NL only province to see capital investment drop in 07/08

RBC Economics is the latest to forecast that the Newfoundland and Labrador economy will trail the country in growth in 2008, at 1.5%.

The decline will be led by what RBC calls a "retreat by capital investment".

In fact, according to RBC, Newfoundland and Labrador will be the only province in Canada to experience a decline in capital investment.

Nova Scotia is the province with the smallest forecast growth, at around 2.5%.

Newfoundland and Labrador's capital investment is expected to shrink by 7.5%.

With all three oilfields now operational and the labour disputes at Voisey’s Bay in the past, we expect the province to post above-average growth of 4% this year. Beyond 2007, growth will be much weaker as dwindling oil production and a decline in capital spending — led by a retreat in private investment — drag growth to a 1.5% pace in 2008. The weakness in construction markets is expected to span both non-residential and housing markets. Newfoundland is the only province reporting a decline in overall 2007 capital spending intentions. Broadbased weakness in housing markets has also emerged with several indicators down this year compared to year ago levels.

Unlike last year, this year’s federal budget will have little effect on Newfoundland other than a new transfer funding formula that requires provinces to include 50% of resource revenues in the equalization formula. But, since the Offshore Accord shields offshore resource wealth in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland from clawbacks, they now both have the option of sticking with the existing system until the accord expires or opting into the new formula.

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Local remittance economy picks up speed

Fish plants in the Maritimes are increasing offers in the hopes of luring Newfoundland and Labrador workers to their companies as migrant labour.

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Great Quotes: Yes, he actually said it

The only way to deal with a bully is to confront him.

Premier Danny Williams, VOCM Back Talk with Bill Rowe, 30 March 2007

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Hydro boss all wet: Offal

From Simon Lono at Offal News, a different take on Dean MacDonald's Rotary speech.

This one challenges the technical and financial viability of the subsea transmission route idea.

Warning: contains pesky facts.

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Flags of our fathers

Dean MacDonald is a fine example of his generation of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Bright and articulate, he has made a reputation for himself as a success in the private sector.

He's a fine choice as chairman of the province's Crown-owned Hydro Corporation.

If he can deliver a Lower Churchill project that delivers economic and other benefits to the project over its entire lifespan, then he will have done something no one else has been able to do in 40 years. It will be good for him and there will be no one, save for a few cranks who oppose shipping anything out of the province at all, who will hesitate to stand up and cheer.

However, his remarks to the St. John's Rotary club, as reported by the Telegram, miss the point of current issues about Equalization, the Lower Churchill project and how the province can move forward.

Of the subsea transmission route for Lower Churchill power, MacDonald is quoted as saying this:

"It's not poppycock. It's fact," he said of the much-maligned subsea route.

MacDonald said there are examples "all over the world" of more power being transmitted over longer distances under the sea.

He said it may cost more to build, but the people of this province will reap the rewards in the end.

"The cost is such a damn good cost to not have to depend on anybody. To maybe pay a little more to build it, but when you sell it, we don't have to pay a toll charge on the way," he said.

Well, sort of.

No one questions the technical feasibility of undersea transmission. Since the Churchill Falls project was first considered in the 1950s and early 1960s, one option for transmitting Labrador power to market involved underwater transmission either over short or long distances. MacDonald is right when he says that more power is transmitted over longer distances elsewhere on the planet.

The undersea approach is definitely more costly than hooking into existing land lines and that's really the crux of the decision on transmission route: money.

Every analysis of the undersea approach to date has concluded that while it is technically feasible, it hasn't been possible to get the power to market at a cost that is competitive, let alone profitable. At one point, even a land line route to the United States couldn't deliver power to market at a price the customer would pay. Times change and maybe times have changed on the undersea option.

But given the back end of MacDonald's remarks on this issue, though, it doesn't look like the undersea route is any better financially today than it was 35 years ago. MacDonald frames the cost as being good - not in terms of profitability - but in terms of not having to deal with Quebec.

Saving toll costs would be good since, if the price is the same at the point of delivery, Lower Churchill power would be more profitable for Hydro using the undersea route. Unfortunately for MacDonald, his boss, Premier Danny Williams, has talked about deferring revenues on the underwater route. That suggests that the toll costs wouldn't wind up as profit in Hydro coffers. Rather, Hydro would wind up in that scenario selling its power at cost or at a much lower profit or Heaven forbid below cost - than if it used the land route and paid the wheeling charges for running lines through Quebec.

[Now let's leave this option open. If Dean MacDonald wants to give some better information than what the Telegram offered, if he wants to put accurate information on the cost issues in the underwater route in the public domain available, this space is his to use. MacDonald has the e-mail address. He can fire off a submission and Bond will carry it, unedited and in its entirety. Bond readers include most of Hydro's target audiences.]

