More than a play - CBC Radio June 19

Here's a heads-up on a radio documentary some of you might find interesting.

It's by an old friend of mine who is a radio producer here in St. John's.

"More than a play" was written and produced by students at Gonzaga High School about a first world war soldier, and the connection they made with his family as a result.

The documentary airs in the second hour of The Sunday Edition at 10:30 AM Newfoundland and Labrador time, 10:00 AM in the rest of Canada, on CBC Radio One.

You can hear it again, in Newfoundland and Labrador, on Monday, June 20 on "On the Go", at 4:30 PM on CBC Radio One.

Heather Barrett produced the doc so give it a listen. Her stuff is always interesting and insightful.

Incidentally, you can also pick this up via the Internet by heading to www.cbc.ca/nl. Just hunt around for the link to the live streaming feed.

Curious ship with a golf ball on top

Anyone driving on the waterfront in St. John's can see a vessel called Gulf Pacific, owned by Gulf Fleet, an offshore supply boat company.

Since these pictures were taken and posted to the Gulf Fleet website, someone installed a large radar dome on almost amidships.

The dome is curiously similar in size to the ones used to house missile tracking radars. It likely isn't anything too mysterious as missile tracking radars come in a set of different types.

It's still curious, though.

X-Band radars and Goose Bay - update

CBC Radio news is reporting this morning that there is continued interest in locating an X-band radar system at Goose Bay of what would inevitably be part of the American ballistic missile defence system.

Previous public discussion of this project suggested that the contractor (Raytheon) was likely to propose building a large, fixed installation at Goose Bay with a cost of about $500 million and a support crew of about 100 people.

The CBC story links to a news release by Raytheon on June 8 announcing that the company had received a US government contract to provide logistics support for three forward-deployed, transportable x-band radar systems (FBX-T).

Here are a few quick observations:

1. The FBX-T is deployable by air, sea or rail and is intended to be mobile.

2. FBX-T would be deployed to fill gaps or provide layered coverage in specific situations. It is not intended to be permanently located in one spot.

3. The US ballistic missile defence agency has already acquired one system and has plans to let contracts for the second and third systems in this fiscal year.

4. Under the June 8 contract, Raytheon would be responsible for all aspects of FBX-T deployment and support.

5. As this link notes, FBX-T is an integral part of the ballistic missile defence system. It would be owned an operated by an American firm but "Host Nation would provide Force Protection." That means the local military forces would be responsible for defending the installation.

6. If this is in fact what Raytheon is talking about deploying to Goose Bay, then there is potentially a major gap between their public comments and what the federal government is saying. FBX-T is definitely part of the BMD project. It would extremely difficult to argue that it is part of NORAD's aerospace sensors as if they were not connected to ballistic missile defence.

There'll be more as I get it.

Negatively impacting on the brain housing group: Another D'oh for D'underdale!

Last year, no one in the provincial government managed to do a simple online search for information on Sino-Energy. One of the partners, a Chinese state-owned enterprise is under sanctions from the American government for selling military components to countries like North Korea.

Apparently no one also bothered to check with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about Chinese intelligence agencies using their state-run businesses as cover for spying. There have been a couple of stories this week already about statements by former Chinese officials about the extent of Chinese espionage in Canada and Australia.

Then yesterday, we find out that no one bothered to check out American call-centre company Teletech using what Jack Harris has hilariously referred to as due diligence for dummies: the Internet search engine google.

Turns out there are class-action law suits in the US alleging unfair labour practices. No real surprise there since a friend flipped me a couple of hits from his google activities on Teletech. Now, my buddy was rotted that the provincial government wouldn't even give a ball-park estimate of how much money the province was going to pump into this company. Then he found out that this company doesn't even have contracts secured to support their new Mount Pearl operation. He rotted more, if that was possible.

Actually, a simple google search for "teletech + law" also turns up references to other alleged unfair labour practices like this one from Australia. There's also the obligatory MSN site where people can gripe about Teletech. There have been some copyright and trademark cases between similarly named companies in the United States.

My favourite is this economics exam from Washburn University. Take a look at the way the instructor has put together question five. Seems the people of Kansas are lazy and known to be so. Wage costs for Teletech would lower in Montana, according to the question preamble, but the Montanans are unreliable.

Question 5.c hits on one major aspect of the call centre business and Teletech is big on this one: how much of a subsidy will they need to make operating in Topeka worthwhile or words to that effect.

That's another aspect of the google search on Teletech. They like subsidies. Here's a release from 1996 when Teletech opened a call centre in Niagara Falls New York. In this release, then-Governor George Pataki listed off the cash being handed out to lure the company to New York. My question on some of these has to do with turn-over: does the company get cash for every employee up to a maximum period of time? If so, then check to see how many employee stay on the books after that period. Subsidies could be a perverse incentive to turn over huge numbers of employees, while maximizing company revenues. If you need to follow the logic, go back and re-read the Washburn economics question.

There's also a fair bit of positive stuff, too, on Teletech, just to make sure you know it isn't all bad.

But actually, none of that, while entertaining, is really the point.

The real problem here is that the provincial government appears to be completely incompetent when it comes to assessing fully companies looking to do business in the province with tax money. The government's "due diligence piece", as Innovation Trade and Rural Development minister Kathy Dunderdale calls it is far from diligent and there is no reasonable explanation for the repeated failures.

In a television interview last evening with CBC, the minister for the department with the apt acronym InTRD, said that the "due diligence piece" had been completed before these law suits were filed and that government had been in discussions with Teletech for about 18 months (early 2004).

Curiously, this decision before the American Labour Relations Board was handed down in December 2003 and found Teletech guilty of unfair labour practices. This site notes that one of the class action suits in the stuff the media talked about on Wednesday was filed in February 2004.

In another interview, the minister said that the outside companies hired to carry out the "due diligence piece" would not necessarily pick up these sorts of issues. So what were they looking for? Lint?

She also said this information turned up by reporters wouldn't have "negatively impacted" on government's decision, had it been known.

