The Venezuelan ideal

Danny Williams sorta likes the comparison to Hugo Chavez.

Danny's ersatz oil and gas company executives like to talk about how much of the world's oil and gas is run by state-owned enterprises.

Well, here's another view of the Venezuelan model, courtesy of the Washington Post.

"This [artificially low gasoline price] is something that really does not benefit the public," said Eddie Ramírez, a former state oil company executive who believes poorer Venezuelans shoulder much of the burden because they do not own cars. "It helps the privileged. But it's a theme that has always been taboo."

Gas demand drops

Demand for natural gas is forecast to drop in the United States next year and analysts say interesting in natural gas exploration is dropping.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a natural gas royalty regime remains elusive. originally talked about in 1998, it has languished under successive administrations. The most recent policy dithering under Danny Williams has seen the policy largely ignored for the better part of three years. It will now be included in the energy plan - due sometime next year, having been proposed several times in 2006 and delayed inexplicably each time.

Local CBC names AG top newsmaker

Ok.
We can all buy the rationale.

But at what point will local media start looking more closely at Noseworthy himself and the management of the overall story?

There's a lot more to the House scandal than meets the eye.

Maine gas plant files for regulatory approval

DownEast filed Friday for certification of a US$500 million facility in Maine that would re-gasify 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day for the American market.

The environmental certification application is likely to be opposed by environmentalists in New Brunswick.

Think of it this way

Will Gill Deacon be filling in for Mansbridge?

So then why...?

You know what I am driving at.

Ford dies; Reagan surprise

Former American president Gerald Ford died Tuesday, aged 93.

The guy who made Chevy Chase's career became president with Richard Nixon's resignation. He is generally regarded as a principled, capable president who led the United States through one of the most difficult periods in the country's political history.

In other news, recent scholarship has revealed that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came close to completely eliminating their nations' nuclear weapons arnsenals at the Iceland summit in 1986.

The story originally aired on CBC's The Current back in October, but your humble e-scribbler only caught the interviews on Boxing Day. Here's a link to the audio file.

In 1986, some of us were headed to graduate school for more work on defence and foreign policy, so arms control was right at the heart of what we were doing. And yes, some of us felt that while there could and should be dramatic reductions in the size of nuclear arsenals, it was almsot impossible for two countries to reduce to zero unless every country reduced their arsenal to zero at the same time. The issue is a little more complex than either The Current's host and her schollar-guests acknowledge.

Nonetheless, the work they talk about sheds an entirely new perspective on a very important international political event.

It should also help some people to dramatically revise their views. If one prof in particular is still teaching international security and arms control courses at Memorial's political science department, he'll have to go back to the drawing board. One of the favourite demons in his analysis turns out to have been the opposite of the characture he liked to draw.

The Reykjavik Files can be found here at George Washington University's website.

NL hospitals included?

It's nice to hear about the medical capabilities at hospitals in the "Maritimes", but will any hospitals in Newfoundland and Labrador be accepting casualties from the next rotation in Afghanistan?

Some aspects of this story sound like a Canadian Press staffer living in Halifax writing Christmas filler.

Yuletide amusements

1. From John Gushue, a little quiz on local politics and current events in the past year. Your humble e-scribbler missed two questions. John is a wicked quiz compiler.

2. From NORAD, their annual live tracking of Santa as he travels around the world on this Christmas Eve. The site is fun and the wee ones in your household will delight in the videos of Santa as he travels to New Zealand and Australia (already done).

Happy Christmas!

Now that the annoyance is over, enjoy these contrasting examples of the mummering tradition. The first is from Dorset, the West Country county whence so many Newfoundlanders are descended. The second is a tiny snippet from Newfoundland.



Sadly, this was the only Newfoundland example of mummering available on Youtube. The local tradition of mummering is much more informal than the Dorset one, at least as described in the notes accompanying the clip above.

Leftovers from polling period

Government news releases must be on the quota system.

Either that or some departments just felt the need to clear out their backlog of bumpf on this, the last working day before Christmas.

How encouraging it is to know the provincial government is committed to safe communities.

That last government grant to roving gangs of murderers and rapists had me worried for a second.

Sheesh.

Oh yes.

One last thing.

It's nicely written, Bill.

