How times change, Part 1

From the Globe and Mail, after both the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Government of Canada had jurisdiction over offshore oil and gas but before Brian Peckford and Brian Mulroney announced the 1984 agreement that led to the Atlantic Accord:

Peckford puts sweet reason up front in resource pitch
Ian Mulgrew
May 18, 1984
P.4


VANCOUVER - Brian Peckford, the Newfoundland Premier from Whitbourne, stabs an unlit cigar at a reporter and says he is just misunderstood, misrepresented and a victim of circumstances.

The national press maligns him, he laments, and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, ''in his Machiavellian way," tries to distort his positions.

If only Canadians could hear, the former English teacher adds, the facts would speak for themselves. ''Newfoundlanders aren't greedy and selfish, wanting all of the offshore resource wealth for themselves," he says, throwing out once again the moderate, reasonable pitch he has recently added to his repertoire.

It is an approach he has assumed since he began a cross-country tour to plead his ''moral case" and arouse public sympathy for Canada's youngest province in its battles with Quebec, over hydroelectric power generated in Labrador, and with Ottawa, over the Hibernia oil fields.

Scratch the veneer and you will find the same irascible, tough-talking politician who burst on the national scene in 1979, publicly agreeing with Rene Levesque and vociferously attacking Mr. Trudeau.

Asked why different versions of the cause of the breakdown in talks on offshore resources have come from him and federal Energy Minister Jean Chretien, Mr. Peckford shakes his head and blames Ottawa. ''In one scenario, the guy (Mr. Chretien) was just lying to us. He was devious and getting us into a pressure cooker and getting us in so far that it would be impossible for us to get out and we would sign a bad deal.

The other scenario is that he earnestly and sincerely came to the table . . . and the rug was hauled out from under him." Defeated in both the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Peckford says he has decided to take his case to the court of public opinion. He may have lost the legal right to claim the resources, but he remains committed to achieving de facto ownership -
control of the development. ''It's time for the rest of Canada to get exercised and force Quebec and the federal Government to treat us fairly," he says in a shirt-sleeved interview in his hotel room.

The federal Government has given control of resource development in the North to aboriginal peoples, and Mr. Peckford says there is no reason the nearly 600,000 people of Newfoundland should be treated differently.

And here in the other bookend of the country, as he calls it, where unemployment is also in double digits, where the resource industries are struggling and where a similar offshore oil boom is talked about, he is preaching to the converted.

Radio hot-line shows open their lines and the response is inevitable: ''Way to go Brian. We should tie a bloody big noose around Ontario and Quebec and string them up." Mr. Peckford says people misunderstood Newfoundland's aspirations because they were being articulated when the country was embroiled in a bitter debate over the Constitution and when central Canadian fears were most palpable about losing control of the country to resource-rich provinces such as Alberta.

He says the size of the bounty discovered under the ocean also exacerbated concerns over a power shift.

As the central provinces were given large tracts of land and resources in 1912, and as Alberta was given jurisdiction over its resources in 1930, so Newfoundland should be given the Hibernia oil, he says. ''It's a myth that they have agreed to share revenues with us. That's a factual inaccuracy." Under the pact offered Newfoundland, he
says, the province would have a veto that could delay up to six months a federal decision. But the revenue-sharing provisions, Mr. Peckford says, would leave the province no better off. ''Every time you create a dollar (in oil revenue) you lose one in equalization (payments from Ottawa)." The province, he says, wants the federal Government to phase out equalization payments over a period of many years rather than stop them immediately.

It wants a management board with three federal representatives, three provincial members and an independent chairman. National self-sufficiency and security of supply would give the federal Government's wishes more weight, but once such priorities had been achieved, Newfoundland's management decisions would prevail.

The province also wants the equalization payments - which total some $500-million to $600-million a year, he says - maintained in addition to the offshore revenue. ''We need to catch up. We have 23 per cent unemployment, the lowest level of public services, the highest taxes." More money would flow to the province until services and conditions reached the Canadian average.

