This Danny-Hugo thing

Another reason why Danny isn't Hugo.

Hugo gets internationally respected actors to visit his country, left. [Photo: AP, Howard Yanes]





Danny gets a split screen with the soon-to-be ex-wife of an ex-Beatle, right. [Photo: Charles Leblanc]

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The value of research, yet again

Turns out Iceland isn't such a paradise after all.

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Separated at Birth 5

Updated: 20:45 hrs


UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, left. [Photo: CTVglobemedia]
















Monty Python alumnus, Terry Jones, right.















Alfred E. Neumann, left.
















George W. Bush, appropriately right.

SOL: The Saturday morning kiddies edition

Updated: see below

Imagine if by some miracle Kevin Heffernan won the St. John's East Tory nomination and then took the easiest of easy seats into the House of Assembly.

His first comment in caucus would likely be: "Danny, Steve's sitting closer to you than I am" or "Danny, tell Hickey to stop teasing me."

Such is the calibre of current politicians that the best this one can find to talk about is signs. Better Heffernan fixed his political sights on City Hall. Down there this sort of childish nonsense is par for the course.

Heffernan and the Tories are not alone. All over the place there are people who want to be "strong voices". In other words, these are people spouting some mindless cliche they heard from soemone else who spouted a mindless cliche.

The only thing these sorts of candidates do is appreciate the good ones when they come along.

Update: Is this Kevin Heffernan the same guy who spoke to CBC during the winter by-elections?

You'll find this bit toward the end of a story from February 8, 2007:

In Ferryland, where a contentious nomination contest left a bitter taste with some PC members, some Tories are openly supporting the Liberal campaign. The same has been happening in Humber Valley, which the Tories had won in 2003.

Kevin Heffernan, a voter in Ferryland district, said some voters may stay home because of disillusionment over the auditor general's investigations.

"I'm after hearing so much stuff and none of it seems to work,"Heffernan told CBC News. "Who would we put in there that would do any better?"

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That didn't take long: flood flap feedback

From the National Post's house blog.

The second paragraph is a stark reminder of why the flag thing was as dumb a political move as anyone can think of.

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SOL Emergency Photo Op Edition: The ersatzkrieg continues

Is Danny Williams pissed because the Prime Minister visited parts of the country devastated by recent flooding or, as this quote suggests, because he didn't co-ordinate a joint trip, that is a trip in which two guys who are supposedly carrying on a blood feud would travel together?

Williams told VOCM radio station in St. John’s that he wasn't notified of the prime minister's visit. "The simple courtesy of at least letting me know that he was coming so suddenly so that something joint could be arranged -- he decided not to do that," Williams said.

It's not like the Prime Minister needs to ask permission to visit any part of Canada and it's not like anyone should be worried about protocol at a time like this. Is it?

So what exactly was the value of calling VOCM, except to get this sort of coverage nationally?

Of course, it is just a phoney war - an ersatzkrieg - in which both sides lob juicy quips at each other from their respective trenches and then cozy up for the joint funding announcements.

Update [1930 hrs]: Perhaps what was up the Premier's nose was the kind of positive coverage a politician can gain - in this case the Prime Minister - from visiting the scene of an emergency and pointing to the financial assistance available.

Like say the CBC news story on Stephen Harper's visit:

"I thought I should come here and see the damage," Harper told reporters. "It's pretty severe in spots, but the town and everybody's on top of getting it fixed."

He told residents to keep their receipts as they prepared to make claims, and said the federal government will assist in the cleanup, which local officials have labelled a disaster.

"As you know, there's a federal program in place for this and a provision for advance payment," said Harper, who toured the community with the area's Conservative MP, Fabian Manning, as well as Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's cabinet representative.

"We just want to be here to assure people, we're here to help."

That's the main reason politicians do these tours, after all: to show up and assure the locals that help is on the way.