But public onanism - even in written form - is still a crime that can land you in jail. Look up s. 173 or 175 of the Crim Code. There's a good chance someone in your office has a copy.

Twisted Christmas

1. There's a Santa who looks a lot like Elvis. ram file; great little parody of a song made famous by Bing Crosby.

2. Weird Al: Christmas at Ground Zero

Retilling the much ploughed patch

From the Financial Post, this article on the movement of aluminum production to the Middle East and Asia.

The big attraction is low-cost power and the giant manufacturing markets that need aluminum. In the past decade, China's share of world aluminum production has gone from 9% to 25%. Canada's share has declined by a couple of percentage points; ditto Europe (including Iceland). The American share has dropped as dramatically as China's has risen.

This seems like an opportune time to quote an observation by the late Don Jamieson, left, once deputy prime minister, minister of external affairs and at one time minister of regional economic expansion in the Government of Canada.

He once observed a common trait - a faulty perception really - among so many in Canada. The following excerpt is from his memoir, No place for fools: the political memoirs of Don Jamieson, volume 1, (St. John's: Breakwater, 1989), p. 158:

He [Joe Smallwood] was the victim as well of a delusion I have observed frequently among leaders at many levels. He thought that the area where he held sway was larger and more important than it actually was. Newfoundland was Smallwood's life, his universe and he developed exaggerated, unrealistic expectations for it. If other provinces and regions could have steel mills and similar heavy industries, so could Newfoundland. Likewise for secondary manufacturing and resource upgrading. Smallwood saw himself breaking new ground with this approach; in fact, he was retilling a much ploughed patch and, subconsciously, seeking to outperform previous Newfoundland leaders.

These days some use this sort of delusion to drive an entire blog-worth of posts or calls to talk shows in which, inevitably, Confederation would be blamed for the economic rise of China or for the misfortune of Newfoundland not being adjacent to the Asian giant.

Another kindred spirit runs the province on much the same delusion as some of his predecessors. No wonder the blogger is so critical of the other; they are fighting for same shop-worn turf.

(h/t to Offal News' Simon Lono for recalling Jamieson's wisdom)

The problem for Stock Day

Forget the fractured syntax.

Forget the racial overtones.

Stock Day obviously thinks in Stone Age terms if he refers to "down-east spearchuckers".



Here's what those "down-east" types think of when it comes to missile weapons, political or otherwise:




You keep on living in the past Stock and we'll see you at the polls.

Iceland's miracle: the other side

For some people, Iceland has replaced Ireland as the model du jour that we should be aping as quickly as possible.

Yada yada yada.

None of the proponents of the Iceland model actually talk about the Iceland model as it actually is; they just talk about what they fantasize it means. That's largely just an excuse to avoid dealing with local issues in a practical way, of course.

Well, one of the costs of Iceland's supposed economic miracle is a currency that is dropping against the Euro. As a result, the Icelandic central bank has raised interests rates to 14.25%. It's been about 15 years since we've seen those kinds of interest rates in Canada.

Investors are keeping a close eye on the Iceland situation since the whole economic tension is coming from a government deficit on current account that is running at 27% of gross domestic product in the third quarter.

To put that in context, that's the equivalent of the provincial government here running a deficit - in a three month period just ended - of around $1.35 billion. That's just in one quarter, and assuming the economic output in the economy right at the moment is about $5.0 billion per quarter.

At that rate, Newfoundland and Labrador would add another $5.0 billion or so to its debt in a single year. The current consolidated accrual debt at the moment is estimated at $11.0 billion. The whole government budget this year is in the neighbourhood of $5.0 billion.

Iceland might be able to manage that in short term. For Newfoundland and Labrador, that kind of economic mess would rival the stuff that led to the collapse of responsible government in 1934.

The story has been picked up as far away as Shanghai, based on the Bloomberg story.

This is the 18th time the central bank has raised interest rates since May 2004.

Christmas in Dannyland 5

Christmas in Dannyland 4, an unsolicited contribution by WJM, can be found at labradore.

Here's the next instalment from Bond. Maybe your humble e-scribbler will get a gig writing for Revue '06.

[Tune: Santa Claus is coming to town]

Danny's jaw is clenching again

He's gettin' annoyed.
He's royally upset.
Emotionally,
he's nearly a wreck.
Danny's jaw is clenching again.

