Edible undies

At a regular council meeting, St. John's Mayor Andy Wells made a joke about charging travel expenses to his city account, saying he would only charge underwear if they were edible and therefore fell under the per diem for meals.

Guess Wells got the idea from the huge number of frustrated city residents who've told the usually caustic mayor over the years to "Eat my shorts!"

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Dueling youtubes

Steve Kent, the Liberal cum Tory mayor of Mount Pearl, has a video on youtube.

He gets big marks for using the technology: Facebook group. youtube video.

Blog. Well, suck some points off for the blog. It isn't a blog, just a glorified news release page that doesn't contain anything resembling "news".

This isn't a way to connect with Steve Kent personally and get some insight into his views. It's just packaged pap using flowery, "motherhood and bakeapple jam" kinda truisms.

Very "B" school marketing.

Not very Web 2.0.

Still for the website and the rest of the package, Kent is definitely ahead of the online candidate pack.

Anyway here's Kent's video:


I.P. Freely had this little one out first, though. It's vintage Web 2.0 political comms, and that's what makes campaigns fun. At posting, the Kent campaign vid had about 125 views. Freely's had 550.

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Leader's Tour Logic

Leader's Tour has become a staple of modern politics.

Everybody has one and where the leader goes can be an indication of strength or weakness, depending on perception.

Gerry Reid will be heading to Port de Grave and Bellevue, traditionally strong Liberal seats. There should be good visuals for the leader and Reid's trip on the second day of the formal campaign could be a clue the Grits want to shore up those strong seats before sallying elsewhere. There's a defensive element to the opening of the Liberal campaign.

Danny Williams will be unveiling the Progressive Conservative election platform at an event in Corner Brook after doing the customary greeting workers at the Kruger mill gate. Then Williams is off to Labrador.

Ordinarily that would be a sign the seats held by John Hickey and Jim Baker are solid. Maybe they are, but already there is word that the energy plan is perceived as snubbing Labrador. Again, it looks like a defensive play at the start.

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Curious logic

From the Gulf News:

What ends up happening is the only opposition for government is the province’s media. But then government has a way of stifling media as it has done with ‘The Independent’ newspaper in St. John’s. Danny has cut off his office from any access by most of that newspaper’s reporters.

It's a bit behind the times.  Count the provincial government advertising in the front section of the thin newspaper. Ryan's back in Danny's good books after a brief time in the doghouse for daring to write about the Williams Family Foundation. After some whining on Ryan's part, Danny gave in and started talking to him again.

But wait a second. 

Come to think of it, the logic isn't curious after all.

Election 2007: Day One Notes

1. Story of the Day: Incumbents seeking re-election who were mentioned in the Auditor General's report on Friday but who were not returning media phone calls. You can run but you can't hide.

2. Media Coverage story of the Day: Nobody carried the Tory campaign launch rally live. Timed to coincide with the supper hour news shows, as in 1999 and 2003, the Big Speech and the Big rally garnered squat. Not a single broadcaster gave the Premier free air time - live - to kick off his campaign.

3. Image of the Day: A toss-up. on the one hand there is footage of the bussed-in crowd (a small one at that) welcoming Liberal leader Gerry Reid as he climbed off a fishing boat to unveil the Liberal policy platform. If Simon (Lono) had been there, the biblical allusion to launching into the deep on faith couldn't have been more complete.

Your humble e-scribbler will swear on a stack of Bibles he had nothing to do with the whole thing; Biblical imagery is dangerous since today's fishing for votes can end up with the leader nailed to a tree. If that wasn't bad enough, only a relatively small number in the province might even pick up the message.

Tied with that is the Tory campaign with its references to the "Danny Williams team" while the bus and the website have nothing but pictures (updated) of the Big Giant Head from 2003's Tory ego campaign.

The Tories might win out, though, if we add the picture of Danny Williams flying to Deer Lake on a leased Cessna Citation executive jet hot on the heels of the House of Assembly extravagance report from the Auditor General. The CBC video of the Premier deplaning all by himself (not even a body man or other staffers) didn't quite match up with the "Team Danny" thing either.