Comparing the country to a family, he sketches an analogy. The federal Government gives one person $500 in welfare, he begins. Later, that person has a chance to earn $300, but the federal Government says that if he does, then he will receive only $200 in welfare. ''You're still only getting $500 a year; you're no better off. So you say to yourself, 'Why . . . am I going through all this working in my back garden to bring in this $300 a year if I am still going to get the $500 if I don't?' " Questioned about the aptness of the analogy, Mr. Peckford says that, the way the equalization system works, ''we don't have any chance to put our people meaningfully to work and to create wealth the way the other provinces have done since 1867. ''Isn't it
realistic for a province to have the opportunity with resources that are close to them and that they brought to the country . . . to develop those resources and (direct) some of that wealth into an industrial infrastructure that therefore makes Canada better off?

''We brought them into the country, legal interpretation notwithstanding," he says, ignoring the Supreme and Newfoundland court decisions. ''The Canadian Government just gave 16,000 square miles to the people of the Western Arctic because they live closest to the resources and they should have some say, and they don't have provincial status and (have) no legal grounds for that land. Alberta had no legal jurisdiction over resources . . . (and) neither did Quebec or Ontario. . . . If you do it for one province, you should do it for another, salt water notwithstanding." And in case you missed the point, he insists on making it clear: ''We owned the resources before we joined Confederation. The Supreme Court of Canada has no business saying who owned the mineral resources of the continental shelf before Confederation. That is an adjudication for the International Court at The Hague." If Ottawa followed his plan, the Newfoundland Premier says the day would come when Newfoundland would become a have province and would contribute to the rest of the country. ''That's the reason for the tour. It's a campaign of understanding. . . Surely that's all common sense?"

-sbrp-

How times change, Part 2

Brian Peckford's letter to the editor, Globe and Mail:

Newfoundland's position
A. Brian Peckford
May 29, 1984
pg. P.6

St. John's -- Re the article by Ian Mulgrew, concerning my cross-country tour and Newfoundland's position on the offshore (Peckford Puts Sweet Reason Up Front In Resource Pitch - May 18): I must congratulate Mr. Mulgrew as being the first national reporter to report on the substance of Newfoundland's offer to the federal Government for the development of offshore resources. However, the article creates some confusion as to Newfoundland's position on equalization payments once oil revenue starts flowing.

Newfoundland believes equalization payments to the province should be phased out over time, according to a predetermined formula which would help Newfoundland catch up to the rest of Canada in terms of living standards. Newfoundland looks forward to the day when the province will not receive any equalization, to the day when, because of the resources on and adjacent to our shores, we have dropped our "have not" status and are in a position to make a larger contribution to Canada.

That is our objective, and we would not want it confused. Newfoundland does not want both oil revenues and equalization.

A. Brian Peckford
Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's

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Rally backs Danny

As CBC news reports, a crowd of several thousand (estimates vary between 1500 and 4000) rallied at the now ironically named Confederation Building to back Premier Danny Williams in his fight with the federal Conservatives and the nationalist rhetoric of the recent throne speech.

Included in the speakers at the rally today were Danny Williams and federal Liberal MP Scott Simms.

The rally was originally billed as a non-partisan event with a speakers list that did not include the Premier and his supporters from other parties.

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Conference Board predicts big '07 for NL

But the year after?

Newfoundland and Labrador is forecast to post growth of 6.4 per cent this year, leading all provinces, the report said. This year's growth is fuelled primarily by increased mineral output, which is expected to fall off in 2008. As a result, real gross domestic product is forecast to grow by just 0.9 per cent next year, the report added.

-srbp-

Iraq could double production

Iraq could double its current oil production if violence in the country ended and the country's oil facilities could be fully repaired and upgraded.

That's the view of a Colorado energy consulting company being reported by the International Herald Tribune.

The report places Iraqi reserves at 116 billion barrels, while the western area of the country may hold as much as 100 billion barrels more that has yet to be discovered or delineated.

This report is consistent with a consensus in the analyst community that current world oil prices contain a substantial security premium caused by unrest in Africa, Venezuela and the Middle East. Removing those tensions could see a drop in oil prices from the current level of around US$60 to US$45 or less.