He's showin' his angst
at Randy, not Bill.
The blood pressure's up.
He just cannot chill.
Danny's vein is throbbing again.

Refrain:

He's ticked off at the teachers.
He's riled at the PM.
The Opposition's got him miffed
pushin' Dan around the bend.

He's pissed off at Grimes.
Big Oil is bad, too.
He'll tell you
he's got lots better to do.
Danny's temple's throbbing again.

Pachelbel's Canon in D sucks bigtime

This guy has it right on.

As someone who suffered through the canon during his wedding - but managed to sneak "God Save the Tsar!" into the lineup - your humble e-scribbler brings you this hysterically funny take on what many of us feel:

Rig shortage slows exploration

A global shortage of semisubmersible rigs capable of drilling in deep water is affecting exploration and development, according to bloomberg.com.

Rental fees are increasing and order books for new rigs are already backlogged as demand outstrips the ability of the handful of shipyards able to build the behemoths to keep pace. Two new rigs will enter the global fleet in 2007 with another 13 due in 2008. Currently, there are just 18 rigs like Cajun Express [right] capable of drilling more than four miles below the seabed.

All this is a reminder of the highly competitive global marketplace that will likely keep exploration offshore Newfoundland and Labrador at a meagre level for the better part of the next decade. Optimism that the area might become home to renewed global interest were dashed in early 2006 with collapse of the Hebron talks, political grandstanding by Premier Danny Williams and a failure by the Williams government to deliver an energy plan focused on creating a globally competitive environment.

One element to note from Bloomberg is the development of Chevron's Tahiti field. Discovered in 2002, the field contains an estimated $33 billion in oil and will begin production in 2008.

By contrast, the Hebron field was discovered in the early 1980s but was considered commercially non-viable for almost two decades. Engineering studies began in 1999, spurred by a new provincial government royalty regime. A unitization agreement was achieved among the four-company consortium ine arly 2005 followed by talks with the provincial government on royalties and local benefits. Talks with the province collapsed in April 2006 based on demands from the provincial government for super-royalties and an equity position in the development for the Crown-owned hydroelectric company. The latter contained a significant problem since the company had no prior experience in oil and gas work. In addition, the company does not function like Statoil or Norsk Hydro but is controlled very closely by the Premier's Office.

Premier Danny Williams claimed he rejected the companies' proposal for $500 million in tax concessions during the construction phase of the project. Published reportsd estimated Hebron's 500 million-plus barrels of oil was worth between CDN$8 to CDN$10 billion in royalties to the provincial government over the production lifespan. An additional 250 million barrels were not included in the Hebron proposal but were available for subsequent exploitation.

Any new talks on the Hebron field are not likely to begin before Danny Williams quits the premier's office, presumably in 2009/2010.

Squeezing the Hibernia field by rejecting an application to develop 300 million barrels in Hibernia South would be folly that would only deplete provincial government coffers. The oil industry has plenty of opportunities to make plenty of cash somewhere else.

Signed, sealed, delivered and rammed

Let the people know the truth and the country is safe. We will keep the people of the province fully informed; there will be no secret documents.There will be no hidden agendas. If you and I know the facts then we will collectively decide the best course for the future...

That is what my platform is about: no hidden documents; no hidden agendas.

Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition,
paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln in debate on the
Access to Information and Protection of Public Privacy Act,
House of Assembly, December 3, 2001.

How times have changed.

Premier Danny Williams will not allow the Auditor General to review certain documents presented to cabinet and related to the fibre optic deal. He defends his decision by pointing to the letter of the law.

This is not the first time Williams has demonstrated that the noble words delivered shortly after his election to the House of Assembly were not matched by his actions once he became Premier. A year into his administration, Williams rejected a request from The Telegram for access to polling conducted for his office out of public funds. He claimed the letter of the access to information law prevented their releases since they would reveal cabinet confidences.

He was proven wrong by a simple reading of the access act itself which explicitly stated that public opinion polling could not be withheld from disclosure. He was also proven wrong in a subsequent decision by the access and privacy commissioner.

In examining the Premier's latest in a long list of efforts to avoid public accountability for his actions in office, it is useful to go back to what Danny Williams argued from the opposition benches.