Odd for a People's Campaign to have a decidedly capitalist mode of transportation.

4. Crushed Ego: The Tory campaign song dumped the references to what many took to be local bloggers heard in the version unveiled to the St. John's Board of Trade. The thing was running long, anyway. It still has plenty of stuff in it to fuel a dozen posts, like bizarre references to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians facing the future with "poisoned tongues" and an attitude.

5. Boosted Ego: remember we mentioned the phrase "The future is ours". Turns out it is the Tory campaign slogan.

Election prediction

Not updated yet, but expect an provincial election prediction section at - surprisingly - electionprediction.org.

There's also a predictor at the University of British Columbia.

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Missing in action

William Anderson III, member of the House of Assembly for Torngat Mountains from 1993 to 1996.

Missing from the Auditor General's report.

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The scandal report dissected

From labradore, a close analysis of the latest spending scandal report.

Simple, easily to digest and then...inevitably...to take a trip to the loo since some of this stuff just won't stay down.

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Averill Baker's piano

You may know her children or her husband.

Forget them.

Lawyers and a senator?

Pffft.

Averill Baker, mere, is an accomplished amateur pianist.

Courtesy of youtube.com and the Van Cliburn competition, Averill Baker:

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Election notes

1. CBC's provincial election website is up and running. Check it out. This one might be an interesting multimedia use of the new technology to bring you the blow-by-blow of the 21 day race. (Mixed metaphors are allowed.)

The blogspace is called Campaign Trail. Ho hum. No Cochrants. That was Dave's debrief cum rant on CBC radio Friday afternoon on the House of Assembly spending scandal. The last part of it was in such a high pitch that dogs in Paradise were howling.

2. The Libs have a new election website. When the other parties have their campaign sites running, we'll add the link to them all in a new box on the side.

3. One of things we'll be following at Bond and Persuasion Business will be the advertising and communications. There are strategies and approaches being used by all players, people and if we can help show how these sausages are being made, then it might help appreciate what is going on.

4. Speaking of the right margin, you'll find two new video boxes there. One links to Obama videos pulled up randomly based on a couple of keywords. The one underneath is political videos on youtube.com, including a This hour spoof.

Click the individual video thumbnail once and a small display will open at the top of the Bond Papers post column to display the vid. Click twice and you'll get straight to the youtube page for it.

5. CPAC, the Canadian public affairs channel, will be following the provincial election. The crew was out today and your humble e-scribbler was included for a quick interview. That's as good a reason as any to watch CPAC, but the real reason to follow their coverage will be the extensive, unedited segments they'll broadcast.

6. We'll also be watching and commenting on the use of new technologies and the way Web 2.0 might be used in the campaign.

I.P Freely is already at it again, but that's just one. He/she popped up earlier this year during the by-election so it's no surprise to see the site back again.

One thing's almost certain: we are unlikely to see a Web campaign akin to what has been happening nationally and internationally. Most local campaigns - provincially or locally - are still stuck in the old school, just like some of the commentary offered on it already.

There's plenty of facebook activity, and we'll give a run down on that in due course. In the meantime, don't forget to join the Bond fan group, Bond Buds. As we integrate various platforms, we'll make it easier and easier to get Bond content.

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New addition to the Top o' the Pile

Red Tory.

Been reading this guy for a while.

Lives in British Columbia so there's a sort of book-end appropriateness to doing Bond and then Red Tory or vice versa.

Apart from that totally superficial rationalisation, you just find some insight. The Internet is full of blogs hammered out by people who have nothing useful to offer except further proof that our educational system is neither of those things.

Tory says a lot more with way fewer words than Bond.

There's that's the best endorsement there is.

Check out his post on blogging in the UK or the one on trolls.

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Ooops!

The Auditor General's report doesn't contain any information on deceased individuals who were members of the legislature after 1989.

So, you won't find Patt Cowan there, nor will anyone find a reference to Garfield Warren.

So why is Jim Kelland on the lists of members?