Increased Iraqi oil production would certainly lower oil prices and further increase the competitive pressure on small oil areas like offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

-srbp-

Insider Trading: Rideout needs to study law again

In order to meet the test of insider trading someone would have to sell shares using information available only to a select few people.

The whole idea is that someone is taking advantage of special knowledge to take unfair advantage.

Like say, someone gets wind that a government report will be released in two days time criticising a company. Someone hearing that information sells off all his shares the day before the report is released.

Recovers cash. Had he or she waited two days, the stock price fell to have what it was.

Or....

Someone knows about a sale of a company days before it is announced publicly and suddenly buys up a raft of shares at a low price, knowing the sale price is higher.

In the case of FPI, the sale of the company was known publicly and, it appears all the stock transactions were properly recorded and done in the open.

By definition, it doesn't look like insider trading.

From the sound of David Cochrane's debrief on CBC Radio, this is just another scurrilous attempt by the current minister of fisheries to interfere in the operation of fishing companies.

Rideout seems to be vying for the designation: Hugo Chavez of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishing industry.

All Tom Rideout seem to be accomplishing, though, is demonstrating that his knowledge of securities law is on par with his own assessment of his business knowledge.

Res ipsa loquitor, Tommy.

-srbp-

Update: Psst Tom. There's always a blackout on insider trading. Rideout's quote to CBC makes it sound like the blackout was a special thing for just this circumstance.

Funny thing is even people who aren't lawyers know that when you send threatening letters to FPI management while the company is sorting through sales offers, that's unwarranted interference in a private sector company.

Even if it isn't illegal, it is highly improper.

Like shutting down a portion of a company's fish processing operation, a portion government knew was subsidizing the rest of the company's processing activities.

Would that ramp up the pressure on the company to sell off its assets?

The "Solidarity Reg" Rally

A few hundred people, maybe a few thousand people might turn out on Friday for a rally to support Premier Danny Williams in his latest racket with people no from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Well, that's what some will be doing.

Others - the ones who read the initial mission statement for the rally over at according2.ca - will be fighting for Newfoundland and Labrador's rightful place in the Canadian budgetary process.

In the revised version, the rally-goers will be there "to illustrate...that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians speak with one voice...to express our mutual disgust with Prime Minister Harper’s broken written commitment to exclude non-renewable natural resource revenues from the equalization formula."

Whatever the reason, people will show up. How many is a crap shoot.

But does every Newfoundlander and Labradorian actually want 100% exclusion of non-renewable resources?

That wasn't the policy of the provincial government in the much vaunted letters to the federal party leaders last year.

Interestingly enough, it also wasn't the recommendation made by a panel appointed by the Council of the Federation, of which Premier Danny Williams is the current chair.

Quoi? sez you.

Well, read on to find this recommendation found in all its glory on page 87 of the report (March 2006):

The Panel recommends that the Equalization program be based on a ten-province standard and comprehensive revenue coverage with inclusion of 100 percent of natural resource revenues.

Now this gets a bit odd when one considers that Premier Danny Williams himself endorsed the 100% inclusion of resource revenues in the Equalization formula. He is on the public record endorsing that position.

The Council paper linked above actually includes an estimate of the financial impacts in a given fiscal year of a variety of options ranging from zero percent inclusion all the way to 100% inclusion.

Yet, only a year later, Premier Danny Williams could tell Jeff Gilhooley that the Equalization formula with 50% inclusion of non-renewables with a cap was a case of federal bureaucrats convincing "weak-kneed" federal politicians to shaft Newfoundland and Labrador.

Hmmm.

Makes you wonder.

-srbp-

Reinventing Canada

Deborah Coyne is a lawyer, activist and candidate in the next federal election in the Toronto-Danforth riding.

Your humble e-scribbler first met Deborah over a decade ago when she was constitutional advisor to the Government of Newfoundland and your scribe was, as Deborah once put it, "one of four young assistants". Young must be a relative term, because Deborah is only slightly older than yours truly.