At that time, the current premier was in favour of open and largely unfettered access to information. He criticized provisions of the access legislation as having been "put in here as a shield to protect the government."

"The people of the province have a right to know what is going on...It [a deal or agreement] should not be signed, sealed and delivered and then rammed down their throats when it is all over."

His belief in openness and transparency appeared undeniable.

That was in 2001.

In November 2006, when faced with questions about the deal, the Progressive Conservative majority in the House of Assembly amended an opposition motion to read simply:

Therefore be it resolved that the House of Assembly, in the spirit of openness and accountability, ask the Auditor General, an independent Officer of the House of Assembly, to investigate all the details and circumstances of the fiber [sic] optic deal.

Note the simple word "all".

Given Premier Williams' position today that the Auditor General is prohibited by law from reviewing cabinet documents (including background reports, recommendations by officials etc), and given that the Premier and his colleagues were clearly familiar with the provisions of the access legislation when they voted in favour of the resolution calling on the Auditor General to review the fibre optic deal, one can only reasonably conclude that the Premier and the members of his caucus had no intention of allowing access to "all" details and circumstances.

What is truly curious about the Premier's position, though, is that the disclosure in this instance is limited to a single official of the House of Assembly in a very specific context. This is no ordinary official in the pantheon of Williams props. The Auditor General holds a revered status akin only to God himself; that is, when Williams wants to attack his own political enemies. Cabinet ministers are slaughter on the AG's word.

And while Danny Williams advocated unfettered information access for the lumpenproletariat - like your humble e-scribbler and you - only a few short years ago, Williams in this instance is denying his own deity the ability to have a confidential review of certain documents directly related to a controversial issue.

Think about that.

And it is not as thought individuals have not been given access to documents. Cabinet is quite able to disclose information based solely on its own discretion. Details of Hydro Corporation expenditures on the Lower Churchill were revealed in 2004, completely contrary to the access act. Cabinet has the legal ability to disclose certain information, at its discretion, and to restrict the subsequent disclosure.

In this case, the twin imperatives of cabinet confidentiality and the need to demonstrate that the fibre deal is "squeaky clean" can be easily balanced. That is, they could be balanced if the Premier was sincere.

By his own actions, evidently, he is not.

Or perhaps there is some other reason for the Premier's willingness to block the Auditor General's review.

It should not go unnoticed that in his news release the Premier drew attention to provisions of the access law that prevent "disclosure of Cabinet confidences and information harmful to law enforcement." In the release the Premier - and his publicist - paraphrased the act in describing cabinet confidences. There was no apparent need to mention the other provision of the act at all since - so far as we know - there is nothing in this Persona deal that is connected in any way to law enforcement. Why did the Premier mention it at all?

Sadly, we will not know, at least until a future administration appoints a public inquiry. Until then, we must be satisfied - according to Danny Williams' actions - with having this deal signed, sealed, and delivered.

For good measure, the Premier rammed the whole thing today but his destination was considerably lower than our throats.

It must be good to be da king, indeed.

Waiting for the other shoe

Hibernia oil production is forecast to drop next year and Hibernia Management and Development is pinning the decline on delay in approving its application to develop the southern Hibernia field.

The development application was held up by wrangling between Danny Williams and Ottawa over the appointment of a new chairman and chief executive officer for the joint board that regulates offshore oil and gas. The board - which now includes chairman/CEO Max Ruelokke and Andy Wells - has taken more than a month to consider recommendations from officials based on their own assessment and results of a public consultation process.

The National Post story linked above notes that no decision had been made as of 16 December 2006. A decision has been made since then. Under the Atlantic Accord (1985), the federal and provincial governments now have 30 days to approve or disapprove the offshore board decision. There's no indication of the board's decision.

The local oil patch has long speculated that the provincial government will quash development of the 300 million barrels in the southern Hibernia structures either to try and force a re-start negotiations of Hebron, as one National Post source speculates, or to have the field treated as a new development.

As a new development, the 300 million barrels would require negotiations to set benefits and royalties. Bond Papers contends the southern field is part of the main project and would not meet any objective criteria to establish it as a separate project.