The problem, Kath is not that you might have acted differently if you knew. The point is you just didn't have all relevant information in front of you when you opened my chequebook to hand some American company some of my cash.

The problem is that we out here among the toiling masses don't know what else it is that you don't know before you make a decision.

Aside from anything else at that point in the interview, I just cringed at that abysmal use of the English language. Does the minister think the use of phrases like "negatively impacted" makes her sound smarter? If you can't say it in plain English, then you really have no idea what you are trying to say.

Maybe it is time the minister of business started talking in plain English.

Maybe she could get her officials to use some plain old common sense.

Maybe then she could actually get on with the job of being the minister of InTRD rather than the minister in t*rd.

When you hear hoofbeats...

think horses, not zebras.

That's an old axiom used to teach doctors the simple logic of diagnosis. Go for the more obvious or most likely answer, not the exotic.

While people have frequently looked to Argentia as a site for contamination by everything from nuclear weapons to mysterious biological germ warfare bugs, everyone missed a really obvious point.

At all US-owned facilities in Canada, the Americans would have used a variety of pesticides and herbicides that today are known to be dangerous. The sites are scattered all over and include both the well-known bases and the lesser known PineTree Radar sites.

As far as I know, not a single individual has ever taken a hard look at used of pesticides and herbicides around former American bases in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Oh, by the way, this Gagetown Agent Orange story was covered in detail about 10 years ago when I was a DND public affairs officer. Curious that it has come back now with such a vengeance.

Blogosphere Book Club

I was actually tagged on this one last Monday by Liam O'Brien over at Responsible Government League and since the Governor General herself has gotten into the act, I guess it is time for lowly ole me to get in on this latest cyberspace chain letter.

(Yes, Liam, while you didn't ask, I will add a link to you from my blog when I next update my right-hand menu bar. Actually I am going to breakdown the blog list into Newfoundland and Labrador blogs...and everyone else.)

Number of books that you own:

The rough count puts the number somewhere between 750 and 1,000. There are still some in boxes and on shelves at my parent's place. There are few circulating among friends who borrowed them but haven't returned them yet. There are a bunch more I have read and would love to own but just couldn't afford at the time.

Last book that you bought:

Frankly, I can't recall. It has been a while - maybe a few months - but whatever it was it is now mixed in among a pile of older stuff that I have been re-reading.

Last book that I read:

Since I have been teaching a course in public relations writing and a course in research methods, the most recent books I have been pouring over are the texts for those courses.

Somewhere in there I devoured Jeffrey Deaver's The vanished man, a clever novel by the author of The bone collector. An old friend loaned me that one and a collection of his short stories, which waits unread so far. If we count back to Christmas, I re-read Pierre Trudeau's Federalism and the French-Canadians, and Brinco: the story of Churchill Falls by Philip Smith.

Books that mean a lot to you:

This is perhaps the toughest question but here's a stab at it:

1. Gus Hasford's The short-timers. There's a link over on the right to a website maintained in his memory containing his three novels. The short-timers was the basis for Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket but there's a sequel which I had never found in a bookstore anywhere but the website. Print them off and read them back to back; you'll understand why FMJ is actually a pale version of what could have been one of the most powerful (anti-) war films ever made.

Hasford was a Marine Corps combat correspondent in Vietnam and later turned to writing to exorcise his demons. Dale Dye, who some of you may recognize from his work in Hollywood on movies like Platoon and Saving Private Ryan, was one of Hasford's buddies and served as the model for the character Daddy D.A. The short-timers is a relatively short book but it is intense, dark, funny in places and full of insights into the minds of men thrown into some of the most appalling situations imaginable.

I go back and read it often, if for no other reason than to rediscover that payback is a mother******.

2. Peter Neary's Newfoundland in the North Atlantic world. Those who know me understand that while I love this place dearly, I have never been a local nationalist. Neary's book was the first attempt to analyze the two decades before Confederation using all the insights of one of the province's best professional historians. The format is accessible for non-historians, meaning Neary doesn't use a lot of big words that mean nothing.

Next to it, I would put Ray Blake's Canadian's at last: Canada integrates Newfoundland as a province. It's too bad this book isn't on more reading lists but I keep plugging furiously whenever the chance arises. Ray is a Newfoundlander currently teaching history at U Sask.

3. Pierre Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians. Sadly long out of print, this collection of essays and articles from Cite libre had a profound affect on my understanding of issues affecting the country when I came of age in the 1970s and 1980s. This is still the template for a book on Newfoundland and Labrador waiting to be written.

4. Biographies and memoirs are a category of book I have grown increasingly fond of over time. There are too many favourites to mention. Shag the stuff by guys like Donald Trump; I prefer books by people who have risen, dropped and then risen again let alone actually accomplished something. As a rule, anyone who has no experience of genuine failure in life doesn't have to say worth hearing.

There are a few I'd recommend:

- Kimchi, asahi and rum by Robert Peacock. A young infantry officer during the last year of the Korean War, Peacock is an old friend of my father-in-law. The book is good stuff for a young person to read who may find himself or herself in the position of leading men and women through anything. Look past the military stuff and you will see some insights into leading people in any setting.

- Mud and green fields, by George Kitching. Another war memoir by a man of great ability and dignity even if the average Canadian wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground. This book took on a special meaning after I had met Kitching's son, while the fellow worked on a project we were both involved in. The fellow was genuinely astonished when I asked if he was any relation of Major General Kitching.

- Farley Mowat's The regiment and My father's son along with Spike Milligan's series of memoirs on the North African, Sicilian and Italian campaigns. I find these books especially hard to read as they manage to strike a strong emotional chord. They are intensely personal and on those two counts worth going through when one needs to come back to Earth.

5. My mother would be surprised to know that The Bible has influenced much of my attitude toward life, the world and my place in it, even if I seldom darken the door of a church. Spiritual beliefs are not something I am in the habit of discussing with people, but I would be remiss in not acknowledging it publicly. The Golden Rule, incidentally, is just a kinder expression of the payback thing Hasford talked about.

