Endless re-runs

Strip away all the trademark and largely shopworn histrionics from the Premier and take a look at the recent exchange of correspondence with the Prime Minister.

Some interesting things come to light:

1.  For all the talk about a package of initiatives supposedly designed to get past the Equalization "impasse", the first letter written by the Premier after the famous late November meeting focused on one thing:  the Hibernia shares.

2.  There isn't a specific proposal here, rather the letter is intended to "clarify issues concerning the Government of Canada's investment in Hibernia."

3.  The deadline for the proposal was not the end of 2007 or even January 11, 2008.  Nope, as the Premier wrote, he believed it would be in the best interests of both the federal provincial governments if the matter was resolved before "the end of the new year [sic]", that is, the end of 2008.

4.  In the next letter, dated eight days after the first one, the Premier asks if a decision has been made and then requests a reply by Christmas.

5.  In the next letter written a week after that one, the premier raises comments made by Loyola Hearn.  He then takes issue with Hearn's comment that the federal government had received no written list of options from the provincial government.  The Premier cites his December 3, 2007 letter as evidence this is not the case and accuses Hearn of misleading the public.

Interestingly, the public can now read the December 3 letter, look at its contents and understand that Hearn was correct, at least on that point.

6.  The next letter, dated January 3, complains about comments attributed to Loyola Hearn.

7.  The Prime Minister's reply, dated January 15, focuses on the Hibernia shares since this is what was contained in the December 3 letter. The letter states the federal government's view of the costs associated with those shares, refutes several claims made by the Premier and then asks three simple questions with respect to the shares, based on the provincial government's recent purchase of shares in two offshore projects:

-  What portion of the federal interest is the provincial government interested in acquiring?

-  What would be the fair market price proposed by the provincial government for that share?

-  What is the view of the Hibernia partners to the proposed share purchase.

He concludes by stating that he looks forward to future discussions on the issue.

There is no rejection of anything, specifically, but there is a clear indication the federal government may be prepared to sell the shares.  That's consistent with Stephen harper's letter to Danny Williams during the last federal election.

8.  In his reply, dated January 16, the Premier begins by re-stating his position on a range of comments made in earlier correspondence.

On the specific questions, he states that the provincial government is interested in the 8.5% interest in Hibernia plus the additional Net Profits Interest option associated with the federal involvement in the project.

it is plain the Premier is not interested in purchasing the shares but rather proposes that the value, once determined, be deducted from the "net value gap".  In other words, he wants the cost to charged against the notional $10 billion Equalization debt.

The Premier interprets the last question as questioning 'our capacity to manage the project'.  The Prime Minister's question was legitimate;  the partners may be interested in purchasing the federal shares themselves.

Canadian Press got the headline wrong on one story, although the bulk of the story describes the premier's vitriolic reaction.  The shorter one carried by the Globe online is more accurate since the claim that the PM rejected the Hibernia idea is actually coming from the Premier, not from the factual record.

Interestingly, the Premier took umbrage at being accusing of misstating what the Prime Minister said in November in a private meeting.  Look at the December 3 letter and the later comments by Hearn.  So much for factual accuracy, let alone an understanding of when the new year ends.

There really isn't anything new in all of this. It seems like Canadian political life is simply mirroring American television during a writers strike:  endless re-runs.

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Buckingham story mismatch

Why is it that some of the details in the CBC story on Dr. Sean Buckingham's future as a doctor don't match the description at vocm.com?

On Tuesday, CBC reported:

Buckingham's future medical career will be determined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador, which said after a jury convicted Buckingham in December that it would launch an automatic review of his medical privileges.

Buckingham voluntarily surrendered his licence in 2005, soon after he was arrested during a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary raid on his home.

The college is not expected to call a panel to consider Buckingham's licence in the immediate future.

Yet, vocm.com gives the story a little differently:

Dr. Sean Buckingham's future in medicine is now in the hands of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Complaints Authorization Committee. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison this week on charges of sexual assault and trafficking in prescription drugs. Buckingham had surrendered his medical licence back in 2005 when he was arrested by the RNC. The college says the matter is now being dealt with as an allegation under the Medical Act.

Under the Medical Act, 2005 a conviction in criminal court becomes a prima facie allegation against the medical practitioner.  Handled in the usual way, it would proceed to the Complaints Authorization Committee which will, as the name implies, review the information and authorize a complaint to proceed to a discipline hearing if that's what the case merits.

That's a feature of the revised legislation that makes the College's job easier. In the old days, the medical board would have to start its own, separate investigation and collect information as if the case was new.  Now the case can be handled somewhat more expeditiously than it would have once upon a time.

