Sask NDP in expense claim flap

The Saskatchewan Party is calling for the resignation of a New Democrat cabinet minister amid allegations a caucus staffer admitted to inflating expense account claims 15 years ago.

NDP caucus chief of staff Jim Fodey resigned Saturday after admitting that he had given NDP House Leader Glenn Hagel incomplete and inaccurate information on the matter. An NDP caucus staffer was accused of pocketing $6,000 by altering expense claims. According to the Globe and Mail,

Mr. Hagel said last week that the party had turned over all of its information to police regarding the investigation.

But Regina Police Chief Cal Johnston says his department wasn't given important documents, such as the cheques or an alleged confession note, until 1994.

"It would appear from our files that we were told in 1992 that there was no cause for concern," Chief Johnston told a news conference Friday evening.

Adult sudden death syndrome?

Apparently it struck a judge being held in jail in China.

Hmmm.

Adult sudden death syndrome?

Bullet to the back of the skull.

Is that a cause, if not in this case then in others?

Falling down a flight of stairs, while handcuffed and shackled?

That would likely cause it, too.

Turns out ASDS is not an usual idea. But it usually manifests in young people and is linked to a previously undiagnosed cardiac condition.

Then again, ASDS could be a clever way of describing an old truism: it's not the flying through the air that kills someone falling off a building.

It's the sudden stop at the end.

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Budget Fibre Questions

Listed in the Estimates for Innovation, Trade and Rural Development (InTRD), is a $10 million line item to "provide for the purchase of fibre optic strands forming part of a new, fully redundant fibre optic telecommunications link along two diverse routes which will connect with national carriers in mainland Canada."

The original estimate for this project was $15 million "over the next two fiscal years", so this line item raises a few questions:

1. Has the amount been reduced to $10 million from the original $15 million? If so why? One of the points raised in the consultant's assessment for this project was that price quoted for the quantity of fibre-optic cable didn't seem to mesh with current market prices.

The consultant recommended increasing the amount of fibre. Buuuuut, the provincial government might have elected to reduce the quantity or bring the price paid in line with the quantity purchased. At the same time they might have opted to increase the quantity of fibre-optic cable being purchased.

2. Has the amount been raised so that the investment will be $10 million this year and an unknown amount next year?

3. Will there be a $5.0 million appropriation next year? It's likely the project is still on track with the original estimate, with two-thirds being committed the first year and the remainder in the last year.

With a tip of the hat to e-mailers

From today's Telegram editorial:

Cheers: to stacking the deck. Kudos to Internet blogger Ed Hollett, who spotted this Reuters story in April. "The Russian official whose role is to act as an impartial umpire in elections said in an interview published on Monday that President Vladimir Putin is always right. Kremlin critics have raised doubts about the impartiality of Vladimir Churov, a former colleague of Putin's who was last month chosen as chairman of the Central Election Commission. In his first major newspaper interview since he started his new job, Churov told the Kommersant daily that 'Churov's Law No. 1' is that Putin is always right. Asked by the newspaper what would happen if it turned out the Russian leader was mistaken on a certain issue, Churov said: 'How can Putin be wrong?' " That's certainly democracy at its best, and an honourable answer, indeed.

The original post is here.

A tip of the hat must go to the e-mailer who raised the subject in the first place.

FPI sold

Several news stories on Sunday and Monday report that Fishery Products International (FPI) is being sold. The Newfoundland assets are reportedly being sold to an arm of the Penney Group while a secondary processing facility and the American marketing arm are going to Nova Scotia-based High Liner Foods.

A new FPI Act was introduced in the House of Assembly last week, although details of the bill have not disclosed.

A continuous disclosure statement issued by Sanford Limited in mid-April stated:

Proposals to sell all the major assets in (15% owned) Fishery Products International Limited (TSX: FPL) in Canada are under final consideration by the FPL board. If these sales are concluded and approved by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador the company will have a value well in excess of share trading prices over the last three years. Recent volume sales of shares in the company have occurred at C$15. This is well in excess of our present carrying value of C$7 per share and if this value is realised will result in a one-off gain of approximately NZ$20m.

Bond Papers has previously discussed Sanford Limited and FPI here, here and here.

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Another perspective on raises

This bit of silliness in political strategy and communications was apparently worth this much money to the Premier.

Political and public relations consultants in the province will be definitely revising their fee schedules as a result.

But here's another question: which of these people looks after the astroturf and the astroturfing?

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Video round-up

1. Would Trevor give grants for this potential local industry? Making guns, by hand, in the Northwest Frontier.

2. Darwin Award nominee from Autonomous Quebec. It's a decade old but it's still hysterical. There is no truth to the rumour this guy is a failed ADQ candidate.

3. Evacuating an Airbus A380 in under a minute and a half.

(h/t to a retired barrister)

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The other Stephen Harper

Where did this Stephen Harper go?

