Typhoons hit Gander

Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons made a stopover in Gander this past week and were captured on these digital images by local lawyer and aviation buff Mark Stares.

In the top photo, a Eurofighter from 17 Squadron RAF, the operational evaluation unit makes its final approach into Gander.

In the bottom photo, pilots and ground crew walk away from a parked aircraft.

Military aircrafts of all types routinely make visits to major airports in Newfoundland and Labrador.

So much for rumours

Rumours are usually nonsense and so it turned out this week that a couple of chatter-bits posted to the Bond Papers were...well...WRONG. They were labeled as rumour and chatter so hopefully no one was unduly misled and the reputation of the Bond papers hasn't suffered.

1. Efford is staying. Based on everything your humble e-scribbler was getting, John Efford was going to pack in his job as federal natural resources minister due to ill health. Instead, Efford decided to hang around with a different schedule that will help him better manage his diabetes.

2. Crap Talk may survive. Rumours that Bill Rowe's afternoon talk show was doomed seem to be wrong as well. Open Line host Randy Simms is seeking re-election to the Mount Pearl city council, so Randy is rightly taking a break so he doesn't have an unfair advantage over his fellow candidates.

Crap Talk host Bill Rowe and Nite line host Linda Swain will be taking turns covering the afternoon show while Bill takes on full-time hosting duties in the morning.

Oh great, we get to hear Bill continue to find every way he can to create an open sore out of Newfoundlanders attitudes to themselves and the rest of the country. Personally, I think VOCM should take emery boards, sandpaper, salt and anything else Rowe has handy. More often than not his information is bogus, although he continues to convince people that this province and its people are little more than a "pimple on the arse" of Canada. That's Bill's phrase by the way, not mine.

Well, as some of my friends are fond of saying, "I am no pimple. I am no arse."

I'd paraphrase Churchill to defend my fellow Newfoundlanders from the jaundiced, miserable and usually hollow presentation made by Danny William's former personal representative to the Lord Minto Hotel:

"Some pimple. Some arse."

What drops from the back end of a male bovine?

I don't know about the rest of my public relations colleagues, but people I know call a story like this BULLSHIT.

Who gives a rats backside if you are getting calls for interviews, Danny? This is the kind of superficial, puff story that makes Williams look like a prima donna, a light weight. Sure it strokes the hell out of his ego. But beyond that it doesn't mean a thing.

Any experienced PR practitioner would recognize this for what it is - irrelevant crap - and kill it off before it went anywhere.

Then again, if you thought the New England governors conference was a success or that having senior comms people waste a day a week monitoring call-ins shows, I guess you'll believe anything.

In the meantime, if this story is the result of the Premier's comms staff feeling self-important because of the media attention, they better get some sense of humility and a sense of perspective real soon.

No matter how you slice it, this story smells of people appointed for their connections instead of their qualifications.

The best man for the job

"Both the premier and I continue to believe that Andy Wells is the ideal candidate [to be chief executive officer of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board] and we will be requesting that he be given primary consideration as this process moves forward."

- Ed Byrne, Minister of Natural Resources, August 25, 2005

Is there something about Ed and Danny we should know?

Cover from The Current, Newfoundland and Labrador's alternative paper.

Photo: Greg Locke, Straylight
Ballgag: Our Pleasure

Hatching, matching and dispatching Mary Walsh

This Macleans piece on Mary Walsh's little sitcom includes a quote from your humble e-scribe.

The best part of the print version are photos by the Spindy's Paul Daly.

Pick up a copy to see what the guy shoots.

John Crosbie - Liberal sleeper

John Crosbie, your long sojourn away from the Liberal Party will soon be over.

Keep up the excellent work. You have managed to work for decades pretending to be a Tory.

Next to Stephen Harper, Crosbie is the strongest factor working in favour of a Liberal majority government next time.


Crosbie on Harper not pretty
The Daily News (Nanaimo)
Thu 01 Sep 2005, Page: A6
Section: Opinion
Byline: Don Martin
Source: CanWest News Service

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. - As Stephen Harper's warm-and-fuzzy barbeque tour winds down with the defining image being that photo-op disaster of him squeezed into a comical cowboy outfit, the last thing the Conservative leader needs is a deadly burst of friendly fire.

But sniper shots are coming from the top floor of St. John's tallest office building where Conservative father figure John Crosbie looks out at the The Rock's political landscape ... and cringes at what he sees happening.

A "pessimistic'' Crosbie is predicting hard times in the next election for his party, warning that Harper is scaring voters by linking his leadership to the campaign against same-sex marriages while heeding lousy advice from his inner circle.

