they mismanaged the provincial government accounts by overspending.

Deliberately.

Along the way, Tom has claimed some things that aren’t true.  Like saying that he and his colleagues lowered the provincial debt when they didn’t.

So now that he is natural resources minister, Tom Marshall is still telling people things that aren’t true.  This time it is about the glories of the 2008 expropriation.

What Tom says.

The truth.

Two different things.

And you want to be my latex salesman? #nlpoli

Last week SRBP noted that the provincial cabinet seems to be having some difficulty getting legislation into the House for debate.

Normally, we’d see upwards of 30 bills handled in the spring session.  In 2011 they had almost all the bills introduced by the early part of May.  In 2012, the provincial government had more than twice as many bills on the go as they do this year.

Well on Monday, finance minister Jerome Kennedy gave notice he has one more bill to add:  an amendment to the Revenue Administration Act.  He called it amendment number three.

Except it isn’t.

Ground Control to Major Tom #nlpoli

New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael asked natural resources minister Tom Marshall in the House of Assembly on Monday about Husky’s plans for natural gas development offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

The story appeared in upstreamonline.com on May 3 and SRBP told you about it the same day.

Here’s what Marshall said about the article:

I have not had the opportunity to read the particular article that which she is referring to, but I would also be happy to have a discussion with the company.

Not the arse-end of the world … #nlpoli

Check out the 2012 Hydro-Quebec annual report and you will find a lovely chart showing trends in energy prices in northeastern North America.

“After reaching a historic peak in 2008, natural gas and electricity prices in northeastern North America dropped sharply in 2009, then rose slightly in 2010 only to fall again, such that prices in 2012 were at their lowest in 10 years.” (page 11)

From an historic peak to the lowest prices in a decade a mere four years later.

Why separate? #nlpoli

Last week, the federal Auditor General pointed out many serious problems with the state of offshore search and rescue.

Last week, the usual gang grabbed any microphone they could find to call  - yet again - for everything from a provincial public inquiry into the state of search and rescue in the province to a new agency to regulate safety in the offshore oil industry.

The idea that we had to split safety from other aspects came up during the offshore helicopter inquiry.  The idea is popular.  Helicopter safety inquiry commissioner Robert Wells included it as one of his recommendations in volume one.

But here’s the thing:  what is a so-called separate safety agency supposed to do that we aren’t doing now or couldn’t accomplish any other way?

Husky sizing up natural gas offshore Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

Husky Energy is sizing up the potential of developing natural gas offshore Newfoundland and Labrador within the next decade, according to the leading petroleum industry news source upstreamonline.com.

First exports could begin in 2025, if enough resources can be certified, according to upstream. The likely export destination would be western Europe, a market very close to Newfoundland and Labrador and where prices are considerably stronger than they are in North America.

upstream’s story notes that the provincial government “quashed” any idea of using local natural gas in place of Muskrat falls, but reports that since then the “the idea of LNG exports appears to now have more traction, suggested one source…”.  upstream reported that “Husky is said to be taking a fresh look at known and potential gas resources to see if their scale would justify, technically and commercially, building a liquefaction plant.”

upstream reports that Husky commissioned a report from IntecSea to explore potential development of the 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore Labrador. 

Industry sources suggested a potential timeline towards first LNG exports could see pre-front-end engineering and design studies taking place in 2016-2017.

Front-end engineering and design would take place through to 2019 in advance of a firm decision, according to upstream.

-srbp-

Light Session #nlpoli

As of May 2, there are a mere six pieces of legislation on the list of bills currently set for debate in the House of Assembly.  It seems to be up to date because on Thursday they added links to a couple of the bills that are ready to start debate.

But they didn’t add any to the six listed there.

Seen on a pole somewhere #nlpoli

-srbp-

Political Translator: No’durn Strategy #nlpoli

Former premier Tom Rideout has an accent typical of the northeast coast of Newfoundland.  in his days as a cabinet minister after 2003,  Rideout often used the word “northern”.  It came out in his pronunciation as “no-durn” or “know-durn”.

Tom’s legacy leaves on, even inadvertently.  Four years or so after Rideout got fed up and left provincial politics,  Labrador affairs minister Nick McGrath confirmed recently that the Northern Strategic Plan the provincial Conservatives talk about so much doesn’t exist.

There’s no durn plan.

Province settles Fortis asset grab for $76 million #nlpoli

Natural resources minister Tom Marshall announced in the House of Assembly on Tuesday that the provincial government had settled with the last of a string of private companies victimised by a 2008 asset grab of hydro-electric generating facilities by the provincial government.

Taxpayers will cover a $54 million debt owed by Fortis, one of the partners in the Exploits Partnership, as well as pay the company an additional $18 million.  Taxpayers have already paid more than $4 million according to media reports, bringing the total to about $76 million for the Fortis asset swipe alone.