Then again, Danny Williams hit the nail on the head when he said pretty much that, as quoted by CBC:

"When people's homes are being washed away, and their lives are being washed away before their very eyes, that's the time that they see their government there to support them."

That's basically what happened.

First, the Premier showed up. Emergency response in these cases is firstly a provincial responsibility

Then a couple of days later, the PM shows up.

And, as Harper told reporters, this time from The Telegram:

Harper told reporters the speed of compensation largely depends on the provincial government.

"The province has to start the work, and then send some of the bills to Ottawa,” Harper said during a brief scrum with reporters.

"There's a provision for advance payment. That can be done fairly quickly if we get the documentation. Sometimes it takes time, because sometimes the documentation doesn’t come. But I hope we'll get on with it quickly."

The real piece of advice the Premier should have taken in this case was to ignore the snub of not being advised Harper was coming to the province and focus on the people whose homes and lives have been "devastated", to use the common word these past few days.

It's Danny Williams' own advice, after all:

"[It] would be nice in situations like this if leaders...can rise above other differences,"

There are a few thousand people in Newfoundland and Labrador right now who likely wish that were true.

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The myths debunked - once again

In a post taking issue with the opinion of two economists at the Universite de Laval, the self-styled Hydroqueen makes some claims. Let's look at a couple of the claims and examine them systematically and in detail.

1. " This ignorant person [ that is, your humble e-scribbler] found some critic to suggest that selling power to industry does little more than provide jobs."

The post is based on the work of the two respected economists whose work has, in one case, spanned about 15 years of commentary on the aluminum and electricity industries in Quebec. There was no finding involved, except perhaps in conducting the same sort of google search any competent researcher can do.

The post actually makes the point that Quebec's aluminum industry costs the provincial economy cash. In the most recent smelter deals, for example, the aluminum company will drop $2.0 billion into the projects and the provincial government (with Hydro-Quebec) will subsidize the projects to the tune of $2.7 billion in lost revenue compared to shipping the same electrical power out of the province to consumers who will pay cost plus a profit margin.

It's about selling power at or below cost versus selling for a profit.

Their argument is simple.

Odd that Hydroqueen can't see the simple logic or repeat the argument accurately.

2. "I know why the individual makes such idiotic statements nevertheless more ridiculous concepts have stuck here before - SPRUNG."

This sentence borders on the incomprehensible. Is she speaking of your humble e-scribbler or of the economist Bernard when she claims knowledge of motivations?

If she's saying Sprung was a good idea then we can all understand why she continues to advocate ideas that make no economic sense.

Sprung was - somewhat facetiously - a plan to spend $1.50 of public money to sell cumbers at 50 cents each. That adds up to a loss of a dollar a cuke and goes a long way to explaining why the project collapsed not long after it started.

3. "The profits of Hydro-Quebec at about 3 billion dollars a year - almost a third of which are from our power."

Profit is the money left after all expenses are paid. Revenue is total amount of income an organization has from all sources.

Those are pretty simple concepts and the words have specific meanings.

Let's take a look at the HQ annual report for 2005, for example, to see if that figure of a profit of $3.0 billion is correct. Let's take 2005 for starters since that allows us to compare directly to the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro latest annual report available online.

In 2005, Hydro Quebec had total revenue from its generating operations of $6.2 billion and a net income - a profit - of $1.873 billion.

Incidentally, Hydro Quebec has four components and revenue is generated in each. Since we are talking about sales from power generation, let's focus on that aspect for this bit.

If one takes a look at the 2006 HQ annual report there is indeed a larger net income - $2.1 billion - and total revenues of about $6.2 billion.

Even if we look at the total Hydro Quebec position, including all its operations and overseas investments, one cannot find the figure $3.0 billion or anything reasonably close to it in any of the financial statements that discuss revenues.

For example, in 2006, the company's operations - of all types - generated a net income of more than $5.0 billion; but it must be appreciated, as the financial statements clearly show, that a good chunk of the income for HQ outside its generating capacity comes from various overseas operations and investments.