6. Others may be surprised to find that Robert Tucker's The Marx-Engels Reader and The Lenin Anthology have helped shape my analytical approaches to a great many things. Bill McGrath suffered through reading my papers during a few political science courses but the dialectical approach has a certain usefulness that has proven itself in the oddest of places.

7. In the same vein, Karl von Clausewitz's On war is one of those books people claim to have read when they actually didn't. I did read it, and again this is a book where how Clausewitz looked at his subject is more useful in certain cases than his dense prose or his over-quoted dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means.

All of that has helped shape by approach to public relations, but that's really another post for another time.

8. Winkin, blinkin and nod. I shall always cherish and never be able to convey adequately the feelings that come from reading over and over again this charming little book to two precious children as they nod off to sleep. They are long past it now, but I am not. Heaven to me would be spending eternity putting the wee ones to bed.

There.

Done.

Now I just have to go off an tag a few unsuspecting e-mail victims and see what they reply.

The tragedy of common-place thinking

Take a look at The Independent this week and you'll see an interesting study in contrasts.

On the front page is a solid story by Stephanie Porter on the role of the media in covering criminal trials. It covers the subject thoroughly and quotes local reporters for print and television outlets here as well as news directors, all of whom refer to the need for factual accuracy and unbiased reporting in their news.

Flip over to the Indy editorial though and you see yet another example of the paper's editorial tendency to play fast and loose with the facts.

Back to that in a moment, but it is worthwhile recapping some of the Indy's other factually-challenged reporting, because it has become a fairly regular feature of the upstart little broadsheet.

Largest of all was the six-part "balance sheet" series. Their were numbers that appeared factual; problem is there were only some numbers. As many awards as the series garnered, it has not turned up as evidence in any reputable pieces elsewhere, save for this rather facile paper on the recent oil discussion printed in a mainland policy magazine. More often than not anyone with half a clue about federal-provincial financial relations look on the Indy piece as a second-rate effort at best. In these e-scribbles, I have suggested the conclusions was drawn and then bits of information were used to prop it up; anything that contradicted the pre-selected conclusion was discarded.

Then we have the clash with Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Chief Richard Deering over a recent investigation conducted by the Ontario Provincial Police at the chief's request. Fact is, the Indy got its facts dead wrong and may have based their front-page story on the information of one, evidently poorly informed, source. When they couldn't prove their original allegation - how could they? - they chose instead to lash the chief for his criticism and questioning of the reporter who wrote the story.

So too for its coverage of fisheries issues which often goes back for "evidence" in the comments by Gus Etchegary. Now a regular caller to radio talk shows, Etchegary is a former senior official at Fishery Products International (FPI) and chief spokesman for the "Blame the Foreigners for Everything and then Blame Ottawa for the Foreigners" school of fisheries management.

Etchegary might be a more credible witness for the prosecution against the foreigners and the mainlanders were it not for the fact that he worked at FPI in the days when the company gave orders to its skippers to "highgrade" their catches. Owen Myers, a former fisheries inspector has described the practice elsewhere, but essentially it involves tossing small but legal fish overboard in order to get a quota made up of only the biggest fish. In the process, thousands if not millions of tons of cod were dumped overboard by FPI trawlers over the years - dead as the proverbial doornail. "Highgrading" is another former of overfishing; it's illegal, in case you missed that point, and predictably when current FPI boss Derrick Rowe recently admitted his company doesn't have a lilly-white history on the subject, Etchegary speed-dialed any radio program out there to condemn Rowe.

That conveniently leads us back to the Indy editorial this week. Under the title "What is rightfully ours" the editorial discusses the current debate over the FPI proposal to sell a 40% interest in its American marketing division. To be fair, the editorial doesn't actually make a point, except that the whole vote is about "standing united as a people and protecting what is rightfully ours."

Along the way, though, it does manage to haul out some rather serious factual errors.

The simplest one has to do with the FPI proposal to sell interests totaling 40% in one of its divisions in order to raise $100 million that would invested in plants and equipment in the processing portion of the company.

The Indy seizes on this to note that in future "for example, Icelandic interests, which currently own 15% of FPI could buy out the entire 40% income trust and thereby owning a controlling interest in the company - and, consequently the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery."

Sheer nonsense.

A portion of the income trust is nothing more than a portion of a portion of the whole company, which is in turn owned by its shareholders. By law, no shareholder can own more than 15% of the company itself. These "Icelandic interests" can only hold 15% of the shares in the company as a whole and whatever bit of the income trust they eventually own - even if it is 100% - can never give them a controlling interest in the whole company nor can it give these interests "control" of the fishery offshore this province.

Simply put, the Indy didn't read the government information on this proposal, including a simple backgrounder on the FPI proposal nor did it ever read the Fishery Products International Limited Act. If anyone in the Harbour Drive offices did read these documents, they surely didn't understand the plain English in which they are written. The additional undertakings by the company, also expressly limit current shareholders from acquiring more than a defined percentage of the subsidiary. True the company agrees to secure such an undertaking from the Icelandic company, but even without it, what the Indy predicts simply can't happen. Period.

This is actually pretty simple stuff to read and understand; therefore the Indy's blatant error on these points is almost incomprehensible.

There are other errors of fact as well.

The editorial makes reference to "Ottawa's blatant mismanagement of the fish stocks" and then argues that this "fact" should, lead the federal government to pour money into the Harbour Breton plant.

When FPI was highgrading and fish plants churned out fillets, blocks and stamps, no one - not a single soul - ever accused Ottawa of mismanagement. That charge only emerged after 1992 when some people, especially those who had been involved deeply in the fishery in the 1980s, wanted to find a scapegoat.