OK, you're probably saying, so what? John Crosbie's a 74-year-old political curiosity, best known as the former Conservative finance minister whose 1979 budget torpedoed Joe Clark's minority government a few lifetimes ago to the average voter.

But Crosbie still commands attention and respect in the reunited Conservative party, where only 15 months ago he was a huge Harper booster who flirted briefly with the bizarre notion of running against Liberal cabinet minister John Efford before his long-suffering spouse vetoed such silliness.

I am in the middle of a national research project which has put me in contact with business leaders, academics and grassroots Canadians in five provinces.

So let the tape roll on the wit and wisdom of a candid Crosbie, who tells it like it is even though it will give a morale boost to his besieged enemies in the Liberal party.

On the Conservative party's campaign against same-sex marriage: Crosbie believes in the traditional definition of marriage, but argues the time has come to give up the fight to preserve it or risk having it inflict irreversible political damage on the party. "Same-sex marriages have been accepted by the establishment in Toronto and in the courts and in the metropolitan areas, so there's no point in continuing to oppose them. It's very dangerous for the Conservatives to continue opposing same-sex marriage because it reinforces this feeling in people's mind that we're dangerous and that if we get in, you don't know what kind of stupid thing we might do next that would harm people."

On the party's electoral prospects next spring: "The signs are all that we're in danger of not having much of a chance in the next election. It's because the public doesn't think we're a safe alternative. Surely if they thought we were a safe alternative, the polls would have us 20 points ahead, not 20 points behind."

On Stephen Harper: "I supported him as leader and continue to support him, but at the moment he's a politically endangered species which makes us all politically endangered."

On Harper's personal charm: "Among our friends, the women think he's scary. Christ Almighty, Paul Martin is 10 times as scary. But they believe Harper's cold. And he IS cold. He doesn't have human warmth. He's not able to even work a room. He doesn't want to meet people. The thing that saved the Pope (John Paul II), who had some pretty reactionary policies, was that he genuinely wanted to meet people. Unfortunately, Harper needs that, but he hasn't got that at the moment."

On the Conservative party backroom: "I've never come across the likes of those little dictators. Most of them have no experience and try to tell us what we must do. They force us to have nomination meetings before we have suitable candidates lined up to be nominated. This is not the way you do it. He's ill-served by the organizers and paid people who are behind him."

On the future of Canada: "I'm very disappointed and anti-Paul Martin. I believe the system is out of balance and uncompetitive. If we can't get a more competitive system, where the governing parties change from time to time, Canada is in real difficulty."

Well, there you have it. The gospel according to John Crosbie. Unfortunately for Stephen Harper, these harsh observations and this painful analysis comes from Newfoundland. And that makes them Rock-solid.

Efford staying - colour me surprised

This release from John Efford was issued on September 1, 2005 at approximately 6:30 pm, Newfoundland Daylight Savings Time.

Colour me surprised.

Colour me disappointed.

Fire the petroleum farce staff

Some consumers in the province awoke this morning to the shock of an increase in gas prices of around 20 cents per litre.

Those of us paying attention got our gas early and saved a bundle.

Search in vain on the government website prior to the increase to see a news release indicating that the hike in gas prices was coming.

The petroleum products office has long passed the point of being a tolerable charade.

It is beyond a mere fraud.

It is now an intolerable farce.

Close the office.

Lay off the staff or reassign them to more productive work.

The people of the province should not be forced to endure another day of its existence.

Parsons compensation increased

This release yesterday from the provincial government announces an increase in compensation to Gregory Parsons. Mr. Parsons was wrongly convicted of murdering his mother.

Mr. Parsons was represented at one time by Danny Williams, the current premier. There is an interesting comment in the release that given Mr. Parsons' personal situation in 2002, he may have instructed his counsel [not Mr. Williams] to accept a compensation offer that was less than that to which he might be entitled.

Mr. Williams did not represent Mr. Parsons at the time.

While it is laudable that Mr. Parsons is receiving additional compensation, this release raises two issues:

1. The comment on Mr. Parsons' actions in 2002 suggests an improper comment on the counsel he received, if it is indirect or implicit comment.

2. Since Mr. Justice Antonio Lamer has not released his final report into Mr. Parsons' wrongful conviction and hence has not established the scope of government's responsibility in the matter, this money seems to be an effort to forestall additional demands for compensation to which Mr. Parsons' might be properly entitled.