If the reward is pride, thanks very much but no thanks. But if the reward of MacDonald's approach is more cash, then more power to him, puns aside.

On the current Equalization fracas, there's no surprise that MacDonald unequivocally backs his former business partner Danny Williams:

"I'm mad as a Newfoundlander and Labradorian about what's gone on here. There may be a price to pay in the short term, but we have to draw a line in the sand," MacDonald said.

There's also no surprise that MacDonald couldn't put a value on the price. His boss hasn't been able to do it. There's no surprise also that MacDonald offers up nothing more than Danny-esque rhetoric of drawing lines in sand and getting ready for "war". Danny Williams' latest war may be justified, however, as with every other war he has raged, Williams has been unwilling or unable to provide any substantive evidence to back his ire.

Rather he, and apparently MacDonald, can do nothing but wave the flags of our forefathers. those flags are the time-honoured cry of previous generations having been hoodwinked by foreigners, of rolling over, of falling into traps and of having generally and always having signed bad deals.

MacDonald decries our collective insecurity, yet the very words that he and his boss use repeatedly do nothing except reinforce the old insecurities.

In the final remarks in the Telegram article, MacDonald returns to another of the old flags of our post-Confederation forefathers:

"Why is it when Newfoundland and Labrador asks for it, it's something that we don't deserve or it's something we shouldn't get? Well, it's so important that we don't roll over on it."

Fortunately for us, his other remarks on this point were carried by CBC radio's On the go. MacDonald referred to Alberta's oil royalty regime. No one has opposed that since the 1985 Atlantic Accord. Newfoundland and Labrador today is in exactly the same position with respect to oil and gas royalties as any province in the country. In some respects, for example in comparison to the tar sands, our existing royalty regime is infinitely better than the Alberta regime.

MacDonald also mentioned fallow field legislation. Of course, what he did not say is that the circumstances offshore Newfoundland and Labrador do not offer up examples of kind found elsewhere where fallow field legislation actually makes field management or financial sense.

At the end though, this is yet another of the flags of our fathers, namely that some foreign oppressor is trying to keep us down.

Poppycock, to borrow MacDonald's word.

Politicians and others wave those flags because they believe them, but as time passes, they have become threadbare. Those flags have served as nothing but a distraction, as a means of keeping people in the province from looking more closely at decisions made by our own politicians irrespective of partisan stripe.

Unfortunately for MacDonald, people are increasingly looking through the tattered strands to see what is behind. in the business community, if nowhere else, we have learned that lines in the sand and "deferred revenue" are red flags, not banners to rally behind.

If MacDonald can produce a profitable project on the Lower Churchill, then he will be lauded.

If at the end, MacDonald produces nothing at all, or worse, a deal that delivers nothing but the benefits of the "deferred revenue" Churchill Falls project, they will understand that while MacDonald is a fine example of the current generation, he can be all too easily distracted by the flags of old.

That would be the shame of this entire Hydro exercise.

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Another sign of the Apocalypse?

Federal Conservatives tackling Danny Williams.

Provincial Progressive Conservatives lambasting their federal breathren.

John Crosbie once lamented having to deal with Brian Peckford and his constant attacks.

Well, just to reinforce the extent to which Danny Williams marks a return to exactly the kind of government (and the economy?) this province had in the 1980s, take a gander at this CBC online story.

If you see four guys on horses, hear trumpets and people start breaking seals, you know something is up.

QC or NL?

Their deep insecurity and old fears force them to shut the doors and barricade the frontiers. They attempt to drag us along in their withdrawal by giving their misadventure the allure of a crusade, as if rage could be known as courage and bitterness could replace spunk.

Comment by a well known contrarian, Nov 10, 1968

Sign of the decline: offshore trade show cancelled

dmg World Media announced on Thursday it was cancelling the 2007 offshore trade show.

The show is still listed on the company website but a spokesman for dmg's Calgary office said the show wasn't drawing enough interest this year.

He said the show may also be cancelled next year as well.

Never fear, though, NOIA's annual conference is still going ahead full steam.

Danny Williams should take up NOIA's long-standing invitation and address a NOIA function. So far - after three years and long before Hebron died - he's been giving the event and the organization a cold shoulder.

Bond Papers will now officially start the rumour that if Williams doesn't take a keynote slot this year, NOIA will invite your humble e-scribbler to speak.

Danny.

Paisan.

Tovarisch.

That's something you really don't want, is it?

Leave the gun, Danny.

Take the NOIA offer.

Westcott on lost opportunities

Business Post publisher Craig Westcott's take on the oil industry and Danny Williams, subtitled, as Craig put it "Stuck in the middle with you."

The reaction to the speech has already been strong.