Anyway...

She was energetic to the point of being manic at times but she was always incredibly thoughtful and though-provoking. Time has not reduced her energy, apparently.

In March, she delivered a speech in the University of Toronto lecture series, entitled "Reinventing Canada for the 21st century". It's a pretty wide-ranging commentary, running in the print version some 35 pages.

For example, take her summary of the current national political situation:

It is unfortunate that when citizens are willing to contribute so much to the future of the country, we have a federal government offering so little national leadership. We have a federal government that is in the business of putting the government out of business, transferring significant fiscal power away from the federal government to the provincial governments, and talking about what divides us rather than what unites us in moving forward.

Our national government, with some exceptions, continues to be consumed with petty politics, outdated ideologies, power plays to find the Holy Grail of a majority government, costly and useless opinion polls to gauge, not important matters, but merely the popularity of the government.

The preoccupation of our political class with manipulating power has discredited politics as a whole in this country, and must be abandoned if the values of democracy are to endure into the future. Our governments and political elites no longer seem to want or need publicly engaged citizens. The growth of the state into universal healthcare, public education, social security, portable pensions, immigrant settlement, and so forth means that too often we have sat back and wrongly taken for granted Medicare, employment insurance, public education, public pensions,
progressive taxation and the successful integration of the growing numbers of new Canadians. Public institutions seem to run on automatic pilot, with no need for our active engagement. Professional armed forces are available with no need for conscription.

Our leaders no longer appeal to a “public purpose”; only to the needs of customers, client-citizens. Some observers refer to this as an era of “personal democracy”. Conditioned as we are to be consumers, customers, shoppers, clients, we prefer to influence politics on our own terms.

The political party has thus been sidelined as an instrument of mass organization, despite attempts to “brand” itself to appeal to the individual “consumer”. In its place, we have a huge range of here-today gone tomorrow networked-based organizations, and celebrity-based populism.

Then there is this potent reminder that most provinces have higher trade betweens within Canada than there is internationally between Canada and other countries. The much-ballyhooed Council of the Federation has done nothing on this front of any consequence:

Until the path-breaking Alberta-British Columbia bilateral Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement in August 2006 (effective 2007), trucks used to have to unload their loads at the border and repack them according to the different regulations in the two provinces. Crossing to the state of Montana was easier. Now with the Alberta and British Columbia economies essentially open to each other, a gain of some $4.8 billion in national income is expected. Imagine what would happen if all provinces pursued open trade within Canada!

Speaking of the Council of the Federation, Deborah quotes Jeefrey Simpson's assessment. In light of recent events, it is amazing how perceptive this observation, from 2006, turned out to be:

At the same time as the federal government has weakened, the provincial and territorial leaders have increasingly organized themselves, most recently forming the Council of the Federation to try to arrogate to themselves more power. Journalist Jeffrey Simpson describes well how the annual meeting of premiers has "morphed into Canada’s equivalent of the Group of Eight Summit, with lavish banquets, superb entertainment, huge budgets, large retinues, security personnel everywhere, portentous and instantly forgotten communiqués and a ubiquitous aura of preening self-importance."

The speech is lengthy but it is well written and well worth taking the time to read.

-srbp-

Dawn without light

Herbert Pottle was born in 1907 in Carbonear.

Educated at Mount Allison and the University of Toronto, Pottle was an official of the Department of Education under the Newfoundland commission government from 1938 until 1947. in that year, he was appointed as one of three Newfoundland members of the commission.

He supported Confederation and spoke publicly in favour of Confederation during the referendum campaign in 1948. He was elected to the House of Assembly in 1949 and served as member for the district of Carbonear-Bay de Verde from 1949 to 1956. Pottle was appointed to cabinet in 1949 as minister of public welfare.