The New Approach to hand-outs and whining

Doubts about Loyola Sullivan's ability to grasp the picture beyond moving around digits on a page grows with this release on the federal government presence in Newfoundland and Labrador. The release turned into this story on VOCM.

It's hard to know how Sullivan came up with the numbers he prints in the release. Then again, Sullivan has never been straight with people about his own budget numbers. He seems to be able to be in perpetual fiscal crisis despite having gobs of cash coming in from all quarters.

There are two points here:

First, Sullivan's numbers and percentages are wrong.

Second, and more importantly, Sullivan's interpretation, that this represents a massive loss to the local economy just doesn't hold up to logical scrutiny or his own previous statements.

Let's just forget, for the time being, that Sullivan is the guy who, shortly after he took up the finance job, was complaining about the disproportionately large number of public servants in the province.

At the end of Fiscal Year 2004, there were 7, 189 federal public servants in the province, compared to roughly the same number at the end of each fiscal year since 1998. Those figures were obtained by the Bond Papers from the Government of Canada.

Sullivan uses 1990 as the base year for his calculation, likely because that happens to be one of the periods in which federal employment peaked in every province. He claims that federal employment decreased by 39% in Newfoundland and Labrador compared to a national average of 18%. That's a 21% disparity.

Well, at the end of Fiscal Year 1990, there were 415, 414 federal employees across the country. At the end of the last fiscal year, there were 371, 257. That represents 44, 157 fewer positions or about 10.6%.

The total number of Canadians employed by the federal public service is 1.15% of the total population.

In this province, the numbers went from 10, 140 to 7, 189 - a drop of 2, 951 jobs or 29% in the same period.

Still, federal employees in Newfoundland and Labrador represent 1.36% of the population, a proportion higher than Ontario (1.22%) and Quebec (0.98%).

Sullivan also doesn't talk about the increases in federal presence in places like Goose Bay, nor does he talk about the likelihood that the St. John's taxation data centre will be increasing its staffing levels soon and handling work from across the country.

But here's an interesting thing. In Nova Scotia, the 23% drop in federal employees in that province represents a loss of 7, 240 positions. That's more than double the drop in this province in absolute numbers, even though the percentage change is smaller.

Beyond that though, Sullivan claims that those federal job losses totaled up to almost double the reported figure - he says the 2, 774 jobs lost added up to equal 5, 300 jobs. Unfortunately, Loyola doesn't explain why that might be so. Truth is, I doubt he can. Whoever cooked up these digits for Loyola appears to have used typical multipliers for spin-off jobs for the private sector and applied them to public sector jobs.

However, public sector jobs - like say the 16 people at the weather office in Gander - don't produce the same spinoffs in the service and supply sector as a comparable number of jobs in the oil industry, manufacturing or the fishery. That's because the work they do by itself doesn't generate added economic benefit.

Suck a few hundred jobs out of paper manufacturing in central Newfoundland and on the west coast of the island and you are going to get almost double the jobs losses in banking, insurance, office supplies and other support services.

Screw with the fishery needlessly and you'll shag the economy out of hundreds of millions of dollars of real economic activity that brings much-needed foreign exchange into an economy that depends heavily on trade. You'll also muck around with tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

Take a few people out of Gander or the small Public Service Commission office in St. John's and they won't have quite the same effect.

Overall, Sullivan's main argument - that the feds are steadily decreasing their presence in Newfoundland and Labrador - just doesn't add up. Federal job numbers in the province have hovered around the same level for the better part of a decade. The small changes seen recently like Gander, fall within the seasonal fluctuations there have been anyway from month to month.

Beyond that, Sullivan is simply talking through his hat when he argues this province has a right to a "fair share" of federal employees. The same cock-eyed approach led the Mulroney government to create something called the naval Presence in Quebec program. It was a cash fiasco, ripped apart by the auditor general.

No province has a "right" to a proportion of federal jobs. Federal public servants aren't booty. They aren't spoils. They aren't a form of Equalization. Canadians deserve to have their federal services delivered cheaply and effectively. We don't need to fatten the payroll so that we can have people running a navy section in Manitoba.

On a local level, Sullivan should recall the disastrous Tobin policy of relocating public servants to communities across the province. It was poorly conceived, poorly executed and an admission that Tobin had failed completely in his efforts to come up with a single new idea for developing the local economy. Saskatchewan fell into the same trap with equally harsh consequences for Saskatchewan taxpayers.

Sullivan's release shows a few things:

1. Loyola can't do basic math.

2. Loyola can't see the big picture.

3. Loyola and the government of which he is a part are wedded forever to hand-outs from Ottawa - The January Deal (a massive Equalization transfer) and now federal jobs.