So where does this idea come from that HQ generated a "profit" of $3.0 billion and that one third of that figure, i.e. about $1.0 billion came from "our power", i.e. Churchill Falls?

This remains a mystery.

Whenever she has been asked to provide the figures, the self-styled researcher has refused to provide the information.

In the meantime, there are other examples from Bond Papers discussing the Iceland model.

• Iceland shows us how it's done.
• The Iceland Model.
• Advocating give-aways.
• The value of research.
• Retilling the much ploughed patch.
• Iceland's miracle: the other side.
• All trout live in trees.
• Icelandic outmigration.

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Avoiding other people's mistakes

There's a compelling point in the middle of this 1991 article from the Montreal Gazette: "... Hydro-Quebec is losing in a big way by selling its electricity so cheaply to big companies rather than exporting it for a much higher price."

The economics of hydro-electricity and industrial development haven't changed in the past 30 years even if the price per kilowatt hour fluctuates. The consistent policy of successive governments in Newfoundland and Labrador - including the current administration's plans to develop power for export makes sense.

The province has a commodity others need. As long as the prices are good, the provincial energy utility can develop and sell power to other places far more profitably than if it tried the Quebec approach or the Icelandic approach of providing massive subsidies to establish industry solely for the purpose of creating jobs.

As economist Jean-Thomas Bernard calculated, the Quebec government would lose about $300 million per year over 20 years as a result of its aluminum smelter policy. Bernard and Gerard Belanger, his colleague at l'Universite de Laval, repeated the same analysis of agreements for aluminum smelters signed in 2007 by the Quebec government. They concluded that in exchange for a $2.0 billion investment and 740 jobs, the Quebec government will forego $2.7 billion over the course of 35 years.

The experience of other provinces should give us pause.

Drawing our water and giving it away
Hydro-Quebec losing big by selling cheap electricity to aluminum patch: critics

Bertrand Marotte
The Gazette
Montreal, Que.
Apr 27, 1991.
Page B.4


They didn't come for the view. The Japanese, European and U.S. interests that decided to set up or expand aluminum operations along the St. Lawrence River valley in Quebec were lured with cheaply priced electricity, courtesy of utility giant Hydro-Quebec.

Today, giant smelters sprout from Trois Rivieres to the Lower North Shore in a concentration known as Aluminum Valley.

It may not have the same high-tech, high-dollar mystique as its silicon counterpart in California, but the aluminum patch is a keystone of Premier Robert Bourassa's economic strategy.

This veritable boom in Quebec's aluminum production is closely linked to plans for a series of giant new hydro-electric developments in the northwestern part of the province - including the controversial $12.6-billion Great Whale project.

Contracts are secret

Aluminum smelters devour electricity like no other industry - up to 30 per cent of their production costs - and Hydro-Quebec offers them a guaranteed supply, often over a 20- to 25-year span.

The smelters buy the electricity at a price that is tied to the roller-coaster price of aluminum on the spot market.

Hydro-Quebec, in other words, offers a "risk-sharing" program to the aluminum companies, as well as to other high-energy users that make primary products, like hydrogen and magnesium, said spokesman Richard Aubry.

But no one is allowed to know how much Hydro-Quebec receives for the cut-rate electricity it supplies to 13 outfits, including the four new aluminum smelting operations along the St. Lawrence.

Recent revelations in the national assembly and at a televised news conference broadcast from the United States have shed light on some of the prices, but the contracts remain secret. Hydro-Quebec, the provincial government and the companies involved have all been blocking attempts to make that information public.

Critics, including the Cree Indians whose land will be flooded once again if Great Whale and other projects go ahead, say one of the reasons Hydro-Quebec needs the new projects is to make up for the revenues lost through contracts that are far too generous for big energy users.