Pottle left politics in 1956 in a disagreement with Smallwood over economic development policy. The circumstance was described this way by the University of Toronto newsletter:

Pottle remembers it as a time of patronage and power; moral and fiscal responsibility seemed to be lacking, and there was a division between "promises and performance" and "words and works." He could not support a government that, in his view, had lost its integrity. In his resignation speech, he said that "the economic development programme of the government, in the broad sense, has spread itself too hastily. Time has not been taken to consolidate the programme step by step…. The Department of Economic Development is, in my view, inadequate to carry on the job it has to do, as far as its responsibility toward the 'new' industries is concerned … As I see it, the government has not given the leadership in these matters that ought properly to be expected of government...".

He worked with the United Church of Canada during which time he spent a one year term as a United Nations social welfare advisor in Libya. In 1963, Pottle began work for the Department of Health and Welfare. He retired in 1972.

In 1979, Pottle published Dawn without light, an account of his time as a commissioner and later cabinet minister. Pottle died in 2002, aged 95 years. His passing was noted by the Premier's Office with a simple news release that, frankly did not do justice to Dr. Pottle's contribution to the province.

He did do somewhat better than his former cabinet colleague and Confederate Harold Horwood. Horwood enjoyed a career as a nationally known author after an impressive career as a journalist. His death was completely ignored by the current administration.

An anti-Confederate who died around the same time was extensively eulogized. Such is the miserable attitude apparently taken to our history that even in death, appropriate respect cannot be paid to significant figures unless they fit into the current ideology.

The following extract is taken from Pottle's 1979 book. Recent political events - especially the notion that a certain politician has effectively revolutionized politics in the province - make some of Pottle's observations all the more striking.

Here's just one bit. Undoubtedly more will follow.

If Smallwood had been a revolutionary in the historical sense of the term, he would have exercised a directly decisive influence in changing the basic outlook of the Newfoundland people. If he had been responsibly radical, he would have been mainly instrumental in converting their life-values system. In fact, he did nothing of the kind. What he did was to capitalize on the gullibility of politically uneducated people and render them incredibly more gullible still. What he did was to take control of a dependent society that had always asked much of government and ordered it to ask for more. What he did was not to change the course of people’s expectations – he encouraged them to look for more of what they already had. He did not revolutionize his society – it can be more truly said that he parasitized it.

…

Newfoundland politics had always been notorious for the people’s chronic sense of dependence upon their political powers – a feeling which the powers did nothing effectively to dispel, but, in effect, had ingrained it by posing as their terrestrial saviours. In times of extreme adversity, this of course boomeranged, but Newfoundlanders have always been endowed with breasts of more than the normal capacity for the hope that springs eternal, so that a change of government was eternally tantamount to the prospect of a new saviourhood. For the benefit of the typical politician they have also been conveniently gifted with short political memory. If the time should ever arrive when Newfoundlanders had cause to look at their political estate in anything like creation’s light, and their political leadership was mature enough to feel no longer indispensable, then it could be well and truly said that the day of revolution had at last dawned.

Herbert L. Pottle, Newfoundland: Dawn Without Light; Politics, Power and the People in the Smallwood Era, pp. 166-7

-srbp-

Leo 2 A6s on video

For those interested in the new tanks Canada will be buying here is a youtube.com vid of four Leopard 2A6s in German service, moving across part of a German training area.

Note especially the Leo 1 Bergepanzer that winds up joing the the Leo 2s.

The Bergepanzer is carrying what appears to be a captured Taliban command post.

NS offshore association weighs into Equalization debate

From the Nova Scotia Business Journal:

While lucrative, the offshore industry still needs the support of the provincial government to advertise the region and to implement the programs and processes that make the industry function. Unless the terms of the 2007 Budget are changed to offset the fiscal loss for the value of its offshore resources, the province’s financial incentive to invest in the industry is compromised, thus threatening the entire industry.

The visit to Halifax from Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty last week shows that there is a dialogue taking place between the federal and provincial governments. This should be all that is needed to resolve the matter, as Mr. Flaherty’s own party, energetically led by then Opposition Leader Stephen Harper, had supported the terms of the 2005 New Offshore Agreement. Until the introduction of the 2007 Federal Budget, not a word of the Agreement’s legislation had been changed.