Underneath it all, it would appear the provincial government is now in the position Brian Tobin was in after two years in office: totally lacking in a single new idea.

Whining about Ottawa is hardly a New Approach.

Crap Talk dead?

It may only be a rumour but there is talk around St. John's that Bill Rowe's Back Talk afternoon call-in show on VOCM will be dead in the fall.

The show may be killed off because of low audience numbers.

No surprise to those who listen to the show the Bond papers likes to call Crap Talk because...well...the host and most of the callers keep spouting the same old crap day in and day out.

Whither Bill? According to one scenario, Bill will go back to the morning Open Line slot. Randy Simms, who has been a refreshingly new voice in the call-in world will be bumped back to his managerial duties with Steele in favour of the man who has given new meaning to the term cranky in the afternoon.

There is also talk that talks have taken place between Bill and the gang over at Rogers to have Bill host their Sunday night call-in show. The people who pay Rowe's salary in the weekdays wouldn't gain anything by having their boy on television, but Rogers would gain yet another interviewer who wouldn't dare give the current government a hard time over anything.

So far there are no plans to change the name of Out of The Fog to Krysta Loves Danny, largely because that would be too blatant an admission of OOTF's low standards of journalistic impartiality.

Connie TV ads miss the mark

When you take a look at the August flight of Conservative Party television spots, you can see the handiwork of someone who thinks that the Connie problem is just about image.

You can tell what happened. Someone did some polling. They likely found that Stephen Harper appears to Canadians to be a bit to stiff and unapproachable. They likely found an attitude that Harper runs a one-man band with no input from his caucus.

Yep. Must be an image problem, they concluded, betraying their advertising background.

Their simple answer: a bunch of short TV spots showing the Connies working on policy in August, when everyone else is on vacation. Get a catchy slogan: "Stand up for Canada". Include a couple of member of parliament from visible minorities - but only a couple and feature them in just one spot. Have Steve ask people questions. Shoot the whole thing in a store-front somewhere with floor to ceiling plate glass windows. Get Steve out of his jacket. Or if the jacket is on take off the tie. Lots of smiles. Make jokes about Liberals. Be funky and hip.

Poof, says the advertising team, problem solved. We'll just invent a new image.

Warning bells would be going off in the heads of any reasonably savvy political communicator.

Political communications isn't about image. It's about reputation and credibility.

And that's where the Connie's blew it. Right away, the TV spots look contrived - painfully, obviously contrived. No politicians hold meetings in these glass-front offices. They look and sound fake.

And they are. Utterly fake.

The acting sucks. It should; they are politicians for crying out loud, not actors. Worse, the pols in the vids look uncomfortable - they sound and look like they are reading a prepared script.

The set is bogus. No one would believe that policy gets made on the MuchMusic set. None of these guys would be seen on MuchMusic, especially Steve, who still appears stiff and professorial, like he's lecturing people.

The whole thing takes on the air of those breath-freshener spots that mocked the 1970s cop shows, complete with the fake freeze frame at the end.

But those spots were built around the parody as a way of catching your attention and making you laugh. They want you to remember the brand the next time you buy Clorets. The humour is the hook to get your attention and hold it.

Unfortunately, these Connie spots were supposed to be taken seriously.

Unfortunately for the advertisers in this case, picking the people who will run the country isn't the same as picking toilet paper or breath mints.

The spots are being taken seriously, by Conservatives, but that is entirely predictable. They also get a passing grade from commentators like Paul Wells.

The Connie political challenge is to get past the converted and start speaking to other Canadians. They must win over the Canadians who aren't perpetually in a snit, the ones who don't eat up acres of bandwidth sputtering against the evils of the CBC and the rest of the MSM - the mainstream media.

It's a tough job: the most recent polls show that Paul Martin doesn't even have to show up and he clobbers Stephen Harper as Canadians choice for prime minister. The Blogging Connies response, when they are not pounding at the CBC on their blogs, is to create a flashing button on their sites asking where Paul Martin is.

BFHD, as we used to say in high school. Big fat hairy deal.

And like the flashing button, these TV spots are well wide of the mark for fixing the Connie political problem.

The challenge the Connies face is not about looking different. It is about being different. That's the Zen-like difference between political communications done by an advertiser and political comms run by someone with experience at public relations.

Some Connies have suggested that the party should stop trying to look anything than what the part actually is. Now there's an idea. Start by communicating the substance and not the image. If you want to get people to look at the Connie health care policy, for example, why not have a spot featuring Peter Mackay, DDS? He polls well which reflects his natural ability to communicate sincerely, the cousin of crediblity.