In 2011, the provincial government took responsibility for a $40 million loan owed on Star Lake, another part of the 2008 hydro asset expropriation.  The government also paid $32.8 million to Enel one of the partners in the project.

The provincial government seized the hydro assets in an extraordinary expropriation bill that government original touted as being aimed at Abitibi in punishment for closing a paper mill in the central Newfoundland town of Grand Falls-Windsor. 

Information subsequently came to light that confirmed the government’s real target in the expropriation were the lucrative hydro-electric generating assets owned by Abitibi, Enel, and Fortis in two separate partnerships.  The provincial government turned over the assets free of charge to the Crown-owned Nalcor Energy. 

Nalcor will now use the generating stations to help meet its commitments to provide Emera with free electricity for 35 years under the Muskrat Falls deal.

For now, though, taxpayers are being forced to pay for the seizure and for the electricity Nalcor makes at the seized plants.  Under a cabinet order dated April 4, 2013,  Nalcor sells electricity from the Exploits plant to its subsidiary Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro for the fixed price of four cents per kilowatt hour.  Hydro sells the power to consumers at much higher rates, thereby pocketing a sizeable profit entirely at public expense.

In its original plan, government intended to skim off any valuable assets and leave Abitibi with any environmental liabilities. As it turned out, the expropriation seized one of the most polluted properties Abitibi held.  The expropriation freed Abitibi of any liabilities since they went with the ownership.

There is no independent estimate available of the costs of the environmental clean-up of the seized facilities.

-srbp-

Wanted: a good row #nlpoli

One of the unreserved joys that comes from writing these scribbles is the moment when a post sparks something.

Like on Monday, when a simple post looking at change in the provincial gross domestic product prompted an exchange among a few of the provincial Twitterati (Twitteratini?) on the whole business.  Was it useful?  What did it mean?  Wonderful stuff considering that the post was intended to provoke thought of just that sort, not reach any hard-and-fast conclusions.

Annual GDP Change #nlpoli

A release on Friday from Statistics Canada showed that the provincial economy shrank by almost 5% in 2012.  They even supplied a lovely chart to illustrate the GDP changes in each province as well as the national average.

This wasn’t just modest growth or even a  modest drop.  We are talking one of only two provinces with a drop in GDP and the biggest change – positive or negative – of any province or territory in Canada. 

Alberta is even more dependent on commodities than Newfoundland and Labrador and it still managed to see gross domestic product grow by almost four percent.

Not so in the former Republic of Dannystan. 

Down.

By almost five percent.

 

The 2013 Q1 Churn Appointments #nlpoli

One of the great things about having orders in council readily available is that people can find information.

That’s exactly why the current administration has kept them as secret as possible since 2003 and continue to censor them, even though orders in council are entirely public documents.

But at least in the wake of the Bill 29 Freedom From Information measures,  the Conservatives seem to have been shamed into opening the vault on their secrets a bit even if they still censor public documents.

One of the things we can now readily see, though,  is the number of appointments made by cabinet in the first quarter of 2013 to deputy minister and assistant deputy minister jobs.

Today in history…

April 25 is the 218th birthday of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

-srbp-

Wiseman violated privileges and rights of all members #nlpoli

Ross Wiseman violated Gerry Roger’s rights as a member of the House of Assembly.

He did so, by his own initial ruling, with no evidence whatsoever that the member had committed any contempt of the House.

He thinks an apology is good enough.

Ross Wiseman is wrong again.

Here’s why.

Don’t feed the Crazies #nlpoli

First,  slander is something defamatory that someone says.

Libel is what you call a defamatory comment that is printed.  So a poster would be a libel since it is printed.

Second, the story on the VO website about a bunch of posters contains an editorial opinion, not a fact, when it says that the posters “slander” the Premier.

“Who wants Kathy Dunderdale as Premier?” is hardly defamatory.  The last line on the poster is strong, saying that the Premier is a “source of shame for us all.”

Unless the bad words on the poster that you edited out for the website say something really awful, it sure doesn’t look like you have something defamatory.  As it turns out, the words are reputedly “Liar, Bully, and Fool”.

Strong but it is still looking like an opinion and not a defamation.

Best thing for VOCM to do:  leave the opinions to others, like say a lawyer or a judge, and stick to reporting the news.

Third, this poster seems to be something we could reasonably expect after last week’s events.  That doesn’t mean it is right.  It just means that the botched attack on Gerry Rogers and the Facebook group might just be getting some people a bit more riled up than they would be otherwise.

-srbp-

Taxing the Imagination #nlpoli

What is it about the provincial Conservatives and income tax?

Kathy Dunderdale rabbited on about it last fall and again in January.

Last week, the provincial Conservatives were at it again, with a private members resolution in the House that praised the government for cutting taxes and for not raising them now that they’ve fallen on hard times.

Some free advice #nlpoli

The Premier’s daughter tweeted this comment last Wednesday night.