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The little things

In reading the Auditor General's latest report on inappropriate spending by members of the provincial legislature, there are some little things that pop up at you:

1. The $1,000 then-finance minister Loyola Sullivan paid to Mile One Stadium in 2005. What was that for?

2. The partisan expenditures. Since these things are obviously verboten - no ethical relative defense applies to that one, there Premier - how come the Auditor General didn't expose every single instance of this corrupt practice? It doesn't matter that the amount was only around $11,000.

That might just be the bit that was so obvious the auditors - who buggered up sections of other reports on the legislature - couldn't miss it. Perhaps there is more of the misdirected funding buried in some of the other accounts.

Partisan expenditures relate to supporting a Member's political party and would be considered an inappropriate constituency allowance expenditure. I note that the Green Commission Report indicated that expenses related to politically partisan activities should not be a reimbursable constituency allowance expense.

During the review, we identified only $11,093 during the period 1989-90 through to 2005-06 in claims that could be considered partisan in nature. However, there was no Member who had significant claims relating to partisan expenditures. Some of the items we did identify as partisan included:

• advertisement to thank voters;
  
• refreshments and facility rental for party meeting;
  
• flowers to other Member for election congratulations;
  
• dinner tickets for various party associations;
  
• expense claim to attend party convention;
• players fees for political golf tournament (this same fee was denied on another Member's claim form); and
  
• Federal party fundraising events.

3. The AG's sudden lip-lock. For a man who was prepared to male wild accusations before without a shred of credible evidence to present, John Noseworthy's silence on Friday was interesting. Chief Justice Green didn't suggest the AG couldn't say anything at all, he just strongly hinted that an auditor might want to refrain from making accusing of criminality without having the knowledge or ability to make such a claim.

Then again, if I had to explain why only two people were named in the double-billing scandal but the problem was more widespread, I might be barring the doors and windows too.

4. The $2800 bucks. The current repayment issue for that money is listed in the Auditor General's report as if it was more than just a policy some members adopted. Did the Auditor General include the $2800 on the account as an overpayment made to members before he discovered in the course of another audit that the payments had actually be authorised?

Inquiring minds might want to stick a microphone down the newly dug rabbit hole the AG lives in and see if he actually made at least one inappropriate accusation against a member who received the money, legitimately, since it was approved by the legislature's management committee. Let's not even think about whether it was the right thing for the committee to approve the money in secret. Heck, even the Premier and Beth Marshall weren't prepared to try and stop the hand-out. Let's just see if Noseworthy actually made the accusation before he knew the facts.

5. How can the Auditor General tell us that Kathy Goudie received money for expenses after she resigned when she resigned well after the period covered by this audit?

6. If he can tell us that, why didn't he tell us about the $5,000 of public money Tom Rideout "gifted" in 2007 back-dated to 2006? Not only would that amount change Rideout's "gifting" total, it would also likely attract Noseworthy's attention for the backdating.

7. And while we are looking at "gifting" why did the AG bury the bit on inadequate documentation of "gifts" in the back? (Figure 35, page 64)

Turns out that of the $1.5 million or thereabouts in "gifts", 21% had inadequate documentation. The peak periods?

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
	$36,875	$50,253	$87,966	$23,991	$41,276

And was there any pattern to the inadequate documentation and who was submitting it? pattern that is beyond the fact that while the total "gifts" went up after the 2003 election, the instances of poor documentation went down.

It's the little things that sometimes really do catch your eye.

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A genuine defence of democracy

From the eloquent pen of Mark Watton comes a letter in the Friday Western Star criticising the special ballot provisions of the Elections Act, introduced just this past spring in time for the election.

For those who may not be aware, balloting actually began on August 20 even though the election proclamation will not be issued until September 17.

Interestingly enough, Elections NL is running radio spots on VOCM trumpeting the ease of voting by special ballot, presumably as opposed to the usual trip to the polling station. These are not awareness spots; these radio ads aim to increase the use of special ballots by all voters even though special ballots were intended only for those who are unable to attend at a polling station on polling day.