The most basic factual error comes in another comment, and represents the false premise on which every fisheries argument the Indy has ever made is based:

"As a common property resource, the fish in the sea belongs [sic] to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Indeed, all Canadians. [sic]"

The fishery on the Grand Banks - the whole of it - is an international resource. Within the 200 mile exclusive economic zone the resources are managed by the government of Canada. They are not "owned" legally or morally by us or anyone else. Outside 200 miles, they are fished by countries from around the world based on whatever common agreement can be made. Some of those "foreign" fishermen are the umpteenth grandsons of the men who first dropped a hook into the waters over 500 years ago or the distant relatives of the men and women who the Indy claims now "own" the resources.

As side from that, though, the tragedy of the offshore fishery as it is approached from this province is indeed a tragedy of the commons. The resource is seen as belonging to everyone and therefore, it is there for everyone to prosecute. Remember teachers wetting a line and dropping a pot during the summer for a few extra dollars? The so-called food fishery is the result of this same approach - no one needs to fish in order to put a meal on his or her table except those who fish for a living. It is all a variation of the "spread" argument - spread the resource to whoever wants some of it until there is none left.

And in the end what might be left? The answer is very little. The tragedy of the commons is a simple one all are familiar with: when it - in this case fisheries conservation -is everyone's responsibility then it is no one's responsibility.

Today, there is a shortage of fish and an oversupply of people needing fish.

In the 1980s and the early 1990s, there were too many people chasing too few fish.

Same thing.

And unfortunately, the same thinking that created the problem twenty years ago still hobbles our thinking today.

Too bad the Indy doesn't actually exercise some independent thinking. If they did, they might well ponder which is more cruel:

- To close a fish plant and have people move to find other work within a year or two, while others might actually make a living from their fisheries work; or,

- To prop up the plant with cash and makework and purchased quotas and every few years go through a closure or closure scare for more than 20 years?

Which is more demeaning: A job with low wages propped up for the year by federal handouts or the chance to make a living from honest work alone?

Independent thought would require facts.

Too bad those are in short supply at the Indy.

USS Connie-prise season ender (updated)

The Globe is reporting this morning that a recent poll for the Globe and CTV by The Strategic Counsel shows a further slide in Connie support and an especially noticeable increase in Stephen Harper's "negatives".

No surprise that; as noted here some time ago, it was inevitable that Harper would come under examination in the wake of his disastrous election "strategy". There has been some media comment on that in the past few days, unsurprisingly. Harper himself has been very quiet.

Meanwhile, CTV has got an interesting post about a blog called Buckets of Grewal. The name is a play on the similarity between the spelling of Grewal's name and that stuff people used to feed Oliver Twist.

A few things to notice:

1. Buckets has posted a slide show of the complete, revised transcripts of the conversations as posted to Grewal's site. BUT, and this is a big but, Buckets has highlighted all the additions and changes for most of the set. You can see now the extent of the deletions and omissions from the early versions.

This is one of the most damning aspects of this entire case - the shoddy presentation of evidence that leads to suspicion of tampering and withholding.

I had posted earlier about the wings flying off the Connie Express in an election. Well, it might just be that a few parts of the aircraft are starting to dislodge over this whole business as well.

2. Bucket's site is upsetting to the Connie bloggers. Well, actually, Grewal has been upsetting to them but like all good Connie paranoids they like to blame their own problems on other people. Hence, they have been attacking the media - Connies apparently only watch Fox News - and either the forensic experts who have questioned the validity of the taped versions or people like Buckets who have dissected Grewal with precision.

2.a Connie columnists like Coyne have been alarmingly silent. Face it, Andy, Gurmant is tainted. The whole thing was a fraud.

2.b Have a gander at this site: Blank out Times, written a la A.A. Milne. There's another site linked off the Bucket one put together by the same guys.

3. The CTV story makes it seem odd that bloggers fact-check. Lots of bloggers check their own facts and the facts of people they are debating and arguing with or about. They not all typically "Republicans" as the CTV story asserts, quoting Antonia Zerbisias from the Toronto broadsheet with a tabloid 'tude, The Star.

Anyone with some time on their hand can skim down through the few blogs linked from this site. Consider Wells, Spector, Coyne and Kinsella but then have a look at some of the others, especially the political stuff.

Then go have a look at Antonia's blog. Make your own judgement. Is media critic the new word for gossip columnist?

Anyway, Antonia should have been paying more attention over the past six months. This blog and others spent a lot of time discussing and debating facts related to the offshore deal, for example.

4. By contrast, take a wander through the Connie blog list. There are bits of everything here. Plus a lot of really angry, angry people. Some of them are as nasty a bunch as I have seen.

All of that anger and Grewal idiocy, my friends, is one of the reasons that Stephen Harper (likely in mint condition Jim Kirk uniform left over from his last Trekkie-Con) is hearing his chief engineer Peter "Scottie" MacKay on the USS Connie yelling "I canna hold 'er cap't'n."

And this time he ain't talking about the blonde.

The Tragedy of FPI

Halfway through the debate on changes to legislation governing Fishery Products International Limited (FPI), the whole focus has shifted to Harbour Breton, the community where FPI has closed the town's major employment source.

Debate isn't really the word for it, though. The whole thing has become a sort of extortion racket. Politicians including Premier Danny Williams are insisting that FPI has to put something back in Harbour Breton, on the province's south coast as a price for their vote.

Someone tossed the extortion theme at me last night in a telephone call in which I listened to someone else rant. It was a pleasant change.

David Cochrane's debrief on The Fisheries Broadcast picked up the same idea, although I don't think he called it extortion. I think the word shakedown is closer to the truth.

Just to finish off the idea, here's a section from the Criminal Code of Canada that might potentially be applicable to some of the comments Premier Williams has been making. It is illegal, ladies and gentlemen to either entice a legislator to vote a certain way in exchange for something or to solicit such an inducement.

Under section 121 (1)(a)(ii), it is an offence for an official to demand or seek any benefit for himself or another person in exchange for the performance of his duties and responsibilities.

But underneath all that is a more significant issue highlighted in a CBC report also by David Cochrane on the whole FPI issue. That link requires RealPlayer, by the way.