"The broad lesson of history," he notes, "is that Canada's natural governing coalition always includes the federalist option in Quebec, not the nationalist one" -- as was true of the Liberals for much of the 20th century, and of the Conservatives in the 19th. The Alliance's Quebec strategy, in case anyone missed his point, should be to make itself "acceptable to a significant number of Liberal as well as anti-Liberal voters." Mr. Harper's leadership, then, would herald a historic shift -- not only in conservative politics but in the politics of the country.

...


And while generally rendering unto the provinces what the Constitution assigns to the provinces, he says he wants to see "a stronger federal government" within its own fields of jurisdiction. Is this just lip service? Mr. Harper drops this tantalizing hint: "Our economic union is too weak because Ottawa has failed to use the powers it has under the Constitution to ensure that goods and services can freely flow across provincial borders." Is Mr. Harper saying he would use those powers? Paris was worth a Mass. An economic union would be well worth a firewall.

(h/t Andrew Coyne)

Harper appeals to Quebec nationalists

In a speech to approximately 400 Conservative and Action democratique supporters on Saturday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper quoted former Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis to call on Quebeckers to support Harper's Conservatives in the next federal election.

"Two parties is enough," the prime minister quoted Duplessis saying. "A good one and a bad one."

...

He said a re-elected Conservative government would lead a Canada that was "strong, united and free, with a Quebec (that was) autonomous and proud."

Harper appeared to align himself strongly with the conservative, ruralist Union Nationale which, under Duplessis, ruled Quebec for 15 years beginning in 1944.

"There is nothing more precious than the family farm, which represents so well all the values on which our country has been built,'' he said to rapturous applause.

From a 1956 speech archived by CBC, Duplessis describes Confederation as a pact between Quebec and English Canada.

A reminder from Doug House

In light of the nationalist (populist) rhetoric in the recent throne speech, consider these words from Doug House on what's needed in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

When you're done with the quote, go back to the post from a little over a year ago and consider the question posed at the time. The answer might be clearer today than it was 12 months ago.

Ever since it became self-governing in the mid-nineteenth century, political leadership in Newfoundland and Labrador has rotated between representatives of the dominant social class and populists who appeal directly to the "people" directly, with party labels meaning very little...

What Newfoundland and Labrador needs, however, is neither populist nor merchant. It needs a leader - or leadership if you include the whole of Cabinet [sic] - who can transcend both the exaggerated rhetoric of the populist and the restricted conservatism of the merchant. It needs men and women who exhibit statesmanship, by which I mean leadership that both transcends the interests of a single class and is grounded in a deep understanding of the issues, problems and potential rather than superficial rhetoric. [Italics in original]

J.D. [Doug] House, Against the tide: battling for economic renewal in Newfoundland and Labrador, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), p. 239.

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Williams boosts political staff pay, some up to 16.8%

Staffers in the provincial Premier's Office will get raises in 2007 of between 8% and 16.8%.

Williams justified the increases, saying, among other things, that "They’re special staff. They’re a staff that are my senior advisers, that are running a $5-billion corporation, from my perspective."

Williams also acknowledged he needed to pay to retain people, particularly since he is a demanding boss. (All Premiers are.)

Has anyone been hearing any new nicknames for the Premier's Office aside from the old reliable the "8th Floor"?

Shrieking Shack, for example?

Incidentally, 8th Floor isn't like being one of the rings of hell from The Inferno. Rather it refers to the office's physical location. 8th Floor of an 11 Floor tower.

Funny and here everyone thought the province was run by the cabinet, assisted by senior public servants and overseen by the House of Assembly. Those senior public servants, by the way will only get a three per cent pay hike this year.

Williams also told the Telegram that while other public servants can expect salary increases in next year's collective bargaining rounds, the hikes won't be upwards of 8%. Guess 16% is out of the question, too.

But I digress.

Turns out it's actually all being run from the 8th Floor.

Highly centralized government indeed.

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Update: From the print version of the Telegram comes details of the salary hikes.

Chief of Staff: $131,050 from $121,180 (+ 8.1%)
Dir. of Communications: $101,896 from $89,546 (+ 13.8%)
Deputy chief of staff: $94,538 (new position)
Special advisor: $92,232 from $85,281 (+ 8.2%)
Principal assistant: $90,036 from $83,247 (+ 8.2%)
Director of operations: $81, 663 from $69,913 (+ 16.8%)
Manager, community outreach: $79,673 from $68,250 (+16.7%)

Rack of Confederation, the speech

Danny Williams will be speaking to the Economic Club of Toronto next week.

His topic: "his province's place within the federation now and in the future."

This sounds like the start of a road trip for the Premier. Just the topic to generate some headlines, what with the implication that Newfoundland and Labrador might not have a future within what Williams likes to call The Federation.