Net loss to Quebec

Jean-Thomas Bernard, economics professor at Laval University and an expert on the economics of hydro-electricity, says such a criticism would be hard to prove.

But Bernard agrees Hydro-Quebec is losing in a big way by selling its electricity so cheaply to big companies rather than exporting it for a much higher price.

It is believed the aluminum companies and others with special commercial contracts pay less than 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to more than 6 cents per kilowatt-hour that is charged on export contracts to the United States.

Hydro-Quebec insists the income from the special commercial contracts averages about the same as amounts earned from the higher rates it charges its regular industrial customers - about 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Quebecers in no way subsidize those contracts, Aubry said.

Bernard, however, estimates that the new aluminum plants will result in a net loss to Quebec of about $300 million per year, over 20 years.

And because aluminum smelters employ so few people, Bernard said that Bourassa's job-creation argument is also shaky.

Each new job created in aluminum smelting will represent a hidden government subsidy of $150,000, Bernard figures.

There are also the environmental costs.

Ingots shipped elsewhere for manufacturing

Aluminum smelting is one of the most polluting industrial activities, and although the new generation of plants are cleaner, they are far from being totally non-polluting, said environmentalist Daniel Green of the Montreal group Societe pour Vaincre la Pollution.

Quebec gets little in the area of advanced manufacturing from the cut-rate sales.

Once the primary processing is done, the aluminum ingots are shipped from the province, where they are transformed into a host of different products.

There was hope for at least one important new aluminum manufacturing plant in Quebec, but that has been killed.

Reynolds Metals Co. of Richmond, Va., which owns Canadian Reynolds Metals Co. of Baie Comeau, reneged on a promise to build a $50- million plant near Montreal that would have produced 750,000 aluminum wheels a year, opting instead for the already rich industrial heartland of southern Ontario.

Says one aluminum analyst: "Quebec is really competing with places like Venezuela and Brazil, which also offer cheap hydro, and cheap oil.

"We are still hewers of wood and drawers of water, but why not?"

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Promise made? When?

Where exactly in the Danny Williams' 2003 campaign platform is there any reference to creating a second university at Corner Brook?

This sure isn't it:

Review the Province's post-secondary education system to ensure that it provides the best possible instructional, research and community-oriented services for Newfoundland and Labrador in the twenty-first century. This will lead to an updating of the Memorial University Act to make sure the Province's only university serves the interests of communities and people in all regions of the Province. [Emphasis added]

This bit sounds like a way to strengthen Grenfell College without increasing the administrative costs of the government's current goal and entirely within what Danny Williams said in 2003 was "the Province's only university":

A Progressive Conservative government will support the proposal to ACOA for the establishment of the Centre for Excellence in Environmental Research, Development, Science and Technology in Corner Brook. This Centre will partner with Memorial University and Sir Wilfred Grenfell College to make the Corner Brook area a national leader in environmental sciences. One of the Centre's objectives will be to help reduce environmental emissions and help Canada to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Accord.

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Unfortunate choice of parking

Somewhere in downtown St. John's.

The meat is that fresh.

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Regatta Day, 2007

The start of a women's race at the 189th annual Royal St. John's Regatta, held today.

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PMO bucklers-up again

Locally there are Hickey-ups, that's a political mistake properly called a a f*%ck-up, named after transportation minister John Hickey.

But since we don't want this blog declared NSFW (not safe for work), we take some inspiration from Abbie Hoffman and use a word you can say on television or in this case, can type without a bunch of squiggles. We don't even have to resort to spoonerisms.

Nope, we can use the local poster child instead.

Seems federally, communications foul-ups will become known as Buckler-ups. It's kinda like a cross between a bugger-up - which would be pathetic but innocuous - and the full-on f*%ck variety.

A buckler-up is the kinda of thing that is patently stupid on the face of it, that is compounded more by the added stupidity of being repeated over and over, and on top of all that suggests a stunning capacity for lampooning yourself without having much of a sense of humour.