Sure it would make Harper's bum even tighter to give one of his rivals a high profile but just think of it. The approach in one feel swoop would wipe out once and for all the rumours that Steve ruthlessly guards his profile. It focuses on the issue not the surface flash. Rather than the artificial team in the current load of TV spots, Canadians would see an actual team. I'd bet cash that their polling numbers would change for the good.

The problem for the Connies is actually really simple and it's one that no amount of advertising will fix. Reputation and credibility are about what you are, not how you look. Billy Crystal's Fernando was dead wrong.

Canadians can see through any image-driven contrivances like these four little TV spots. In the end, the spots, poorly conceived, poorly executed actually add to the Connie malaise. They've already pegged Steve Harper and unless he actually changes or the party changes the leader for a new one, it is damned near impossible to erase the guy's reputation.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Use the link and go watch the spots for yourselves.

I like the child care policy one. The one with the kids in it working at their colouring books.

or was it writing the Connie election advertising strategy?

Steve might consider hiring them. They sure as hell couldn't do any worse a job than the people he paid for two minutes of Canadians' lives they'll never get back again.

Loyola and "sound fiscal management" - oxymoron [Revised]

Loyola Sullivan turned himself in knots these past few days trying to explain why the province won't be offering any systematic help to low and fixed income earners struggling with high heating costs this winter.

According to Sullivan, we have a huge debt which grows each day.

Ok Loyola.

But you're the finance minister.

What is your plan to stop the bleeding from our budget, Loyola? That's what people elected you to do. That's what you were talking about when you mention all the financial evil the other guys did when they were in power.

Fixing the financial mess was what you promised to do once you got elected.

Truth is Loyola doesn't have a debt reduction plan. He didn't have a real deficit reduction plan either: that was taken care of by the growing economy.

There is no plan, despite promises made by the Premier two years in a row.

As Loyola Sullivan said earlier this year, the Williams government intends to let the debt grow by about $500 million each year for the foreseeable future. If that approach to sensible financial management lasts for 10 years, as Sullivan mused, the debt of the province will be the better part of $ 20 billion. That's the same size as the economy currently. That would put us in the same mess the Wells government inherited in 1989: a debt load equal to the size of the economy.

Talk about living beyond your means.

In interviews yesterday, Sullivan referred to this as being somehow a matter of sound fiscal management.

I call it grossly irresponsible, especially in light of the Great Offshore Deal [editor's note: That was sarcasm] Danny brought home last year. When we are flush with cash, we should be fixing the long-term debt problem so that when the oil runs out, we can still pay the bills.

Piling up more debt is not the way to do that. It isn't what the Williams administration promised before they got elected.

I can see the campaign slogan now:

Vote for Danny and Loyola for Responsible Irresponsibility.

What people will see is Danny and Loyola: Oxymorons.

Premier makes local oil patch sweaty - but not in a good way

The local oil patch grows increasingly nervous with the bellicose rhetoric from Premier Danny Williams about Hebron development and any future developments.

While the Premier seems intent on playing to the Open Line gallery, there is concern he will talk his way right out of a deal that would see development of the last identified commercial field offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Of course, since the Premier himself has committed to getting a deal on Hebron development, it makes everyone wonder why he proposed Andy Wells to head the offshore board so that Andy could get the good deals.

Meanwhile, the Premier ignores the red tape and obstacles that prevent the remaining oil that has been discovered offshore besides Hebron from being developed. Knowledgeable people in the local oil industry have repeatedly point to an overall government regime as being the problem. Offshore Angola or in the Gulf of Mexico, the time from discovery to development is measured in months. Here it can be upwards of a decade and more with all the associated costs.

We pay the costs of that delay, incidentally because the oil in the ground has no value. It only is worth cash when we start producing it.

In other places fields of 100 million barrels and smaller are viable. No one in government here - least of all the Premier - is talking about getting that field size to market. They seem content to do, as the Premier did yesterday with the governors and premiers: talk about our resource as growing. Truth is that estimates are growing - but there hasn't been a commercial discovery sine 1984.

Talk is cheap, Premier.

B-17 and P-38 to visit province [UPDATE]

You don't have to be an airplane buff to be excited - I mean really excited - that a fully restored B-17G "Liberty Belle", and a restored P-38 will be visiting the province this week and weekend.

Here's the link to the aircraft website along with a schedule.