The province appears to be moving closer to a mail-in balloting system without the idea being proposed and properly discussed by voters. That alone should be a cause of public concern as the formal election begins since mail-in ballots favour incumbents to an extent that the very idea of elections is undermined.

Watton makes a compelling argument in defence of some of our fundamental rights as citizens in a democracy.

The Western Star (Corner Brook)
Opinion, Friday, September 14, 2007, p. 6

Changes to Election Act are ill-conceived

Mark Watton

Dear Editor: On Oct. 9 and 10, voters in Newfoundland & Labrador and Ontario will cast ballots under new "fixed election date" regimes. For the first time, the date of each election has been known well in advance, set by legislated changes to each province's elections act.

While campaigning is officially underway in Ontario, the writ has yet to be issued in Newfoundland and Labrador. With the shortest required writ period in Canada at 21 days, candidates will have to wait until next week to officially hit the hustings. After all, the election, despite its predetermined date, has not officially begun. Surprisingly, however, voting already has.

That's right. In an election which is not yet official, in which candidates can not yet legally be nominated, it is not only possible to obtain a ballot already, it's legal to cast it. Valid votes in an election not yet called have been cast since Aug. 20. In all other jurisdictions where mail-in ballots are allowed, such ballots are requested only after the writ has been issued. Manitoba is one exception, where voters may request such ballots before the writ, but as elsewhere will only receive them afterwards. Some provinces are subsequently required to provide these voters with a list of registered candidates when nominations are filed.

There is no reason why similar provisions could not have been incorporated in our Elections Act. No reason, except for a succession of partisan Chief Electoral Officers, and the unabashed self-interest of the current Members of the House of Assembly.

The rationale behind fixed election dates was to curb the advantage of incumbent governments using hastily called elections to pre-empt their opponents. In recent memory, Ontarians punished Premier David Peterson for attempting such a stunt in 1990, while in Newfoundland and Labrador, electors went to the polls in three times (1993, 1996, and 1999) in a span of less than six years.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the current Elections Act has replaced this perceived advantage for a governing party with a profound advantage for incumbent members of all party stripes. No wonder it was passed with little debate and virtually no opposition.

Similar to their quiet deal to continue the flow of maligned members' allowances through to the election, MHAs did not flinch when presented with an opportunity to use their name recognition and stuff the ballot boxes before any opponents could even register as candidates.

Ten years ago, in Libman v. Quebec, a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada stated: "Elections are fair and equitable only if all citizens are reasonably informed of all the possible choices and if parties and candidates are given a reasonable opportunity to present their positions..." More recently, in Figueroa v. Canada, they ruled that provisions of Canada's Elections Act which effectively ensured "that voters are better informed of the political platform of some candidates than they are of others" violated s.3 of the Charter and struck them down.

It is hard to imagine a greater democratic injustice than rules which permit incumbent candidates to campaign (and do so free from electoral spending scrutiny) and collect votes while their potential opponents cannot even register.

This ill-conceived and poorly-drafted legislation raises many issues of contradiction and disparity. It allows some individuals to receive votes under a party name while others can only receive votes under the name of a candidate, an impossibility given that individuals are not considered candidates until they meet the criteria - several weeks later.

In Haig v. Canada, the Supreme Court ruled that the Charter requires electoral laws to "grant every citizen of this country the right to play a meaningful role in the selection of elected representatives", an impossibility in a province without any means of preventing a determinative number of ballots being cast in a district before candidates are even nominated.

In 2000, the world was stunned as the fate of its only superpower was decided by hanging chads, inoperable voting machines, and a myriad of electoral inconsistencies. A handful of Florida counties reminded the outside world just how fragile democracy could be. The sad truth is we only cared about the flawed process because the result was close. Had either candidate won by a large margin, the inadequacies of America's electoral system would have been swept under the rug for another four years.

The "fixed" election results of 2007 in Newfoundland and Labrador likely won't be as close as those we witnessed in Florida in 2000, nor as consequential. But there's no reason to be any less concerned.

Mark Watton is a Newfoundlander studying law at Dalhousie University. He is a former political staffer residing in Halifax.