-srbp-

Rutter lands hobble

Rutter Inc. (TSX: RUT) will be supplying 23 shelters to Persona, Rogers and MTS Allstream as part of the provincial government's controversial fibre-optic deal.

The shelters cost a total of CDN$1.7 million.

For Rutter, this would count as a small piece of work, or in local parlance, a hobble.

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High flight, part deux

First it was Jean-Pierre Blackburn.

Now Transportation minister Lawrence Cannon has been ding-ed for six flights on a government-owned executive jet that cannon didn't list on his expense disclosure statements.

Cannon's press secretary said the trips weren't listed in the proactive disclosure since the travel wasn't paid by Cannon's budget and treasury board guidelines didn't require disclosure under those circumstances.

-srbp-

Trawlers damage seabed

Total shocker.

cough.

cough.

"Divers have filmed this mud before," said Mr. Pauly, who in 1998 wrote a seminal research paper that coined the term "fishing down the food web" to describe how commercial fishing is depleting the world's oceans.

"What was not known before was that you could see these mud trails from space. I was flabbergasted by it."

Mr. Pauly said Mr. Van Houtan had found the pictures by looking at images shot from a QuickBird satellite, owned by DigitalGlobe.

"He wanted to know what we were seeing in these pictures," said Mr. Pauly.

-srbp-

Homer Taylor

Two days.

Two news releases from innovation minister Trevor Taylor accusing the opposition of misinforming the people of Newfoundland and Labrador about the $20 million fibreoptic deal Taylor announced last fall on behalf of the provincial government.

Check the first one and the second one both accusing the opposition of selectively releasing information.

What's wrong with this picture?

Disclosure of information on a government project in his department rests entirely with Taylor. If information is being released in bits and pieces, Taylor has the ability to fix that situation pretty quickly. It's just plain silly for a cabinet minister to be on the defensive like this.

And that's really where the problem with this whole mess rests: with Taylor and his boss.

The provincial government has made an absolute mess of the comms on this deal from the outset. Rather than provide simple, straightforward explanations of the deal, Taylor, former finance minister Loyola Sullivan and later the Premier have tried a bunch of different stories about the deal and its details.

At one point, the province was purchasing an equity stake in the consortium. Then it bought a few strands of fibre instead. The various people who've spoken on this deal - either from government or the consortium - can't even agree on the total cost of the project and the level of public money involved.

Now usually with a story like this - where there are allegations of favouring political and personal buddies - a government that trumpets its high standards of accountability would push information forward.

Putting tons of factual information in public kills off speculation and makes it virtually impossible for anyone to make an accusation that will stick.

In fact, over the past couple of days, Taylor has returned to this accountability theme.

Unfortunately for Taylor, everyone knows that, in addition to its fumbled explanations at the front end of the story, the provincial government has delayed and delayed and delayed releasing information about the project. The Premier even stonewalled the Auditor General's investigation which he supposedly supported. Danny Williams insisted up and down that The Law prevented disclosure of cabinet documents to the AG and by jingo, there was no way this Premier would break the law.

Then - under continuous pressure - Williams suddenly caved in, admitting all along that cabinet had the prerogative to decide if cabinet documents could be released. So Williams would give the Auditor the documents he wanted to see. And The Law? Well, it turns out that while the law isn't an ass, Williams previous explanations were at least a donkey.

At one point, Taylor even criticized reporters for covering the story. He even accused the opposition of focusing on the relationship between the Premier and two of the major players in the deal. Well, that's pretty obvious, so obvious in fact, that, as Taylor admitted cabinet rejected the deal twice because the optics were bad.

The documents Taylor is referring to were a series of e-mails released in the House of Assembly by the premier. The Opposition spent some time going through them and found a few examples of public servants questioning the deal. They did so in the course of exercising their professional responsibilities and, to be frank, that's all the opposition has noted: public officials had problems with the deal.

It raises the spectre of the infamous Sprung greenhouse. Some $22 million of public money spent by a previous administration - and here's the key part - over the objection of provincial public servants. The opposition hasn't made that connection but they are almost certainly headed there.