The P-38, named "Glacier Girl" was one of a flight of P-38s lost on Greenland and subsequently recovered from beneath tons of ice. Read the story here.

Update - VOCM is reporting that the B-17/P-38 tour has been delayed by Hurricane Katrina.

A banana municipality or just plain bananas? Mail-in voting system ignores monkey business

A post last week on Bond Papers brought attention to the prospect of vote fraud in the upcoming municipal election in St. John's owing to the vote-by-mail system being used.

Unfortunately, city officials have apparently neglected to provide any measures to discourage, prevent, detect or otherwise eliminate vote fraud.

A story in the Sunday Telegram by Terry Roberts quotes Neil Martin, the City Clerk, as saying that city officials assume everyone will be honest and that there is no way to prevent vote fraud. Since the story isn't available online, I'll try and get a copy of it and post the story here.

Martin is quoted as saying: "We have to trust that people will do what's correct. If we assume there will be corruption, then there's not much we can do."

According to Martin, "We [city officials] are as prudent as we can be. We're ensuring the voter's list is entirely up to date. The ballot is mailed to the person on the list, that person signs and sends us back the voter declaration form, along with the ballot."

At no point did Martin indicate how city officials will ensure that the vote returned was actually cast by the person to whom it was mailed. Nor is there any indication of how the city is ensuring its voter list does not include people who are no longer qualified to vote or who have died.

The Bond Papers' contention that vote fraud was a possibility in St. John's can now be changed to vote fraud is a probability.

It's not as though vote fraud is a rare thing.

The last provincial general election included allegations of voting irregularities in the mail-in ballot system used.

As this British Broadcasting Corporation story reports, electoral fraud in the 2004 Birmingham municipal contest was of such a nature that a judicial inquiry declared the whole election invalid. The link to a BBC video news report on the BBC site describes the electoral fraud in greater detail. The entire scheme involved as few as 1, 500 votes in a municipality with a larger population than the whole of Newfoundland and Labrador. That was enough to skew the entire result, however.

Part of the concern expressed by the Birmingham investigation was that the vote envelopes were so easy to identify that one could not make them more inviting by writing "Steal Me" in bold letters across the front of the package. Ballot envelopes were reportedly taken from postal workers and from household letter boxes, brought to a couple of locations and then completed and returned.

The same situation can easily exist in St. John's, and as the city clerk admits, there were reports in 2001 of ballots laying about in hallways of apartment buildings throughout the city. No one knows where those ballots went or if they were cast. The city cannot tell if they were cast or not, even though the vote-by-mail system is touted as having produced a 10% increase in voter participation compared to the previous general election. That increase in participation coupled with the supposed cash savings to the city are the two reasons given by city officials for going to a completely mail-in vote system.

Any election may be subject to attempts at fraudulent voting. In this instance fraud is taken to mean:

- voting by someone not entitled to vote;
- submission of multiple votes by the same individual (in a one person/one vote system); or,
- removal of ballots in order to discourage voting.

Electoral systems across North America take active measures to prevent voter fraud and preventing fraud is a key part of preserving the legitimacy of the entire electoral process. In a system where the right to govern derives from attaining a majority or plurality of individual votes, voters must have confidence that the system is as free as possible from fraud.

In the State of Oregon, which successfully conducted an entire state-wide election using vote-by-mail, the state government has implemented simple mechanisms using available technology to ensure that each mail-in ballot is cast legally.

By contrast, the City of St. John's has produced an electoral system in which a city official now admits City Hall is completely unconcerned with the prospect of fraud.

Consider the numbers and the realities.

There are approximately 79, 000 eligible voters in the City of St. John's, according to Martin. Given death and the mobility of people in a growing city, it is reasonable to assume approximately 10% of the list will be changed for this election from the previous one.

For a concrete example, consider that both my elderly grandparents passed away since the last general election. The city's list may miss them out. If they receive ballots, count on them being intercepted by my parents who will ensure the ballots are destroyed or returned to City officials unopened.

Others may not be so scrupulous.

Of course, even if the City of St. John's actually has a completely accurate voter list that eliminates all dead people, they still cannot ensure that ballots will not be stolen and cast by someone other than the legitimate voter.

The City Clerk may point to the signature on the returned ballot as some proof of legitimacy. Unfortunately, he has no way of comparing signatures to ensure that the one sent back is from the correct person. That's the system Oregon uses and the one Martin dismisses as being too costly.