Like the latest demonstration of the Stasi-like media tactics of the PMO press officer, Sandra Buckler, for whom the buckler-up is named. During the campaign you had political staffers assaulting reporters for no good reason. There was that long war over who gets to pick the questions at a scrum. Now there's ejecting a bunch of reporters from a hotel lobby so they can't speak to Connie politicians other than the ones hand-picked by the PMO to represent the shiny face of Canada's new open, accountable and transparent government.

In the latest incident, the Queen's Cowboys cleared a hotel lobby of reporters - specifically reporters - apparently on orders from the Prime Minister's Office.

On a slow summer's day, when most things are going along quite well, what better thing to have running across the country than another story about a petty policy of a petty government struggling to make it through the second year they never planned on having to work at.

The whole thing makes Buckler's boss look, well, petty, which is pretty much the opposite of what she gets paid to do.

But thanks, Sandy.

We of other political persuasions can't even begin to tell how much we'd pay to have someone just like you working for the prime minister we want to oust.

And it's not like there aren't smart Conservative politicos out there like Tim Murphy who know better than to send a bunch of guys whose organization - national icon no less - is under more than a small ethical cloud acting in manner that further tarnishes their image.

(h/t to the blog without a name)

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A comms Hickey-up

Ryan Cleary at the Independent must be kicking himself for turning on his former researcher, Sue the talk show maven and self-styled Hydroqueen.

Seems she managed to find a contract announcement on 1 August 2007 by Exor, a multi-national software company, to deliver a new database management systems for the Newfoundland and Labrador works and services department to help John Hickey's crew share information on roads and road maintenance.

The release is full of techno-babble sure to cause a bad case of MEGO [My Eyes Glaze Over], but essentially the project will involve this:

The RNMS [road network management system] will eventually be used to evaluate and prioritise work on the network, manage road condition and evaluate the lifecycle of assets. The initial phase of the implementation will establish a maintenance environment for the Newfoundland and Labrador Road Network (NLRN) and associated departmental road physical features inventory.

There's no mention of the announcement or the project on the provincial government website.

That counts as a major communications Hickey-up.

Interestingly enough, the system purchase appears to come from a joint federal-provincial funding announcement in 2005 by then federal natural resources minister John Efford and provincial roads czar Tom Osborne.

But was this project ever put to tender?

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The ease of governing

"Mr. Crosbie had his day in government, and he made his decisions in that time - that was a long time ago. Now we are the government and we are going to do what we think is in the best interests of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and that's exactly what we're doing here."

Premier Danny Williams, Telegram, August 1, 2007

Ever wonder why Danny Williams bitches about the difficulty of running Newfoundland and Labrador?

Take a look at the current ruckus over his plan to create a second university in the province and you can see just how easy governing is under Danny Williams' approach.

First, make a decision about something. In this case, it is to give Sir Wilfred Grenfell College something called "more autonomy". At that point, no one knew what more autonomy meant - and frankly they still don't - but the decision was made. You don't need anything other than a goal. There's no need for evidence or a business case. Just make a decision.

Second, hire a pair of consultants for $120,000 to provide the rationale for the decision. If you can make the announcement a few days before Christmas, all the better.

Incidentally, anyone can see that the outcome of the consulting exercise was determined from the outset. Take a look at the terms of the contract between the two consultants and the provincial government's education department:

WHEREAS the Department enters into an agreement with the Consultants to conduct a review of the various degrees of autonomy for Sir Wilfred Grenfell College (SWGC) up to and including full university status, (hereinafter called “the Review”) and report their findings to government so that it [government] can make an informed decision on the future of the College with the aim of increasing Grenfell’s autonomy. [Emphasis added]

Third, receive the report and sit on it until the decision is ready to be announced as part of the government's election year budget. In the process, ignore the political commitment to release reports within 60 days of their being received.