That's what the story looks like today.

And it looks that way because Trevor Taylor and his boss have failed not once, not twice, not thrice, but on every single occasion to do what anyone with half a clue knows they should do: release the information without delay.

Taylor needs to tell the story himself, from start to finish with documentation. Make an overhead slide show. Do that and the story goes away in a heartbeat.

It's not too late to do that.

That is, unless there is some substance to the various criticisms that have cropped up about this deal.

That is, unless the provincial government had good reason to reject this deal, not once but twice, as Taylor himself has acknowledged.

If either of those is true, then the unnamed communications officer's e-mail released this week gave a clue to what government has been trying to do all along, namely spin the story.

Ask any competent public relations professional about spin.

They'll tell you that's what comes out of the back end of a burro.

And so far?

That's what the provincial government's explanations of this Sprung-sized investment have been worth.

-srbp-

The editorial reaction continues

From the Ottawa Citizen, as reprinted in Regina.

But as with other professional polemicists, Mr. Williams is occasionally the victim of his own hyperbole. Canadians are witnessing one such episode today.

...

If there is merit in Newfoundland's position, then the premier should communicate it properly. Indeed, many people agree with him that revenues from non-renewable resources should not be in the formula. But the politics of insult won't help him or his fellow Newfoundlanders very much.

Outrage plays well with the voters back home, but in Ottawa's Langevin Block, the home of the prime minister's office, it only registers as a rude noise.

-srbp-

More on the bulls***

As an astute reader and likely future Queen's Counsel pointed out via e-mail, both the 1985 and 2005 offshore agreements contain clauses that say a pretty simple thing.

If any province gets a better deal on resources or payments covered by the agreements, the Newfoundland and Labrador gets it too.

If Ottawa cuts a new deal with Nova Scotia related to its offshore Accords, then odds are pretty good the same deals would apply here.

It's an interesting idea and if it is correct just gives even more evidence as to why the current racket is purely for the cameras. Steve and Danny appearing to fight while each actually helps out the other.

Not a conspiracy but just hysterically funny if either side was trying to do damage to the other and instead wound up being his best friend.

-SRBP-

coughbullshitcough

This story on Equalization contains two ludicrous premises for the price of one.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams says negotiations to give Nova Scotia more time to decide whether it should opt into a new equalization formula may be an attempt by Ottawa to pit the two provinces against each other.

First, it assumes that there is some value for the federal Conservatives in "splitting" Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador over the Equalization ruckus.

They aren't really together to be split, for one thing.

But really, the comment assumes that Newfoundland and Labrador is so important to the current federal administration that they would actually invest time and energy in developing a "split" strategy. (Danny Williams isn't really that important either. No provincial Premier ever is. But I digress)

They don't need a strategy.

The provinces were already following different tracks on this issue...

Which leads us to the second premise, namely that there is something going on here other than a bit of political theatre for the benefit of the people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Under the status quo, Newfoundland and Labrador will become a "have" province - i.e. make too much money to qualify for Equalization without any caps - somewhere around 2009.

Nova Scotia?

When's Toronto gonna win the Cup again?

So basically, extending the period of choice for Newfoundland and Labrador wouldn't matter a row of beans.

The provincial government knew generally speaking what was going to happen on Equalization about a year ago when it was first reported publicly.

The Premier knew the 100% option was definitely off the table likely before he laced into Steve Harper last October.

He almost certainly knew what was going on (give or take a few details) last December when Loyola Sullivan came back from a finance minister's meeting and had to attend a news scrum with the Premier standing by his side.

What played out from March onwards has been pure political theatre designed to get people in Newfoundland and Labrador agitated about something 99% of Canadians don't understand.

In the end, the Premier will just do what he planned to do once the feds announced exactly what they were going to do in march: flip from one plan to the other to maximize the cash flows.

There's no way the Prem can lose cash. Under every likely scenario, the provincial government continues to make more. It was only just a matter of how much more. look at the 2005 deal. he settled for way less than he started out looking for. In the end - as he admitted himself - it came down to what the cash advance amount was going to be.