If the provincial government rejects the application, work offshore Newfoundland and Labrador will grind to a virtual standstill outside of the effort needed to produce oil at the existing fields - Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose. Exxon Mobil will drill two exploration holes in the Orphan basin. No other work appears scheduled.

Hibernia is owned by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation, Murphy Oil and Norsk Hydro. Norsk Hydro's interest will become part of the new Norwegian oil and gas company created by the merger of Statoil with Hydro's offshore assets.

There are duties and then there are duties

Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan says the comptroller general has a legal obligation to collect any money that's owed to the province.

Sullivan (right) made the comment when announcing today that the comptroller general would be sending letters to the five current and former members of the House of Assembly demanding repayment of alleged overpayments in the House of Assembly spending scandal.

Perhaps the finance minister should read all of the Financial Administration Act and acknowledge that significant details of the House of Assembly scandal have not been properly investigated and disclosed to the public.

For example, the comptroller general has a legal obligation to maintain the public accounts under terms set out in s. 27:

27. (1) The comptroller general shall keep a ledger in which shall be entered the departmental appropriations by Heads of Expenditure and by subheads and subdivisions in accordance with the subhead and subdivision allocations exhibited in the estimates for the fiscal year concerned, as amended in accordance with this Act, against which shall be charged all authorized expenditures.

(2) The comptroller general shall establish and maintain a record of commitments chargeable to each appropriation in the form that the board may prescribe.

(3) The comptroller general shall furnish to each deputy minister or other officer charged with the administration of a Head of Expenditure a statement of the charges entered against the Head of Expenditure or a subhead or subdivision of a Head of Expenditure and those statements shall be furnished at those periods that the deputy minister may reasonably require and shall show the charges made during the report period together with the balances at the credit of the Head of Expenditure or subheads or subdivisions at the end of each period concerned.

(4) When a subhead or a subdivision is exhausted, the comptroller general shall at once notify the deputy minister concerned and the comptroller general shall not sanction a further charge to be entered against that subhead or subdivision except as provided in this Act.

Notice that the comptroller general is responsible to track expenditures and to advise the deputy minister concerned - in this case the Clerk of the House of Assembly - that a line item has been overspent.

Under s.27.(4), the comptroller general "shall not sanction a further charge to be entered against that subhead or subdivision".

In the House of Assembly scandal we simply do not know what, if anything, the comptroller general did to discharge this responsibility. Had this responsibility been properly discharged, we likely wouldn't be looking at the mess we have today. If the comptroller general did his duty but was overruled by others, then the public has an incontrovertible right to know and to hold accountable those who sanctioned the overspending.

We do know that in from 1998 to 2005, the allowances and assistance budget for the House of Assembly was overspent to a total of $3.2 million. The Auditor General has only identified $1.58 million in excess spending. The table above shows the excess spending compared to the budget (red line) compared to the totals identified by the Auditor General (yellow line). Over half the overspending remains unaccounted for even after two supposedly thorough investigations by the Auditor General.

But wait.

It gets better.

Under s. 29, the comptroller general has further statutory obligations:

29. The comptroller general shall ensure that no payment of public money is made

(a) for which there is no legislative appropriation;

(b) for which no other appropriation has been provided under this Act;

(c) which is in excess of an appropriation; or

(d) which is in excess of sums that may have been deposited with the government in trust for a person,

and the comptroller general shall report to the board a case which comes to his or her notice in which liability has been incurred by a minister, deputy minister or other officer or person which contravenes this Act and the board may take whatever action in the matter that it considers necessary. [Emphasis added]

The comptroller general is specifically enjoined not to disburse money in excess of an appropriation. He is also obliged to report overspending to the treasury board. That is in addition to reporting to the appropriate deputy minister of equivalent.

Even if the deputy minister involved fails to act, there are others above him or her who have legal duties: the members of treasury board, all of whom are cabinet ministers.

One of the key members of treasury board is the president, which for several years is a position occupied by the minister of finance under successive Liberal and now Progressive Conservative administrations.

We know that significant overspending - about $1.0 million - occurred since Loyola Sullivan has been finance minister, president of treasury board and a member of the House of Assembly's Internal Economy Commission. Over $800,000 of that amount remains unexplained.

We have a right to know what happened.

Loyola has a duty to tell us.

When can we expect that duty to be discharged?