Fourth, when people start to criticise or complain do any or all of the following:

- repeat the statement that the decision is in the best interest of the province, but never explain how it is in the best interests;

- characterize the decision as strengthening rural Newfoundland, but again do not give a concrete example;

- characterize the whole ruckus in terms of the "St. John's campus" - read as "townies" - and the need to let decisions be made outside the overpass;

- deploy supporters to call in support of the decision;

- organize calls to attack critics, including calling newsrooms across St. John's to attack John Crosbie before Crosbie even uttered a single word; and,

- refer to criticism of the decision as efforts to "sabotage" the government's decision.

For good measure, characterize the whole thing - even implicitly as a case of standing for the little guys against the "higher ups".

Now maybe, just maybe creating a second university with a new president, a bunch of vice-presidents, a senate and other expenses is the way to solve problems like delays in issuing tenders for new trucks. But leaving aside the facetious comments, let's just start from the premise that it might be a good thing for the province to have a second university.

What sort of things might you wonder about to determine if a second university in the province was feasible?

Well, you might take a look at the prospective student population to see how many students are out there who might reasonably be expected to come to your new university. Look at the local population and for good measure look at the possible student market outside the province and even outside the country.

You might also look at possible teaching programs to see if there is a niche that needs to be filled or look at how existing programs could be expanded.

In building a case for a new university, you would go through those, look at the cost implications of each and come to a conclusion.

That's what one might expect to get for a consultants' report costing upwards of $120,000.

And if that consultant's report found there wasn't a basis for having a second complete university, it might just turn up enough information to justify expanding the programs at Grenfell College within the existing administrative structure.

After all, if Grenfell has grown successfully in its existing management arrangement, solid evidence supporting further expansion would be hard to refute. A stronger Grenfell College attracting new students and offering new programs would enrich the province as a whole in many ways.

Creating a second university to compete with the first one for the same students wouldn't really make much sense.

Well, if that's the logical approach you'd expect to take, don't expect to find any of those questions answered in the consultants' report the provincial government is using to justify the decisions on Grenfell College and its impending independence.

There is no analysis of the possible student market. This is a critical shortcoming since the report authors recommend doubling the size of the student population in short order, from a current enrolment of about 1,150 (not including 200 nursing students) to about 2,000.

The section on possible academic programs is nothing more than a list without any supporting evidence or analysis. In fact, if you look quickly at the list, you'll see that many of the new programs for Grenfell actually would duplicate programs already at Memorial University in St. John's.

They aren't new or different; most are the same as larger programs offered at MUN St. John's. Like a health sciences program with a possible focus on gerontology. Or a program in geology. And without the detailed analysis of possible student demand, they are essentially useless as the basis for making a decision.

Yet, that really isn't important, is it? Well no, because the decision on Grenfell was made at the beginning before the analysis was even conducted.

Even the version of the decision announced in April - the so-called Option 1(a) - is now morphing into having Grenfell as an entirely separate university. As education minister Joan Burke put it recently, she wants Grenfell to be "independent" by 2008. If you read the consultants' report, you'll appreciate that is the goal they had in mind as well, despite their endorsement of some sort of shared governance.

What the consultants recommended is actually using Memorial University's name, reputation and resources to assist in the growth of a Corner Brook university:

It is believed therefore that the newly named institution should not only remain as part of Memorial University, but it should take its name as the Memorial University (Corner Brook, Western Newfoundland or Grenfell). In the discussion below, Memorial University (St. John’s) is taken to include the Marine Institute, and Memorial University (Corner Brook) is taken to represent the new designation of Grenfell College, possibly including the Western Regional School of Nursing whose status is currently under separate review. This designation would be of vital assistance in the immediate development strategy of the new university at Corner Brook, in all its academic areas, but in particular, in

• national and international student recruitment,
• the attracting of highly qualified academic staff,
• the development of graduate programs, and
• the securing of greater federal research funding and corporate support.