Undoubtedly it will be stronger.

Inkless Wells on the Williams fracas

Paul Wells offers two thoughts on the issue:

1. His question of the day on what possible issues Stephen Harper might use to "hurt" Danny Williams.

2. A follow-on post listing the rest of the stuff the pugnacious Premier wants from Ottawa or needs help on from the feds.

Paul will get nasty e-mails.

Why Danny's campaign will fail

John F. Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."

I say to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians: "Ask not what we can do for our country, because we have done enough. Let's ask our country what they can do for us."

Danny Williams, April 7, 2001

For a quarter of a million bucks, you'd think Danny Williams could do more with his print ads than a bunch of text on a crappy layout.

You'd think there'd be more than the obvious, namely that the federal Conservatives didn't do exactly what they promised on Equalization.

Inquiring minds, or even the ones who haven't already written Williams off as nothing more than a guy needing to have his political bile ducts surgically removed, would wonder how exactly Harper's decision has damaged Danny Williams and the province he leads.

Those who lost money in the income trust decision can point to their lost income.

They have numbers.

Hard facts.

Incontrovertible evidence of harm.

If Danny Williams had such evidence, he'd have used it. That he can only talk in vague terms - as he is wont to do on just about everything - suggests that he has no evidence.

That lack of evidence undermines the credibility of his argument.

Williams undermines his own argument further by making the statement that Newfoundland and Labrador does not need the federal government and its cash. If that's the case, then there is no need for Williams to be in High Dudgeon yet again. If the economy was relentlessly growing, then he'd be calmly getting on with the business of developing the provincial economy into the powerhouse it could be.

Logic is not Danny Williams long suit, evidently.

For everyone other than the faithful disciples of the Williams Church of Victimology, there are facts. Those facts find their way into articles like the latest John Ivison column in the National Post. The Globe did the same thing with its editorial last Saturday. Those facts make it plain that Williams' argument will have no traction where he would need it, namely among the crowd on the mainland.

For Williams' latest tantrum to have any political impact, he would need to do more than threaten to turn the seven Newfoundland and Labrador federal seats to a party other than the Conservatives. Williams simply has no political influence outside his own province. In fact, few provincial premiers from this place ever have. What Manitoban or British Columbian ever felt moved by the antics of a Brian Tobin or Brian Peckford or Frank Moores?

The only Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador to make a political impact outside his own province was Clyde Wells. That impact, during the Meech Lake constitutional fracas was built around a national Canadian argument. Wells' arguments against creating a special status for one province and in favour of meaningful reform like a triple-E senate applied as much to Ontarians, Albertans and Quebeckers as they did to the people in Goose Bay or Pasadena.

It should be remembered that Wells did not stay in a perpetual condition of irk. On other issues, such as economic development, social welfare reform, or fiscal responsibility, Wells could sometimes agree with the federal government. In some instances he disagreed with a federal policy, but while he could argue forcefully and passionately, Wells never did he resort to the sort of foot-stomping that is Williams' one trick. He persuaded - or attempted to persuade - with reason.

Consider as well, that by 1993 - about the same time in his first mandate as Williams is at right now - Wells' administration had produced an unprecedented economic development plan for the province. His administration had begun dramatic education reform, not merely to save money but to improve the quality of education to support long-term economic development. All this was done in a financial climate in which the provincial debt was the equal of the provincial gross domestic product, when all three of the province's economic engines were in decline simultaneously and the federal government's own financial resources were strained.

Taken all together, any argument that Wells could made was backed by substantive evidence of a responsible provincial government that was acting to address the province's many challenges. When he approached federal issues, Wells focused on equal and equitable treatment for all Canadians, especially Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Compare that to where Danny Williams sits today and one can easily see another reason why his latest tirade will fall on deaf ears across Canada and increasingly at home.

Three years into his first administration, Danny Williams can only talk of plans. Rather than encouraging new economic opportunities - as with Hibernia - Canadians from Cape Spear to the farthest tip of Vancouver Island can see Danny Williams turn away $14 billion in provincial government revenue from oil development for only the vaguest, and one suspects insubstantial, of reasons. Rather than fair and equitable treatment, Williams speaks of getting the most for his province, and implicitly, giving not even a tinker's damn about the rest of the country.

Ultimately, politics is about persuasion. Persuasive arguments are internally consistent, factually based and reasonably - even if passionately - delivered. Danny Williams' argument on Equalization has none of those qualities.

Those argument are framed to appeal to the audience. No aspect of Williams' argument, including the copy in his advertising, is aimed at the audience or audiences he needs to persuade if his whole campaign is to have any effect whatsoever.

Well, an effect beyond strengthening the cash flow of a few newspapers and an advertising agency and getting rid of some surplus cash near the end of the fiscal year.