In the report, Derrick Rowe points out that the whole of FPI has a stock market value of about $120 million. This makes it hard for the company to raise capital - i.e. cash - in order to rebuild the harvesting and processing sector.

FPI's plan to create an income trust and let new investors into the American marketing division will raise US$100 million. Rowe rightly points out that the secondary processing division is much more attractive to investors than a company that is burdened with all the political baggage FPI carries around.

The simple fact is that FPI is not a private sector company. It is a leftover exercise in social engineering; a social assistance program. It is, to be perfectly accurate, a Crown corporation in all but name only.

The reason why FPI continues to flounder and rural communities suffer has less to do with the closure of Harbour Breton and more with the political interference of successive governments since Brian Peckford that have prevented FPI from being a private sector company based in this province.

Rather than surging ahead as Fortis has done, FPI flops about like a Newfoundland Farm Products chicken simply because any decision taken by its board of directors for the benefit of the company can be over-ruled by any handful of people with the collective business experience of...well...a flounder. Worse still, even otherwise sensible politicians can be overwhelmed by the clouds of political gadflies that swarm around the carcass of thought called afternoon radio call-in shows.

Their motivation is little more than the classic Newfoundland one: spread what little there is of something as thinly as possible so that everyone gets a little bit of it, all the while blaming the Evil Ottawa for everything from the Plague of Locusts to the dismal writing on Hatching, Matching and Dispatching.

This evening that little bit may cost the province upwards of $10 million to buy an overvalued redfish quota so that an antiquated plant can crank up and make stamps.

There are too many fish plants for the total volume of landings. We don't need more. The result of this exercise will be to perpetuate a situation where people cannot make a decent living in rural Newfoundland without massive government subsidies. The whole place goes in the hole as a consequence and to what end?

In 20 years time - or more likely in five - the next Premier will be looking to prop up one or two or three more communities. Or like John Efford, he'll be handing out processing licenses to all comers. That wouldn't be so bad if the license went with a simple warning label: "sink or swim; you're on your own". Instead, though, every license comes backstopped by more and more subsidies and handouts and make-work projects.

No wonder the province is broke.

Rather than debating an amendment to the FPI bill, government should have repealed the damn thing.

Take control over a potentially very lucrative local company away from the legions of politicians and give to people who can make it into an international company that people are willing to invest in. Take a look at this link to see what can happen when a small country makes smart choices about its fishing industry. FPI could be every bit as successful globally as Sanford Limited - if only we could see beyond the end of the wharf.

As it stands now, all the provincial government has succeeded in doing is strangling another bit of life out of the very company everyone claims is the backbone of our provincial economy.

Oliver Langdon et al can point to unfulfilled promises as they vote against Derrick Rowe's proposal; truth is politicans can only blame themselves for the mess they perpetuate.

No matter what happens in the vote tomorrow, all we have succeeded in doing is making FPI a less valuable commodity in the eyes of investors. The company has less money and is less able to do what its board and managers want to do to be successful.

And five years from now we will still be fretting over the future of "rural" Newfoundland.

That is the real tragedy of the FPI debate.

Double threat: young and smart

Last Saturday's Telegram carried a front page story by Rob Antle on a poll conducted by Ryan Research for the provincial government back in January. They were surveying attitudes to the Williams administration's negotiations on the offshore deal.

The survey covered a sample of 1200 people across the country and was conducted from 4-9 January.

Since I have the privilege and the fun of teaching in an introductory public relations program, Rob's piece gave a chance to combine both writing and research analysis into one class.

Basically, the students were asked to look at the piece and offer some observations.

Well, low and behold they came up with a couple of doozies.

First of all they agreed that Rob had actually buried a really interesting coincidence way down in the story. Appreciating he may have been rushed, burying the lede isn't all that unusual for any writer.

But basically, here's the thing - Rob hinted at it - spelled out clearly.

Canadian flags came down in December.

The survey asked for agreement or disagreement with the decision.

60% of respondents did not support the decision at all. Now to make it clear to non-pollster types, on the scale used that is the most extreme disagreement.

Survey results came back on the 9th.

Flags went back up on the 10th despite Danny's commitment that they would stay down until the feds caved in.

So basically, if Danny got the overnight quickie results of that single question, he knew that his flag flap was actually a flag fiasco. There is just too much of a correlation here for this to be a fluke.

But here's something else my students picked up and I missed entirely: the sample breakdown.

1200 in total. 400 in Newfoundland and Labrador. 200 in the Maritimes. 200 In Quebec. 200 in Ontario. And 200 from Manitoba to BC.

Half the freakin' sample came from east of Quebec, which the last time I checked did not have half the country's population.

Think about that for a minute though. If 60% of respondents hated Danny tearing down flags, where were half of those located? Most likely in Atlantic Canada, said the bright-eyed ones. So basically he was alienating people who should ordinarily be supporting him.

Now I'll admit it is hard to be firm in this little assessment since the class was working off the news story and not the research report.

Still, I'd be willing to venture that there is a better story in what my students observed than was readily apparent.

Something tells me they are going to do very well in their program.

I'll just have to watch out. They are young and smart.

A definite double threat.

Nice photoshop job, Stevie

Even though he was actually here, seems that Stevie Harper couldn't find time in his tightly scripted appearance at the municipalities conference to actually get some real live photos taken in historic St. John's.

Instead we get this crap courtesy of photoshop and the geeks who maintain the Connie website. (BTW - every website is maintained by a geek. Connie ones just have to wear ties and follow a dress code straight from Bob Jones University).

Take stock picture of St. John's.

Take stock shot of Chief Connie Stiff.

Lay one on other.

Poof.

Job done.

Only for people who have never been here.

For one thing, the colours and shadows are different between the two shots. The edge around Harper is too sharp.

For another thing, his hair isn't mussed. Unless the guy is wearing a helmet, you just can't go to Signal Hill without there being a Force 3 gale.

For another thing, I am trying to figure out how tall this dude is. Given the angle on this shot, Harper must be floating in mid-air. The original shot may have been taken on a crane.