The case too for the retention of the academic and administrative support systems currently provided to Grenfell College from the Memorial in St John’s campus, in particular the library services, is a strong one, and whilst these services may perhaps, but not necessarily, be weaned off one by one in due course as the systems grow in the new status Grenfell, they should certainly be retained for the immediate future. (p. 31, Emphasis added)

However, at no point do the consultants address what are the problems with their own proposal. That's hardly surprising since they really don't give any sound rationale for their conclusions anyway. Nonetheless, take a look at the list of advantages and disadvantages of the so-called Option 1(a):

Advantages:

- increases Grenfell’s academic and administrative autonomy
- remains within Memorial system
- provides status as a university institution

Disadvantages:

- potential fragmentation of academic authority and divergence in academic standards and practice
- limited academic programme range for university status
- substantial additional costs

Look at those last three.

Essentially, those are the points made by Chancellor Crosbie and Memorial University President Axel Meisen.

They are also the points dismissed by the Premier, education minister and the finance minister.

It's easy to dismiss those points though, when the decision is already made and has been made for at least two years.

It's easy to govern when decisions can be made and then justified ex post facto. It's a cinch to govern when critics can be attacked personally and demonised for pointing out - essentially - that the government has a goal but no solid plan on how to get there.

It's a cinch to govern when, as with just about every other administration since Confederation, you view government as being little more than your turn to make the decisions.

After all, isn't that what Danny Williams told John Crosbie?

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Bill Rowe: townie twit

From labradore, the record is corrected once again.

Correcting Rowe's silliness - like calling the House of Assembly the House of Commons - is a full-time job.

On top of that, the fellow is still shamelessly kissing the butts of the people who sent off as Ambassador to Disneyland on the Rideau during which time he accomplished exactly zilch for the province.

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An acceptable level of shag-ups

In the news reporting on reinstatement of a Gander radiologists suspended after questions were raised about his work, Central Health chief executive Karen McGrath is quoted as pointed to the absence of benchmarks for judging physician performance in conducting the evaluation.

Meanwhile, Central Health chief executive officer Karen McGrath said the authority would like provincial and federal governments to develop clear rules on how to review the competence of physicians.

"It would have been much easier for us if we had definitive information with respect to benchmarks," she said. "The reality was we had to go with the best information we had."

That's similar to her comments on the day McGrath announced the doctor would be reinstated and that, as vocm.com reported,"no significant adverse patient results have been discovered."

As cbc.ca/nl is reporting on Tuesday,

McGrath said that of a sample of about 500 tests generated by the Paton Hospital radiologist, fewer than 10 per cent were questionable. She said that is within an acceptable margin of error.

McGrath's comments are curious for several reasons.

Firstly, notice the numbers. Out of the 500 reports reviewed, less than 10% were found to have results that were "questionable."

That means that fewer than 50 of those reports weren't accurate.

But to say "questionable" - if that's the word McGrath used - is pretty vague, and it's needlessly vague.

A quick search of the Internet will reveal more than a few discussions in peer reviewed journals on error rates - often called missed observations - among radiologists.

Medically significant missed observations do occur; that is, radiologists sometimes miss things that are important to the treatment of a patient. They may do it for very good reason, like a cancerous mass obscured by body fat.

Other observations may be missed simply because they aren't medically significant. They may not be missed - in that the doctor didn't see them - they may just be not reported because in the expert opinion of the doctor reviewing the records, they aren't worth mentioning.

It's a judgement call. If it isn't medically important, then not reporting them isn't "questionable" whether McGrath used that word or a similar term.

McGrath apparently didn't make that sort of distinction. If she did, it is extremely important for someone in authority to correct the news report. If she didn't, McGrath may want to be a bit more precise in her language.

If there were no medically significant errors - that is, if no changes to treatment were required - then that simple fact should have been indicated clearly to reporters.