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Harper smacks backover Williams' ads

This is something Williams hasn't faced before: a federal government that bites back.

Breaking: Chief electoral officer packs it in

Chuck Furey has had enough.

Six months before the next provincial election and on the eve of the electoral office starting a massive enumeration program, the chief electoral officer is quitting.

Williams launches ad campaign against Harper

This will be remarkably ineffective except for the cash flow of the agency that got the contract to run the campaign.

This is like bringing a knife to a gun fight, or to put it clearly running an advertising campaign when it requires issues management/public relations skills.

Clue to the Premier: the word is "unequivocal".

Unfortunately, the Premier said this and the Globe quotes him verbatim: "It was a simple equivocal promise. And he broke it.”

If it was an equivocal promise, i.e. one that is "of uncertain nature or significance", then we'd find it hard thing to break. If we applied another meaning to equivocate, namely designed to mislead, then we'd expect that Harper's promise was something couldn't have been trusted in the first place.

Advice from three- year-olds

Former Martin speech scribe Scott Feschuk gives some advice to danny Williams on throwing tantrums. From Feschuk's Macleans blog.

Exploration slowdown offshore NL

From the National Post, another story on the decision by a consortium of oil companies to postpone further exploration in the Orphan basin until 2008.

The major reason for this decision is the availability of the rig Eirik Raude given other demands on the rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It isn't about the investment climate, as Paul Barnes of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers told the Post.

But, as ExxonMobil's Alan Jeffers notes, the experience in the Orphan Basin demonstrates that working offshore Newfoundland "really does require high levels of technical and financial capability to explore for and produce in those harsh environments."

Ottawa and NS in Equalization slapfest

Ottawa will go to court against N.S. if necessary over Atlantic Accord: MacKay

27 march 2007

HALIFAX (CP) Nova Scotia's representative in the federal cabinet says Ottawa is prepared to go to court, if necessary, if his home province sues over having to abandon its offshore accord.

In question period on Tuesday, Peter MacKay defended his government's decision to offer Nova Scotia a new $1.46 billion equalization deal that offers an additional $79 million over last year.

However, the deal forces the province to set aside provisions of its cherished Atlantic accord, which allows it to keep oil and gas revenues without clawbacks in equalization payments.

In responding to a question from Liberal MP Robert Thibault over that tradeoff, MacKay said he will "continue to work with the province of Nova Scotia'' and hope to avoid legal action on the issue.

But if provincial lawyers head to court, MacKay said, "we will see them there.''

Nova Scotia's Tory government accepted Ottawa's recent equalization offer in his government's budget, but Finance Minister Michael Baker promised the province would use "every capacity,'' including potential legal action, to maintain the accord in the future.

Thibault and other Liberal MPs have made the issue a major focus of their questions in recent days in Parliament.

"The government is a poison pill. If we opt into the new formula we lose the accord and jeopardize the future prosperity of Nova Scotia. If we maintain the status quo we are shut out of new money for the people of Nova Scotia,'' he said during question period.

MacKay, the minister of Foreign Affairs, countered that "there must be an epidemic of grumpiness breaking out across the way.''

"The province of Nova Scotia does have options. It can take a very good deal for Nova Scotia, the Atlantic accord, or it can take an even better deal which is offered to the province in this budget, plus it has the option of going back to the accord after a period of time,'' he said.

"It is good news and more good news for the people of Nova Scotia and there will be more coming.''

Oil and gas: the impact of opportunities missed

1. From CBC television's Here and Now, this report by David Cochrane [ram file], as we come up on the first anniversary of the collapse of the Hebron negotiations.

2. Then there's a luncheon talk by The Business Post's Craig Westcott, Thursday March 29 at the Delta Hotel, St. John's, starting at 12:30 PM. Sponsored by NOIA. Title: "Weighing the cost of lost opportunities."

Interestingly enough Danny Williams spent part of question period in the legislature last week quoting from the Business Post about how wonderful things are in the local economy.

He'll probably be running around encouraging people to come out and hear what Craig has to say.

Williams congratulates Charest

It's the neighbourly thing to do.

Premier Danny Williams made no observation - at least in the short news release - on the accuracy or inaccuracy of his previous comments on Quebec's supposed volatile provincial political climate.

Cdn foreign spy agency on backburner

The Conservative promise to create a foreign intelligence agency for Canada has apparently slipped down the government's list of priorities, according to the Globe and Mail.

Moreover, CSIS [the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency] has convinced Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that it is able to do more spying abroad than it has in the past without the trouble of asking for parliamentary approval to start up a new agency.

That assessment is apparently supported by the Prime Minister's security advisor.

It's also supported by the legislation governing the security intelligence agency.