Doctor a tape. Doctor a photo. Same thing.

Yeah. that's the ticket. Hearn and Doyle hire ex-SNL character as strategy whiz

The budget - including the offshore money - is a government bill.

The Connies are in Opposition and up until now were hell bent on killing the government.

Normally, Government members say positive things about the budget; Opposition guys say nothing unless it is critical.

Until they got the living hell whipped out of them in recent weeks, Norm Doyle and Loyola Hearn were opposed to the budget.

Notice lately that every day at least one of the Connie dinosaurs are quoted in the media assuring everyone that the deal is almost through the House? Here's Norm Doyle's contribution for today.

Apparently no one except me noticed that for all his blarney, Blarney the Green Dinosaur from Renews - the guy who notionally represents a St. John's/Mount Pearl - actually promised to work all summer if need be to ensure the government's budget gets passed.

That is unprecedented. An Opposition hack pledges to back the government to the hilt on its budget. Geez, Hearn had no trouble voting against money for the province last year. Why the switch, Loyola?

Next thing you know Hearn and Doyle will claim credit for a deal they actually had nothing to do with at all. No wait. They've done that already. Repeatedly.

Who gives them political strategy or handles their media relations?

I always wondered what happened to Tommy Flanagan.

"Yeah.....that's the ticket."

The first step to expanding the EEZ

For those who are agitating for expansion of the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), here's a useful story from CBC.

Call it custodial management, call it what you will, the first step will be extending the claim to subseabed resources according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The mapping work currently being done in order to stake the claim legally will also make it easier for Canada to control development of any oil and gas resources that may lie beyond the 200 mile EEZ.

A hard look at CRA numbers

Without going into too much detail, it is worth taking a closer look at the actual news release issued by Corporate Research Associates on its recent survey of voter opinion.

If you accept the proposition that all CRA surveys are done the same way and the results are generally consistent for CRA over time, then it is easy to see that the provincial political parties have slipped back to the relative positions they occupied about six to eight months ago.

Certainly, no one will be panicking in the Premier's Office about these figures; at least they shouldn't be panicking. If they have other polling data that gives a much better picture of voter moods, then I'd be willing to change by view. On the basis of this stuff, though I wouldn't get too alarmed.

For the provincial Liberals, the simple conclusion to take from CRA's polling is that their popularity rests entirely in Danny Williams' hands. When he screws up, Liberal numbers climb. When he soars, the Liberals plummet. That's hardly a comforting position to be in and it is one that the current leader and any future leader will have to address.

Just flip down to some of the little details at the end of the release, though and here are a couple of reasons to be somewhat cautious of these results.

First of all, the survey data was collected from May 12 to June 6. Check your calendars and you'll see that this covers almost three full weeks. For political purposes, that's way too long to tell anything with certainty. Some people will change their answers, even if marginally, based on current issues.

Second of all, the margin of error at +/- 3.4% is a tad high. It's not so far off as to be unusable, but coupled with the possibility of variation coming from the length of time the survey was conducted, I'd be leery of using CRA's polling for anything other than entertainment and coffee table chat.

For a political party wanting to accomplish anything, solid research is the start of solid planning.

Information coming free from any research company is worth what you pay for it.

Meanwhile back on another farm...

There's a post coming on the FPI proposal and the re-emergence of talk show gadflies swarming around this issue.

While I work on it, here's a story from Maine.

Take a long hard look at the picture here in this Globe story.

Now put yourself in the place of the guys manning the US border station in Maine who had this guy show up armed with, among other things, a home-made sword, a hatchet, brass knuckles and a chainsaw with something red on it that appeared to be blood.

Take another look at the picture.

The border guards didn't suspect anything was wrong with this guy.

They just confiscated his weapons and wished him a good day.

Later on, he was arrested on a murder warrant from New Brunswick. Police found the decapitated body of a musician in the guy's kitchen.

I looked at the picture two or three times.

This is such an obvious Momma's boy that if he walked in a bloody chainsaw, I'd just assume he was ok and send him cheerily on his way.

Yeah.

Right.

Singing a new song on the offshore

Premier Danny Williams recently delivered a message to oil companies looking at offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, telling them that he will expect better revenue returns for the province on future projects including Hebron-Ben Nevis.

The financial section of the National Lampoon had a commentary on the whole issue yesterday, warning the Premier that maybe he needs to take a different approach to avoid scaring away oil company investment.

When the Premier talks about offshore resources being given away at a discount in the past, he is likely engaging in a certain level of hyperbole - exaggerating for effect. This is the Premier's stock in trade.

That said, the only example where this might be true is in the case of Hibernia where his predecessor Conservative government traded government revenues - i.e. royalties - for a seven- year construction project on the gravity based structure (GBS). In fact, the government insisted on the GBS mode of production specifically to satisfy its policy of fostering as much spin-off work in the province as possible.

What Brian Peckford and his associates quickly learned was that provincial economic benefits are not a bottomless pit; jobs and royalties are linked. To go a step further, the context of the development has much to do with the outcome. By the time the Wells administration took office, the negotiations were largely concluded. The province still had to put cash concessions on the table in order to start a project that was widely held to be unattractive financially for many of the participants.

No one anticipated oil at US$50 per barrel.

But here's the difference between the Upper Churchill, for example, and the offshore: government revenues are tied to the price per barrel of oil. Thus, there is a built- in escalator clause that the Upper Churchill agreement simply does not have.

Even if the provincial government continued to apply the generic regime to Hebron and all future projects, its direct revenues would rise and fall with the price of oil. That feature of the real Atlantic Accord and the province's own royalty regime is why this government has been able to reap windfall revenues from increases in oil prices.

That is exactly how the oil companies make their money. In the case of the offshore, since the oil companies are taking the financial risk of development that have naturally, and logically, claimed the reward for their free-enterprise risk-taking.