In Oregon, the state government funds a process of voter registration and many community organizations and political parties assist in voter registration at no cost to taxpayers. After all, it's in their interest to ensure the system works properly and such a system promotes voter involvement - supposedly one of the goals of the St. John's system. There is no reason to believe such a system couldn't work in St. John's to help ensure the voting system is free of corruption.

The City's system would work to eliminate fraud only if there was 100% participation. In that system, any duplicate ballots and signatures could be easily detected.

Here's the rub: the actual participation rate is now only 60%. City officials can still attain what the Telegram reports as their goal of 75% participation rate in this election, but the increase could be the result of people sending in ballots solely from the residents of the city who are too disinterested to bother to replace a stolen ballot.

To understand the importance of eliminating fraud, consider this: with about 79, 000 eligible voters, 10% to 15% would mean that between 7, 900 and 11, 850 ballots could be fraudulently returned, achieving the desired increase in participation albeit illegally.

Flip over to the City of St. John's website and take a look at the returns for the last election.

- Only 6, 000 more votes would have put Vince Withers in the mayor's chair.
- About the same number of votes put Gerry Colbert in the deputy mayor's chair. His rival was Sandy Gibbons.
- In Ward 1, Art Puddister won by only 1400 votes or so.
- In Ward 4, Kevin Breen took his seat with only a couple of thousand more votes than his nearest rival.
- At large, Tom Hann and Geoff Peters were only a couple of thousand votes behind either Sandy Hickman (who won the by-election) and Dorothy Wyatt.

Of course, the vote-by-mail system actually isn't about fair and legitimate elections. Its official purpose is to get a result as cheaply as possible.

According to the Telegram, the city has budgeted a little under $400, 000 for the election with the bulk of the costs being eaten up by postage.

Although polling day (the date for final receipt of ballots) is September 27th, city officials expect that upwards of 95% of the total ballots cast will be returned within 10 days of their being mailed out on September 9th.

For those who are good at math, that means the election will effectively be over a week before polling day, at the latest.

The city's election system will produce results at a lower cost than traditional forms of voting, but the question remains what the cost will be to democracy.

A public embarrassment

This week, governors from the New England states and premiers from Ontario, Quebec and the four Atlantic provinces are in St. John's for their annual conference.

This is a major international event, with the provinces and states discussing major issues of international trade affecting the northeastern part of the continent.

For this province, it is a chance to showcase what we have to offer and to further strengthen our trading relationships with New England. The premier is about to announce a multi-million dollar contract with a local advertising company to "rebrand" Newfoundland and Labrador. Essentially, he wants to convince our potential trade partners that this is a sophisticated, modern place with which to do business.

That's what makes the government's New England business page, linked from this VOCM web story, such an inexcusable insult to the people and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let's walk through the thing and see what we find:

1. Next to a nice smiling picture of Kathy Dunderdale, there is a button that invites us to click it to see the introduction "play".

2. Click it an all you get is a static picture if you use any browser other than Microsoft's own Internet Explorer. Computer programmers will tell you that Explorer is the most common browser out there. Ok. But if I am one of the smart people who uses a browser that hackers can't screw with, why am I getting a second-rate site?

3. There is an instruction on the picture that appears on Firefox that tells you to click the buttons on the left for further information. The buttons are on the right.

4. Click on the button that asks if you are interested in doing business in Newfoundland and Labrador, and you are wisked to a page featuring the smiling face of our own Premier Danny Williams. That's good so far.

5. Click on the button "Your business here", which already looks like a placeholder in a rough draft of the site.

6. Under "Strategic Location and Transportation", you'll find some useful basic information about the province.

7. The first picture in this section appears to be an United States Navy aircraft handling crew from one of its aircraft carriers.

8. The next picture is a fisheries patrol aircraft. That service is supplied by a local company but you won't find a single mention of Provincial Airlines and its subsidiaries anywhere else in the site. Beyond that you won't find any visual proof of our well developed air transportation sector. Nope. Just by looking, I'd think the only way to get here was by small bush plane - a culvert with wings.

9. Under market advantage, the information is ok. Why is there a picture of a defunct Newfoundland stamp and pre-Confederation Newfoundland coins?

10. On the research and development page, try and find mention of the companies like Rutter Technologies, Northstar Network or Northern Radar, all of whom have developed highly competitive, high technology products from their base in Newfoundland and Labrador. They get reduced to a single mention as being "Many local firms..." long after there are extensive paragraphs on publicly owned research facilities.

11. Oh yeah, check out the pictures and see if those don't look like the kind of basic manufacturing you'd find anywhere on the planet.