Few people consider the impact that political life has on the families of politicians and political staffers.  Steve Paikin’s book The Dark Side deals with it, as SRBP noted in 2006.

That tweet is a reminder of that.

Here’s some advice for the Premier’s daughter from an old political hand.

Dunderfarce 2 #nlpoli

As if the week hasn’t been going badly enough for her, Premier Kathy Dunderdale decided to make it all the worse on Thursday with her scrum about her Twitter account.

Here’s what we have learned:

#Dunderporn and #Dunderfarce #nlpoli #cdnpoli

What was the tragedy of the orchestrated political lynching of an innocent member of the House of Assembly by the provincial Conservatives has now turned to farce.

On Tuesday, Premier Kathy Dunderdale was on her high horse: Conservative members of the House of Assembly "understand very well how Facebook works," Dunderdale told reporters outside the House of Assembly, “and as an MHA, when you're on Facebook, when you're engaged in Twitter, then you have to have an obligation to pay attention."

Neither Dunderdale nor several of her colleagues apparently were paying attention.

The Keystone Kops and their Kangaroo Kourt #nlpoli

The Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador are politically deaf.  They only hear themselves.

Former fisheries minister Trevor Taylor used his Telegram column on Monday to issue a few hypocritical tut tuts about the state of public discussion in the province.

Too negative he whined, sounding for all the world like someone was holding a small dog turd under his nose as he typed.  His political pals on da Twitter chimed in as they are programmed to do.

Shortly after 1:30, government house leader Darin King rose in the House on a point of order.  He wanted the Speaker to suspend Gerry Rogers from the House of Assembly not for something Rogers said or even endorsed but merely because her name appeared on a group critical of government on which some moron had posted threats against the Premier.

The Tories sealed the triple play when Speaker Ross Wiseman ruled that while there was no evidence on the face of it that Rogers was guilty of endorsing the threats, he would invent a reason to condemn her anyway.

They are blind, too.

New telephone tax to pay for 911 service #nlpoli

The provincial Conservatives could haul in up to $7.7 million through a new tax on telephones to be introduced ostensibly to pay for province-wide 911 emergency service, municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien announced on Tuesday.

According to the official backgrounder, the provincial government will introduce a new tax of “less than one dollar per month” on every landline and cellular telephone in the province.  At a news conference, O’Brien and fire and emergency services boss Mike Samson estimated there were upwards of 650,000 phones in the province. 

Although the release describes the approach as a “cost-recovery” model, neither O’Brien nor Samson would estimate the annual cost of operating the system. 

Other provinces use the same approach.  PEI charges 70 cents per telephone or working line while Nova Scotia charges less than 50 cents. Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and New Brunswick also tax telephones to pay for 911 service.

-srbp-

The “Significant Impact” of Open Line #nlpoli

Cleaning out the home office has turned up a few forgotten gems.

One of them related to the political impact of open line shows in the province.  Last week,  your humble e-scribbler moderated a lunch-time talk by Professor Alex Marland and Randy Simms on just that topic.  The pile of papers included a Canadian Press story that appeared some time in early May, 2008. 

Headlined “Williams lashes out against accusations of tight message control”,  the story was Danny Williams’; reactions to comments during the Cameron Inquiry by John Abbott, the former deputy minister of health and community services.

Newfoundland [sic] Premier Danny Williams says a former public servant made "offensive and stupid" remarks when he told a public inquiry that radio call-in shows influenced the government's handling of an emerging scandal involving flawed breast-cancer testing.

Oblivious Neutron Bomb #nlpoli

Even at the worst of their leadership feuding Jean Chretien and Paul Martin never frigged each other over the way Kathy Dunderdale and Jerome Kennedy did last week.

While Kennedy was trying to tell everyone that the justice reversal wasn’t going to happen to all the cuts, Dunderdale (right, poppy eyes and all) was on the open line shows and everywhere else someone had a microphone, telling us that if people could make “compelling arguments” she’d have another look at the budget cuts.

What is a “compelling argument”, you might ask?   

No one knows.

The Keystone Kops Ride Again #nlpoli

We already knew that the provincial cabinet had abandoned their budget before the document had been debated in the House.  That happened last week when the Premier ordered the justice minister and the attorney general to abandon the cabinet-approved cuts in the justice department.

Less than 12 hours after meeting with the same officials justice minister Darin King consulted before cabinet approved the cuts, King and attorney general Tom Marshall (right, not exactly as illustrated) told reporters that whatever those officials had said would now be the policy.

The change of policy is breathtaking enough.  Not only will some of the laid-off court security officers be rehired, but cabinet has also lifted the hiring freeze to allow the High Sheriff to immediately hire more staff.  Someone will also be appointed to conduct operational reviews of the three departments – High Sheriff,  legal aid and Crown prosecution service – involved in the cabinet flip flop.

But that’s not the truly striking aspect of this abrupt change.