Premier Williams can easily talk of taking a tough stance on negotiating. That is not simply because he is a tougher or smarter guy than his predecessors. Rather, his current stance is supported by the financial benefits that have come from the decisions by his predecessors. Mr. Peckford and Mr. Wells faced provincial finances that were abysmal. In 1991, for example, the debt to GDP ratio - a common indicator of fiscal health - rivaled that of any developing country. Today, by virtue of economic developments in the past 15 years and prudent fiscal management by his predecessors and record oil prices, the current Premier is not strapped for cash to keep the lights burning in his office.

Circumstances make everything different.

For those watching the Premier's offshore policy, the challenge is to figure out what he is doing. His policy manual from the last campaign spoke of secondary and tertiary processing from things like oil refineries as a way of boosting local benefits. Peckford used to say the same thing.

But we do not know if Premier Williams is talking about departing from a regime in which basic royalties are not fixed and everything becomes a subject for negotiation. That is the way the Peckford administration approached the matter, arguing that reduced royalties were more than offset by the added economic activity from GBS construction and by the groundwork laid for future development.

The same argument - looking at the total package versus a single element - is potentially attractive today. Notice, however, that what appeared to be splendid in 1988 is being used, predictably, by a new government as an example of a give-away. Which is true, 1988 or 2005? The logic then is the same as now; we should look at the total package rather than focus on government revenues alone.

Proper evaluation by the public would depend on wide disclosure of the details of the discussions and personally, I'd put stock in a more detailed and thoughtful review of the past than the Premier's hyperbole allows. The Premier's political statements are one thing; what government policy ought to be may be something else.

If we look at the recent offshore discussions, they have been touted as having achieved every one of the government's objectives. A closer assessment shows quite clearly that while they are remarkable on a number of levels they fell far short of the goal stated in the Premier's own letter to the Prime Minister on June 10, 2004.

Looking for more is fine. If looking for more means that, in practice, we'd go back to a Peckford-esque world in which government gives and takes behind close doors, then we may want to take a closer look at what is going on.

The reason has to do with where the lasting benefit comes from when we talk of offshore oil development. Government's primary interest should be in maximizing government revenues. After all, that is the money that will be used to provide essential services. As soon as government starts mandating that a company produces local jobs, the companies will look for a subsidy - effectively lower provincial government revenue - for any jobs not in their own business plans.

The jobs created by a smelter in the case of Voisey's Bay or a refinery in the case of offshore are far less than the direct revenues the government has to give up in order to get them. The jobs also run out, sometimes quite quickly; the Hibernia GBS jobs died within seven years.

But look at the cash flowing from the oil itself. It rises and falls with the price of oil, but in the current case that has been enough to boost our provincial government to the point where it will be a "have province" by any reasonable measure. There is cash flowing enough to pay down debt and replace buildings and other infrastructure, all of which produces a lasting measurable benefit. The current boom will last for the next three to five years by most current estimates and will add about over a billion dollars in oil revenue to provincial coffers next year alone. How many refineries would it take to equal that?

The problem with Premier Williams' new approach to the offshore - if there is a problem - is not that he is scaring away investment. The Hebron consortium is merely negotiating; after all, the position is preposterous. On the one hand they say high oil prices make the field attractive. On the other they say the difficulties of the field require require a change to the royalty regime. A deal will be reached; there is money enough for all.

The problem with the Williams' approach is a familiar one: we simply don't know what he means. If we do not know what he means, we cannot accurately judge success or failure.

But for the Premier, the personal problem is much more substantial.

Williams clearly wants to be the best Premier ever. Obviously, anyone can bamboozle the masses in the short-term; Peckford did it with ease. Ask the average Newfoundlander or Labradorian about Peckford these days and you won't find anyone giving him due credit for the good he did. Peckford went from messiah to pariah before he left office and today he serves as little more than the whipping boy for his successor.

The problem for Williams is a simple one: a reputation built on spin usually crashes, sooner rather than later.

Connie comm strategy: duck and cover

For those who follow these things, take a look at this link to a Canadian journalist blog.

Harper's lack of a scrum or other media availability speaks volumes for the Connie efforts to duck tough questions. Yeah Connies by nature assume that all media are "commie-pinko lefties", but their paranoia doesn't actually make the belief true, nor does it relieve someone who desperately wants to be prime minister from answering questions from reporters.

For another perspective, here's a local CBC story on the weekend blitz by national party leaders. Follow the link in the upper left to a debrief by Peter Gullage that covers the scrum-less Harper moment.

Now if you take a hard look at Harper's party you can see a good reason to avoid media questions:

- The failed election strategy. (The thing augered in deeper than a Titan 4 booster; the most toxic gas associated with it was methane.)

- A local Connie MP working against his party. (Here's a link to Loyola-land. Note the line at the end where Hearn pledges to work on getting C-43 passed - presumably intact - by the end of the month. "we will now use every method possible to fast track passage of Bill C-43 even if it means forcing the House to stay open for half the summer.")

- The Saga of Secret Agent Grewal. The more that everyone looks at this guy, the more problems that appear. People like Peter McKay, DDS are distancing themselves from Grewal and news tonight is that the guy mysteriously asked someone to carry a package for him from Vancouver to Ottawa even though Grewal had a ticket on the flight involved.

That last link takes you to a CTV story that indicates Grewal is taking "stress leave".

Maybe the next leave to be taken will be Mr. Harper. Maybe he is getting tired of it all. If VOCM had an affiliate in Alberta or if they had another slot available here, they seem to have a penchant for using clapped-out ex-pols to host their yak shows.

Canada doesn't own the ocean - Updated

VOCM is reporting this morning that environmental group the Sierra Club has proposed salvaging the Titan booster left over from the Big Launch and sending the American government the bill for the clean up.

All this comes because of a report that the booster carried a variety of toxic chemicals when it splashed down.

There is no news release on the Sierra Club site backing this story.

Let's take it at face value.

1. The salvage operation may well release the toxic chemicals everyone is worried about. Is that worth the risk for what amounts to a publicity stunt?