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The lure of soft money redux

Initial news coverage and most public reaction to the latest report on the House of Assembly scandal will focus on the easy and the obvious.

Wine, artwork, pens, jewelry, cigarettes, travel, and hockey tickets.

On the eve of a provincial general election, Premier Danny Williams is encouraging people to look beyond the scandal now that reforms are supposedly in place:

But at the end of the day, do not lose faith in the political system in this province because our democracy is too important for the electorate to lose faith.

Our democracy is too important for people to lose faith in it and in the people elected to lead. However, we should not be rushed past this latest report with the admonishment of the New York cop to gawkers at a skyscraper suicide: "Move along, there Johnny, nothing to see here. " Nor should we be distracted by the baubles and trinkets that too many focused on already.

Rather, we should focus on the core damage done to our democracy by a decade in which politicians of all shades, new and old, handed out public money as gifts to constituents based solely on their own discretion and almost entirely hidden from wide public view, let alone scrutiny.

Bond Papers has hit this point before - the lure of soft money - and earned the Premier's ire for it. The Auditor General's report on Friday brings home the point once more. Of the $2.2 million in questionable spending John Noseworthy identified, $1,471,108 (63%) went to what have been incorrectly called donations.

No one should miss the point that the highest years of total inappropriate spending identified by Noseworthy were the most recent:

2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
$217,200	$272,729	$388,948	$284,725	$299,261

As a matter of simple observation one can see that after a peak in the last election year, inappropriate spending did not decline; it increased. For all the assurances of change, even as the scandal broke, clearly something continued to be amiss. Even after the public received the Green report - and its scathing condemnation of the gifting practice - members of the legislature still opted to keep the rules in place that allowed gifting, at least until after the election.

For those who may not be sure of what we are driving at here, let us simply quote Chief Justice Derek Green on the point:

First and foremost, the practice of making financial contributions and spending in this way supports the unacceptable notion that the politician’s success is tied to buying support with favours. Such things, especially the buying of drinks, tickets and other items at events, has overtones of the old practice of treating - providing food, drink or entertainment for the purpose of influencing a decision to vote or not to vote. As I wrote in Chapter 9, it demeans the role of the elected representative and reinforces the view that the standards of the politician are not grounded in principle. In fact, I would go further. The old practice of treating was usually undertaken using the politician’s own funds or his or her campaign funds. To the extent that the current practice involves the use of public funds, it is doubly objectionable.

Related to the notion of using public funds to ingratiate oneself with voters is the
unfair advantage that the ability to do that gives to the incumbent politician over other contenders in the next election.

To put it simply, gifting erodes our democracy in a far more insidious way than does anything else the Auditor General has described. Nothing revealed in his report is acceptable, but it is the widespread nature of gifting that should make it more odious than some of our politicians appear to appreciate.

Beyond that, gifting, as practiced over the past decade calls into serious question the judgements of legislators. The money was given for things that either used to be or were covered by government programs that were as fairly, equitably and impartially distributed as might be possible. These include eyeglasses and medical devices, funding for volunteer fire departments, accommodations and transportation.

Some of money given as gifts actually replaced programs such as medical assistance transportation eliminated from a budget voted by the same legislators. In no small irony, it would seem that just this past election summer, the members on the government side had found a way to continue making gifts of public money, this time through line departments. The lure of soft money has not dissipated; the siren merely sings its tune from another cliff.

Gifting knows no party boundaries.

Look at the top 10 gifters in the study period, by dollar volume. All, coincidentally, are or were cabinet ministers; some served as members of the Internal Economy Commission while on the opposition benches, while in government, or both:

Rank	Name	Party	Amount
1.	Wally Anderson	Liberal	$88,954
2.	Judy Foote	Liberal	$69,131
3.	Ed Byrne	PC	$63,284
4.	Loyola Sullivan	PC	$44,848
5.	Tom Osborne	PC	$44,770
6.	Anna Thistle	Liberal	$43,445
7.	Percy Barrett	Liberal	$43,444
8.	Sandra Kelly	Liberal	$42,398
9.	Paul Shelley	PC	$37,331
10.	John Ottenheimer	PC	$36,868

But to make sure the picture is clear , let us also consider the top 10 gifters by percentage of allowance given as gifts. What will become apparent is that gifting is not merely a hold-over from the days before 2003. They all represent constituencies on the northeast Avalon, arguably the most prosperous portion of the province.