Secondly, each regional health authority and even each hospital can and should establish standards of acceptable medical performance. If nothing else, having those standards is a way of ensuring that people working in a hospital are actually doing the job they are supposed to be doing in keeping with best practices.

It's astonishing that McGrath would even raise the question about a supposed lack of standards. Her comment is akin to members of the House of Assembly - who set the rules for how they manage their own cash - claiming that there were no rules, when in fact there were rules, and the person complaining is the one responsible for setting the rules.

To say there were no benchmarks to use suggests that people have been winging it in Gander.

Now if, by some bizarre chance, neither McGrath nor her medical staff had the vaguest clue about how to judge a radiologist's job performance - that's the implication of her comment - then she and her officials can consult other health authorities, the provincial association representing radiologists, the national radiology association or the provincial college governing doctors and asked any or all of them for help.

If the issue that turned up her was a matter of insignificant missed observations, then McGrath and her senior administrative staff are completely within their authority to establish minimum reporting standards.

Thirdly, one can easily consider that McGrath's comment was a call for setting an acceptable number of mistakes a radiologist can commit. That isn't what she intended and the interpretation is somewhat facetious.

But if you think about it for a second, saying there are no standards to judge performance and that less than 10% is acceptable in this case, McGrath is signalling to both patients and their doctors that there is or should be an entirely arbitrary benchmark for shag-ups.

The reality is that both doctors and patients expect the standard is zero errors. Doctors work diligently to avoid any mistakes, let alone ones that will cause problems for the patient. They recognize, however, that mistakes do occur for many reasons.

The doctors, the hospital administration and ultimately the medical regulatory authorities have developed systems to minimise the chance of medically significant error, to figure out what occurred when mistakes happen and then to take appropriate action to make sure mistakes don't happen again.

Each case has to be handled on its merits and, where circumstances warrant, the provincial college of physicians and surgeons can and should be involved. It's part of a system and it's a system that generally works. That isn't the message one gets from McGrath's remarks.

The way McGrath's remarks have been reported, a patient in the province can think that the health care system is flying a bit by the seat of everyone's britches. It's not exactly a way to restore public confidence in the system generally and in a town like Gander - where likely everyone knows the name of the suspended radiologist - it's hardly a way to restore confidence in his or her abilities.

To be fair, Central Health hasn't had to carry the burden of the minister's office on this case, so overall their handling of it has been better than the experience in Eastern Health on a similar matter.

But still.

Health care is the one area where people generally don't think there is an acceptable level of shag-ups.

No one should be suggesting otherwise. More information, let alone more accurate information, would go a long way to dispelling any concerns, avoid misconceptions and restore public confidence.

And if all this is based on inaccurate reporting, then maybe Central Health should consider posting the facts - maybe in a news release - on its website.

This could have been the first one.

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Clyde Wells on the economy and stuff, circa, 1994

From broadcasttherock.com, Clyde Wells' 1994 speech to the graduating class at the School of Business.

We won't imbed these clips since they are set up to start automatically once you load the page. This is a quirk Broadcast should work out.

This is part one, including a tiny piece of the introduction and here's part two of the speech.

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Long, lingering death

Fishery Products International (TSX: FPIL) postponed its annual meeting from August until October.

"Negotiations between FPI and these two companies are ongoing, and there is no certainty that definitive agreements and transactions will result," the company said in a release.

FPI said the postponement will allow it and its buyers to wrap up negotiations.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government approved the sale and breakup of FPI, one of Canada’s largest seafood processors, to rivals Ocean Choice and High Liner in May.

Russ Carrigan, a spokesman for FPI, said the news release doesn’t mean a deal is any less likely than when talks started in late May.

However, he said discussions over the value of the assets are complex because of the breakup of FPI into component parts.

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Telegram endorses job protection legislation

From today's Telegram.

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Post-secondary education blog

Dale Kirby's creatively titled blog that deals with post-secondary education.

Worth the time whether you are an educator or not.

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