2. Does anyone know where this thing is exactly? It took more than a decade of very expensive searching to find the Titanic which, in case you missed it, was a lot bigger than the Titan booster.

3. If the thing is NOT inside Canada's 200 miles exclusive economic zone, then who is going to salvage the bloody thing? After all, contrary to what some people want us to believe, Canada does not own the ocean.

4. Where was the Sierra Club when some yahoo anti-sealer was advocating shooting people in order to save a species that isn't even close to being in any sort of danger? All things considered, I can think of a dozen environmental issues that would get my attention long before I'd bitch about the LAST Titan missile launch in the Atlantic. AND if I did, I'd come up with a better story than spending tens of millions to stage some sort of bull**** publicity stunt. Something concrete would be much better.

Update:

This story apparently originated with an Access to Information request by Canadian Press bureau in Halifax. Here's a link to local CBC coverage, including a link to an audio interview with Deane Beeby of CP's Halifax office.

- The impact zone was reportedly within Canada's 200 mile exclusive economic zone.

- There was some residual fuel in the rocket. How much is unknown.

- One of several issues to be addressed here would be the impact of any salvage and disposal operation. There are some obvious hazards associated with deep sea salvage and any action that took place would have to weigh the risk of causing a leak of fuel through recovery operations versus leaving the thing on the seabed.

- Here's an Environmental Protection Agency information page on one of the chemicals involved, dimethylhydrazine. Notice that there are acute effects and chronic effects. Some of the affects noted in the Canadian Press refer to acute exposure - something that isn't likely to occur now that the rocket section is settled on the bottom of the ocean.

- As for nitrogen dioxide, here is some factual information on that one. While some reports have noted that it can produce nitric acid in certain circumstances, read this link before jumping to any conclusions.

As with most things, let's get a bit more factual information before anyone jumps to a conclusion.

John has a long moustache

On beaches in northern France, 61 years ago today, hundreds of thousands of young men from the United States, Britain, France, Canada and other allied nations began the final drive to crush Nazi Germany from the west.

Here's a link to an exhibit at the National War Museum on war art from collections in Canada, Britain and Australia. Look at this painting by Alex Colville. Personally, I find Colville's painting s of the Second War to be the most evocative. This one captures the incongruity between the pastoral farmland on the one hand and the dead young German soldier, evidence of a savage battle. Take some time and flip through the exhibit online to find other stuff just as striking.

As you go about your daily life today, take a moment for some silent contemplation.

Say a prayer for the dead.

Say another for those who survived.

and remember what happened 61 years ago today on a war summer day in France.

Sunday morning, 8 AM: Quality time

It's Sunday morning and while most people aren't reading blogs today (readership drops off by about 40% whether I post or not) , I thought I'd offer up these observations on the weekend papers.

1. and a player to be named later. Having read both Russell Wangersky and Bill Rowe's Telly columns on Saturday, I think it is time the great newspaper gods organized a swap of writers so that all the people with the same general outlook on life write for the same paper.

Wangersky's little column on the Grewal tapes demonstrates that he has reached a conclusion without having conducted any research. Hence, he'd be an excellent choice to go down to the Indy to spell Ryan. Cleary, after all must be getting tired of writing the same "we are fierce now and passionate so watch out Paul Martin" columns.

Here's a clue, Russell: actually listen to the tapes and the transcripts. Try reading the wire copy: you'd know that Grewal hasn't released everything he has taped or if that's the lot then there are hours of conversations that didn't get taped for some curious reason. Either way Russell is a match for Cleary; colour me disappointed.

Meanwhile, Rowe would feel right at home next to another political dinosaur - John Crosbie - since both columnists appear to offer insights that derive from the absence of mental fibre in their diets. Having determined separation is the answer to everything (wait for his column on Harbour Breton), Rowe has decided this week that being Leader Opp is such a tedious chore that people like Stephen Harper elect to commit political hara kiri over staying in the job.

Is that why they fling brown envelopes over transoms too, Bill: sheer boredom?

Maybe some former Leaders Opp merely need to find their true calling in life - maybe they are not destined for political greatness but can be more productively employed besting the Moon Man in a contest of wits. That doesn't apply to all of them, though. Leader Opp can be a great job; just don't expect to find anything resembling thought on the subject coming from Rowe.

Crosbie this week attacks Belinda Stornach for abandoning the Connies to take a cabinet post with the Liberals. Those familiar with Crosbie's political past will recognize the unmitigated hypocrisy in the old fart's comments. There are a few pithy similies that come to mind, but they have been overused. Let's just say Crosbie knows all about crossing the floor and selling out his old political friends for nothing more than personal gain. I am reminded though of a remark by one Brian Mulroney about a Liberal cabinet minister who took a diplomatic post after leaving politics that seems to apply to Crosbie for other reasons: "There's no whore like an old whore."

Now where did I put that "Crosbie on Harper" clipping file, again?

2. An announcement a week and a good poll, Part Deux. The Spindy this weekend offers up a genuine interview with Brian Tobin. Who cares what Tobin thinks about anything?

The Telly, though, does give us a Ryan Research poll conducted for Danny Williams in January 2005 and obtained courtesy of the Access to Information Act on attitudes toward hauling down the flags and stuff related to the offshore dispute. I have to say that, for some inexplicable reason, Rob Antle's story is far from clear. The normally sharp reporter seems a bit muddled on this one.

I did manage to glean some things worth noting:

- The margin of error went so far off in the regional breakdowns outside this province that the numbers were largely useless.

- There was a question about whether or not the PM should "honour his commitment of June 2004". Intuitively, I'd expect people to say that a commitment should be honoured. Therefore the response here should be higher than it is reported by the survey apparently.

- There is no question that asks what people think is in the deal. In other words apparently, no one bothered to see if anyone actually understood what was involved.

- People across Canada did NOT like hauling down the flags.

This is one ATI file I am going to have to take a closer look at just to see what it does contain.

Speaking of poll requests, my e-mail to NTV goes unanswered.