They are almost all some of the newest members of the legislature (other than those elected in recent by-elections) and all embraced the gifting system with an enthusiasm that outshines the ardor of longer-serving members of any political party.

Rank	Name	Party	Percentage
1.	Diane Whelan	PC	49.05
2.	Shawn Skinner	PC	46.96
3.	Kathy Dunderdale	PC	46.90
4.	Bob Ridgley	PC	38.21
5.	Elizabeth Marshall	PC	34.23
6.	Tom Osborne	PC	30.16
7.	Hubert Kitchen	Liberal	30.10
8.	Sheila Osborne	PC	26.30
9.	David Denine	PC	25.96
10.	John Ottenheimer	PC	25.49

The formal election campaign begins on Monday. Many have talked of an election about sweeps by the majority party, unprecedented popularity, the poor performance of the opposition parties and resource deals worth billions. As a result of the Auditor General's latest report, the focus of the campaign for many voters may wind up being questions of ethics, judgment and propriety.

If this report and the practice of gifting it reveals is an indication, those are exactly what we should think about before casting our votes.

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But will Hydro charge itself a handling fee?

Remember the bit of Dunderdale confunderdaling everyone on Hydro purchasing power from itself on the Lower Churchill?

Turns out natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said exactly what is planned:

Once the transmission link is constructed, Hydro will enter into a Power Purchase Agreement with the Lower Churchill Project for the purchase of power to offset thermal generation at the Holyrood Generating Station, which will assist in financing the project.

Hydro - which should be the owner (if we really are going it alone) or controlling partner in the Lower Churchill development company - will actually purchase power from itself in order to replace the Holyrood generating plant.

This raises some interesting questions about the organization and structure of whatever company will develop the Lower Churchill on a go-it-alone basis. It also raises questions about the financing arrangements, since one impact of this approach would be to have the people of the province shoulder the financial burden of developing almost 20% of this project instead of using export power - and other people's money - to cover the construction cost and still deliver a real profit.

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The ghost in the turbines

The Telegram makes an interesting observation in its Thursday editorial on the energy plan:

How refreshing it is to hear a government making plans that consider a time that they might not be in office, as well as the time that they are;

to have a government looking at the long-term needs of the province, as well as addressing the sort of short-term needs that get governments re-elected.

How refreshing indeed, although it's doubtful Telly publisher Miller Ayre would acknowledge the most significant approach of the type. That would be Challenge and change, the province's strategic economic plan issued in 1992. It laid the groundwork for much of the economic success of recent times.

Challenge and change marked the first time in the province's history any administration had adopted a comprehensive plan to guide development well after the administration that implemented it had left office. The 1992 SEP was so successful that it has survived through every subsequent administration. The Progressive Conservative's 2003 Blue Book even contains a precis of the SEP as one of its chapters.

The Telegram editorial also endorses the energy plan's assumption for continuing high oil prices, saying "[a]ll in all, any forward-looking plan has to operate with some inherent assumptions, and a continuing high price of oil is probably a better bet than anything else."

A better bet than anything else? There's a highly debatable point and an odd conclusion given that the editorial also notes that the infamous Churchill Falls contract contained a low price assumption that proved wrong.

In the case of Churchill Falls, the assumption was that electricity supply would keep power prices low. A huge and unexpected upsurge in demand, when increased oil prices suddenly meant home-heating with electricity was more economical than fuel oil, blew those assumptions right out of the water.

The old Telegram editorialist four decades ago took a decidedly more cautious view of that agreement. Here's a sample of thinking at the time, in the form of a scan of one editorial. Click on it to enlarge the picture. You should be able to pick out the last two paragraphs.