Williams will be in Toronto earlier next week for a meeting of the Federation council, seen in this artists' conception.

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Update: Early this morning, a draft for the Premier's Toronto speech turned up in Bond Papers' e-mail inbox. On closer examination, it seem authentic. Lots of hoary cliches. A quote lifted from someone else.

And in the middle of it, the following section that sounds, oddly familiar. Bonus points to anyone who can identify the original quote.


" Ladies and Gentlemen!

You have eyes, but you cannot see!

Galaxies…surround us!

Limitless vistas!

And yet, the Federation would have Newfoundlanders and Labradorians grovel away like some ANTS on some somewhat larger than usual anthill.

But I am not an insect.

I am...

Master of the Universe!

And I must claim my domain!"

Reasons for not having a spring election..Part I-lost-count

Yet another poll showing the federal Conservatives stuck below 40%.

The Liberals are at 31% and in Quebec the two parties are in a dead heat, behind the Bloc Quebecois.

Pressue mounts to dump Reynolds as electoral officer

Pressure continues to mount on Premier Danny Williams to shelve the appointment of a former president of Williams' party as the province's chief electoral officer.

Williams is defending the decision, and as this Telegram editorial notes, in the process misses the point that the CEO should not be a partisan in the first place.

Joke em if they can't...the sequel

Premier Danny Williams repeatedly called the Prime Minister "Steve" Harper in a scrum today.

Williams wanted to show disdain for the Prime Minister comparable to the disdain Williams contends the Prime Minister displayed toward the province recently.

Such is the state of federal-provincial relations in the country.

Reportedly senior officials in the province's intergovernmental affairs secretariat are working on other options to deal with the federal government, including:

- stringing toilet paper in the trees at 24 Sussex;

- "egging" the Prime Minister's limousine;

- making it mandatory for all provincial officials to blow "raspberries" whenever anyone mentions the federal government at intergovernmental meetings;

- randomly calling the Prime Minister's office and asking if the PM's refrigerator is running;

- leaving messages for federal officials all over Canada that Mike Hunt from Newfoundland called. The automated answering system will put the caller into an endless loop of "if you are calling so-and-so press 2" options;

- ordering pizzas at all hours of the day and night having then sent to the Langevin Block;

- sneaking fart cushions into the Commons and randomly planting them on cabinet ministers' seats;

- having someone slip a dead skunk into the air conditioning system at Harrington Lake;

- when meeting their federal counterparts, provincial cabinet ministers are to do the fake-handshake-smooth-the-hair-instead-thing;

- putting plastic wrap across the toilet seats in the House of Commons washrooms;

- try to embarrass the PM by calling Frank magazine with a hot tip that the Prime Minister has a stylist on the office payroll;

- tell Loyola Hearn he can pull Danny's finger anytime but Danny is sooooooo pissed off Loyola won't even get a fart; and,

- Answer any future questions about the PM with: "Who? Never heard of him. He doesn't exist. So there. Neeener. Neener. Neener."

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Postscript:

Sadly, the first bit of this post was true: Danny is resorting to calling the Prime Minister Steve.

The rest?

Well, hopefully it's just a little Friday evening levity.

Sad part of it is that, with these guys, ya just never know when the province's representative in Ottawa will be sent to the House of Commons gallery with orders to sit and stare at the Prime Minister until he gives in.

Things are almost that silly.

But is the Premier going?

Natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale is off to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston next week.

But there's no mention the Premier is going, as he has done in the past.

According to some industry sources, the Premier is going down for a conference pre-show but has to flip to Toronto for a Council of Federation meeting in Toronto.

So how come there's no public mention of it?

Bravo SWGC

Sir Wilfed Grenfell College is becoming a degree-granting university separate from Memorial University but sharing a common board of regents with the long-established St. John's institution.

That's one of the numerous high points in government's 2007 budget.

But for those of us with memories, there's a certain irony in the whole development.

In 1989, the Liberals under Clyde Wells proposed creating several universities in the province.

If memory serves, some - including the Progressive Conservatives under then-Premier Tom Rideout pooh poohed the idea.

Steps taken in the years since 1989 have helped to make this announcement a reality. All it shows is that sometimes, with a little vision and lots of perseverance, things can happen.

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Correction

An e-mail correspondent pointed out a glaring error on the part of your humble e-scribbler.

A post on one possible source of the government's recent nationalist rhetoric contained the comment: "His interpretation has been criticised by other historians, but it did serve as the inspiration for the entertaining but fictional movie Secret nation."

However, that proposition doesn't hold up since the movie was completed before the master's thesis referred to in the post.

The movie was released in 1992 and the masters degree awarded in 1992, according to this news release, but at most the two projects were in production at the same time and with no apparent crossover. The e-mail contained information that made this clear.

So there it is.

Secret Nation was not inspired by John Fitzgerald's MA thesis.