12. Under "Industrial Infrastructure", there's that carrier deck crew waiting again. The information is generic and the facilities that do exist in the province, like Marystown and Bull Arm don't get a mention or a link. There's just a generic discussion of the fact we have industrial parks...just like you can find anywhere.

13. Under "Communications" , there is a bunch of generic information - nothing to grab your attention - , along with some links to those same public sector outfits mentioned on another page. There is reference to the technology industries association, but nothing on specific achievements. Those are the kinds of things people looking to do business here want to know: what have local companies done - Rutter, Stratos, Northern Radar, GRI Simulations...not a mention.

14. Under "Communications Contacts", you'll find a bunch of associations yet again. Under government contacts, the federal government's Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is listed under "Provincial Government" contacts.

15. On the main menu again, "Business News" takes you to Kathy Dunderdale's department and its own list of news releases. There's no way to find more detailed information on real business news from the province. If you use Firefox to get to this page you get a message that it is "coming soon".

16. Under trade shows and mission, the page on Explorer went suddenly blank while I was checking it out. Under Mozilla it gave me a list of 11 events occurring between May and June 2005. All the specifics were in 2004! As of 4:00 PM Sunday this was suddenly reading "Available Soon!" - but 2005 is half over, people! Mozilla still gives me the 2004 listing for events but the news page goes to the government site..

17. Back to the home page again, and click on the business directories. The petroleum one is from 2002 - grossly out of date. On none of the directories will you find a hotlink to a website or an active hotlinked e-mail address. So much for showing we can use modern technology.

Overall, this site is a public embarrassment. It might be tidied up by Monday and some of the glaring problems fixed, but some of the more substantive ones won't be corrected - it would require major revamping of the website.

Before we spend dollar one on any advertising campaign, the Premier needs to get a grip on his government.

Marketers can claim we are anything they want. The public relations guys will look at actual performance - your reputation and credibility.

If I were to judge by the nlbusiness.ca website, I'd get the idea Newfoundland and Labrador is not a place to do business.

That is far from true - but a half-assed government website that promotes public sector interests at the expense of the private sector won't attract any interest to the province except head-shaking.

Canadian campaign blog

For political junkies, few things could get them as excited as a new blog from an anonymous but obviously experienced campaigner.

Campaign Central is only a few days old but already the posts have touched on some of the interesting apsects of political campaigns: demographics and communication methods.

Add this one to your "must-read" column.

On a related subject, I have been fiddling with some posts about local campaigns and the way they have traditionally approached things like advertising, media relations and the use of research.

Looking around at the St. John's municipal campaign, there is a great feature piece for local media comparing and critiquing the signs and the approaches. That one will wind up being a post mortem, though since I am actively involved in the campaign right now.

Eric Gullage to challenge Coombs?

There's a rumour circulating in some circles that former city councillor, former member of the House of Assembly and former cabinet minister Eric Gullage is considering entering the municipal race in Ward Three.

That's the seat currently held by Keith Coombs, junior high school principal and firm believer in running up deficits at City Hall so he can watch hockey games cheap.

Since Ward Three covers most of the district Gullage once represented in the House of Assembly, that's where the widely respected insurance executive is likely to be strongest.

Odds are good that the contest would quickly develop into a two-way race between Gullage and Coombs, leaving the only other declared candidate with a low profile.

Gullage might find that there is a lot of dissatisfaction in the Ward with incumbent Coombs, the sort of stuff that might not be readily apparent or turn up in simple polling.

More sophisticated polling would give him good reason to believe that he could defeat Coombs handily.

Make up your mind, Eric. You might be surprised by the results.

Blog changes

Some of you may have noticed some changes on the sidebar over the past few weeks.

1. The experiment with advertising died a quiet death. Aside from anything else, the systems are set up to maximise the exposure for the advertisers and minimise the potential for actually having to pay out to the sites where the advertising is. They are gone and they won't be back.

2. Ditto for the news headlines. Seems the guy maintaining it took a vacation and never came back. I found it useful, so if he cranks up again, I'll put it back.

3. Gone as well is the TTLB ecosystem ranking. It looked cute when I first checked it out, but I found that it simply counts the number of links your site has on other sites. That hardly seems relevant to anything, so therefore, there's no point in keeping it up.

For example even though the Bond readership has grown steadily over the past 9 months and the average number of page loads (the number of pages each visitor reads) has gone up, TTLB has actually dropped the Bond Papers ranking below that of sites with significantly less readership.

In the meantime, the fish paper is still sitting there, challenging me to dare to finish it off. It is coming. As soon as I can muster the energy and find the time for the last edit.