He's a smart guy. That's why he places the angles on the cash and plays the public like a violin.

Why else has he all but given up on the 100% option? He knows it's impossible to get.

Why isn't he looking to get the caps removed from the Accords? That's the part that maximizes the cash to the province. Likely because his administration already consented to amending the 1985 deal and therefore doesn't have a leg to stand on.

There really isn't any other explanation for his using the weak "Steve lied" argument instead of taking down the feds with an iron-clad example of perfidy.

In the end, there'll be some extra cash in the provincial treasury and no one will recall the current racket six months after the last polls close.

Playing to the galleries always works in the theatre of Newfoundland politics. That's why so many politicians do it. Danny Williams just does it better than just about any thespian we've elected to the office.

Sadly, though, treating politics like a sordid little melodrama is why the financial ending is always the same.

-SRBP-

Update: The other part of the political theatre here would be any federal official who actually said this:

One source said Ottawa wants to reward Premier Rodney MacDonald for taking a softer line in the dispute.

The federal government knows the same thing the provincial governments know. What the federal government may well be doing is a bit of theatrics of its own to capitalize on popular discomfort with the 2005 offshore deals. The deals are particularly unpopular in some segments of vote-rich Ontario.

That sort of thing may be what SES Research's Nik Nanos meant by a "reverse Williams" in a comment on an earlier Bond Papers' post. In other words, the federal Conservatives may be counting on Danny Williams to polarize the electorate in key segments and earn them some political support for appearing to stand up to the guy who ripped down Canadian flags and now evokes Quebec sovereignist slogans to bolster his cause.

What some commentators seem to miss is that outside Quebec, sovereignist/nationalist posturing doesn't earn a great deal of support among Canadians. Pulling down flags - a tactic ripped from the Parti Quebecois playbook - doesn't actually engender warm feelings in Canadians. It didn't work in 2004/05 for Newfoundland and Labrador. It likely won't work in the future.

But here's the thing: for the current federal administration, playing the margins is how they think of politics. They don't need big numbers; they just need to pick up a few here and there to win. Danny Williams might just wind up being the best friend Steve Harper has.

Recycling news

The Williams administration announced a $200 million waste management strategy today that will be fully implemented by 2020.

The strategy will establish a waste diversion program, establish waste management regions, develop modern standards and technology, maximize economic and employment opportunities, and assist with a public education program.

Bravo.

On April 10, 2002, then-environment minister Kevin Aylward announced a waste management strategy for the province.

The Provincial Waste Management Strategy is premised on five primary actions: increase waste diversion, establish waste management regions, develop modern standards and technology, maximize the economic and employment opportunities associated with waste management, and public education. The ultimate goal is to have full province-wide modern waste management by 2010, with some components of the strategy to be implemented this year.

Nice to see the provincial government is practicing what it preaches by recycling old news.

Now stop and think about this for a second.

This is exactly the same strategy that was announced over five years ago. In those 60-odd months, the implementation of the plan went from nine years to 13 years.

Rather than implement the plan by 2010, the same plan will now be completely implemented a full decade later.

Stay tuned. Next week, the minister of agriculture will be announcing an innovative plan to grow cucumbers in a large plastic-covered warehouse in Mount Pearl.

To return to a serious note, though, one has to wonder why it took three years for this plan to be completely re-announced. If the former crowd had merely shagged around and done nothing with a perfectly good idea, there's no reason why the new guys taking office in 2003 just didn't get on with it.

They could have spent the last three years hammering the old crowd for their laziness and ineptitude.

Instead, we get this bumpf.

Compare the two releases and look at the amount of material that appears to be cut and pasted. Recycled communications staff from the former administration must be happy they can dig into their old files and breathe new life into stuff they got paid for years ago, only to get paid for it yet again.

It really makes you wonder if that cucumber joke might wind up being closer to reality than we'd dare to believe.

Has Tom Rideout been hunting for Greg Stamp?

-SRBP-

Boisclair pulls pin

From the Gazette.