If it wasn't clear from the above comment, then let's make it clear now: the movie was a work of fiction. The MA wasn't. It's a thesis and as such has been subjected to whatever commentary and criticism is appropriate in an academic context. It stands on its own merits. Sadly, it has not been published for a wider audience to have a look at it.

The 1993 Montreal Gazette story linked here has a comment that makes it plain the movie was finished before the thesis appeared. Michael Jones is quoted as saying:

"It's always been in the air. Based on that, we did a certain amount of research, consulted with historians and that sort of thing before we made the film. But it was only after the film was finished that I read a brilliant thesis by John Fitzgerald, a young historian in St. John's, that was very supportive of the conclusions of the film - even though the film was a piece of fiction."

That's pretty clear and frankly there's no excuse for missing the point that Jones read the thesis after finishing the movie.

As for the rest of the comments Jones makes, well, only he can answer for the conversation.

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Update: See also this previous post for the same erroneous comment on the inspiration for the movie.

Joke 'em if they can't take a...

Update: See below

CBC News and others in Newfoundland and Labrador have one take on Stephen Harper's remarks yesterday in the House of Commons. Here's what he said:

"Sounds like a good Conservative budget to me. Also sounds like they're having awful rough treatment and they want it to continue."

The lede on the CBC story reads this way:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper helped himself to some of the credit for Newfoundland and Labrador's record-setting surplus budget.

Sarcasm apparently doesn't come across well for Harper.

Tax cuts, spending on a variety of new programs and deficit and debt fighting. That doesn't sound like Harper is taking credit for the Newfoundland and Labrador budget, just that the thing sounds like the one delivered by his finance leprechaun.

The second part is a fairly obvious dig aimed at Premier Danny Williams. After all, if the provincial government can boost spending to record levels, it is hard to believe that the loss of Equalization - because the provincial economy is doing so well - is such a problem.

Imagine if he'd said that Canadas New Government isn't afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador.

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For the record, here's the full exchange, from Hansard:

Mr. Scott Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the most controlling Prime Minister in the history of Canada seems to be losing his grip on the Afghanistan mission and now the same is happening in his own caucus. Here is the latest.

A report last night from Radio-Canada says that his Atlantic colleagues are seeing the light, or perhaps feeling the heat. Now they are considering voting against the budget, the budget that is hammering them and is hammering Atlantic Canada.

What is the Prime Minister going to do to put out the fire in his own caucus?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I see that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has tabled a budget today that involves record spending, paying down the debt and decreasing taxes. It sounds like a good Conservative budget to me. It also sounds like it is having awful rough treatment and it wants it to continue.

Mr. Scott Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the last thing the Conservatives did was break their promise. That is what the government prides itself on doing.

Recently, even the great Progressive Conservative, John Crosbie, says that he supports Premier Williams and admits that a promise was indeed broken.

This week we have learned the Prime Minister's need to cover up anything that may tarnish his sterling facade.

How will he cover up the fault lines in this budget that is opening up all over this country of Canada?

Ms. Diane Ablonczy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, this is wishful thinking on the part of opposition members. They seem to indulge in a lot of that and a lot of false allegations.

The fact is this is a good budget for Canada, a good budget for Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are proud to support it.

Mounties get lesson in constitutional law

Lawyers representing suspended Royal Canadian Mounted Police deputy commissioner Barbara George are seeking a federal court injunction to stop the federal police force from investigating their client for perjury.

Questions arose earlier in a parliamentary investigation into handling of the RCMP pension fund among other things. George's testimony was contradicted by other witnesses.

Well, it turns out that a parliamentary privilege of immunity dating back to at least the 17th century protects both members of parliament as well as witnesses in parliamentary proceedings.

While Federal Court Judge Daniele Trembley-Lamer hasn't handed down a ruling, a great many people will be watching the decision with interest. There may be an aspect of the law that would lift that exemption from legal proceedings in a case like this. Whatever happens it will be an important case to watch.

Local Bond Papers' readers will recall that Premier Danny Williams tossed around the idea of removing immunity in the House of Assembly. While the second article on the subject hasn't appeared yet, the first one noted that immunity would be an easy thing to remove, at least in Newfoundland and Labrador. It also made this point:

Freedom of speech is also widely held to be an important right of legislators for the wider public interest it serves. Members of the legislature are entitled to make whatever statements they wish in dealing with a public issue. The same privilege extends to those called before the legislature or its committees as witnesses. All may speak freely and openly without fear and without concern that comments ought to be proven true before they are made.

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Update: In an unrelated matter, a supreme court justice in Newfoundland and Labrador today dismissed a case involving a former ombudsman who was suing the provincial legislature over his firing last year.

The justice cited parliamentary immunity as the grounds for the dismissal.

Perhaps the Premier is reconsidering his remarks in February.