Great promises of revenues to the provincial treasury all without a shred of paper or any detail to demonstrate how it would work. A call for the legislature to be opened to debate the deal and see what the deal between BRINCO and Hydro Quebec looked like.

Interesting that 40 odd years later, another editorial team was willing to take an administration's word for the riches to come, but with the knowledge of the earlier circumstance.

As much as we've decried the use of Churchill Falls as justification for just about anything in this province, it's a bit hard to avoid it in this case: the Telegram invoked the spectres in the turbines and then ignored the rattle of their chains.

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The power of confusion

In an interview with CBC Radio On the Go, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale tried to explain why the province's energy plan doesn't include extending Labrador hydro power to small communities in Labrador.

The argument Dunderdale was advancing seemed to puzzle host Ted Blades, since Dunderdale argued that running lines all the way to the island to replace the Holyrood generating station would entail no increased cost to rate payers, even though the project would be significantly more costly than hooking up some of the communities in Labrador currently served by diesel generators.

Here's a taste of the exchange:

Blades: I’ll get back to that subsidy in a minute, but let me just pursue the cost of the line a little bit further, you said roughly a hundred million dollars to put a spur out to the south coast when the line comes across to the island, what would it cost to go out to the northeast coast above Groswater Bay?

Dunderdale: Well, I would have to get those numbers for you Ted, I don’t have
them right in front of me, but it would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, would drive rates up significantly for ratepayers in Labrador and on the island.

Blades: Alright, well given that it’s going to cost billions of dollars to
run the line down to the island, so does that mean that our rates are
going to go up here on the island to pay for that?

That's where things got rather odd. Dunderdale explained that the Holyrood replacement would be financed through a guaranteed power purchase agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

She said it twice, which is a bit odd.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is the entity that would be building the Lower Churchill and the transmission line, either directly or through its Lower Churchill Development Corporation subsidiary.

Now in the context, Dunderdale might have misspoken, saying Hydro when she meant Newfoundland Power. The former is the electricity producer; the latter is the private sector electricity retailer.

Still, it was an odd comment:

Dunderdale: No, what it means is that’s part of the overall project, we’ll need to get financing for the project, we will have to leverage the money that we earn out of our non-renewable projects to help fund the $6- to $9-billion that are going to be required to build the Lower Churchill. What happens with the transmission link is we are able to sell power from the Lower Churchill to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to replace Holyrood, so the transmission link, right in the first instance, gives us the first opportunity to have a power purchase agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro for around 500 MW of power, which will be part of the financing deal, will allow us to leverage financing to develop that project.

Then again, maybe she didn't misspeak. Maybe LCDC will sell the power to its parent, which will in turn sell to Power. Then Hydro - rather bizarrely one might think - would provide the purchase agreement for 500 megawatts of power and somehow give NLDC another bit of leverage to raise the capital to build the project. The Holyrood replacement power represents 18% of the estimated 2800 megawatts that would come from the Gull Island and Muskrat Falls generators.

That's a fair chunk.

Maybe Dunderdale has given another question to ask about Lower Churchill financing. After all, it wouldn't be the first time over the past few weeks when seemingly bizarre comments about energy and royalty regimes led ultimately to more information emerging.

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Other people's money

From the Toronto Star editorial on the Hebron memorandum of understanding:

It's such a good deal, Williams said, that if he were outside government and had the chance to make such an investment, he would do so "in a heartbeat."

But Williams is not outside government and the comfort zone for a private investor is not a useful guide for the deployment of public funds.

Newfoundlanders might want to consider what happened when another Conservative premier used his provincial treasury to acquire a stake in the oil business.

In 1981 in Ontario, Bill Davis committed about $800 million to buy shares in Suncor. After falling in value for more than a decade, they were dumped in the early 1990s for a net loss of about $400 million.

Still, if Williams is right and the money starts rolling in, he will have earned his local-hero status.

If not, Williams will have provided another example of why politicians should stick to governing and leave investing to people who are only gambling their own money.

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How convenient for Len and Danny

Any bets Len Simms will get his patronage job back right after the election?

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