But, if the case is before the Complaints Authorization Committee already, as vocm.com gives it, then the CBC story doesn't make sense when it says the College isn't expected to call a panel to consider the status of Buckingham's license.  The CAC meets fairly regularly and it would be considered a "panel' in the ordinary meaning of the term. It hears an allegation after an investigation has been conducted by College staff.

So which is it?

And while we're at it, Buckingham surrendered his license in 2005, but both stories suggest he did so willingly and, in the case of the CBC story using the word "shortly" is accurate but doesn't describe the sense at the time.  In the interests of disclosure, the College was a client of your humble e-scribbler at the time.

It took a few weeks, if memory serves and in the end required some fairly clear public indications from what was then the medical board under the old medical act that if he didn't hand the license over, then the Board was prepared to take it.  The board started an investigation into the new allegations at the time Buckingham was arrested in order to be prepared to have a discipline hearing under the process at the time into the status of his license.

Presumably the information collected in 2005 has been held in abeyance ever since so the process two and a half years later should be fairly straightforward (as suggested by vocm.com).  It shouldn't take a while, as suggested by the CBC story.

So which is it?

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Monroe options Altius uranium prospects in Newfoundland

From the company news release:

Monroe Minerals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MMX) ("Monroe") announced today that it has entered into option agreements with Altius Resources Inc. ("Altius") allowing it to earn up to a 60% interest in the Boxey Point and Berry Hill uranium properties, located in Newfoundland, Canada.

Monroe President and CEO Derek Moran commented: "We are pleased to expand our relationship with Altius and to focus Monroe's growing uranium division in Newfoundland and Labrador, with obvious logistical benefits. We shall announce our 2008 program later this quarter and meanwhile we continue to review new projects both in Canada and on the African continent."

The Boxey Point property totals thirty-six claims and is 900 hectares in size. It is located in the Fortune Bay area along the southern coast of Newfoundland, between and a little south of the Coomb's Cove and English Harbour West settlements. The property is about 600 km by road from St Johns. A recent soil sampling program yielded elevated uranium results and two rock samples tested 738 ppm and 1,498 ppm uranium (0.09 to 0.18% U3O8) respectively. There is also remarkable alteration of the sedimentary strata on the property. The expected deposit type could be similar to the conglomerate-hosted uranium prospects that exist at the Beaverdell deposits in southern B.C. or the former Midnite/Blackhawk Mine near Spokane, Washington. For example, from 1955 to 1981 the Midnite mine produced about 11.6 million pounds of U3O8 from 2.63 million tonnes of ore with an average grade of about 0.2% U3O8.

The Berry Hill property totals fifty-seven claims and is 1,425 hectares in size. It is located on the Burin Peninsula about 160 km due west or 235 km by road from St. Johns. The Berry Hill property is a conceptual play based on fluorite occurrences and a number of stream sediment, lake sediment and till samples with elevated concentrations of one or more of uranium, molybdenum and fluorine. The expected deposit type is a granitic-hosted uranium deposit such as the Rossing mine in Namibia, Radium Hill in South Australia or Johan-Beetz uranium prospect in Quebec. Granite-hosted uranium deposits tend to be relatively low grade (e.g., less than 0.1% U3O8), although they can be very large. The Rossing deposit in Namibia, for example, has been in production since 1976, has a uranium grade ranging from about 0.018 to 0.042% U3O8, and in 2006 produced about 7% of world uranium production (http://www.rossing.com/rossingmine.htm).

Monroe may earn a 60% interest in the Boxey Point property over four years by spending $1,000,000 on exploration, including a minimum first year commitment of $100,000, and making share payments to Altius of 2,000,000 Monroe shares, including 400,000 shares on signing and 1,600,000 shares divided equally over four years to be paid on each anniversary of the agreement.

Monroe may earn a 60% interest in the Berry Hill property over four years by spending $475,000 on exploration, including a minimum first year commitment of $50,000, and making share payments to Altius of 500,000 Monroe shares, including 100,000 shares on signing and 400,000 shares divided equally over four years to be paid on each anniversary of the agreement.

The earning under each project is independent of whether earning occurs under the other. Upon Monroe fulfilling its earn-in obligations, the parties will form a 60:40 joint venture, with each partner contributing its pro-rata share of future expenditures. If either party dilutes its interest to less than 10% in the joint venture, its interest shall be converted to a royalty of 1.0% of gross uranium sales.

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15 more minutes of fame

Premier Ed Stelmach is likely regretting the day he decided to tackle Dave Cournoyer.

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On top of ole Smokey...

There might be a ski hill today, but IOCC is looking at Smokey Mountain as a possible source of iron ore.

[h/t labradore]

A little perspective

Why is anyone in the province, let alone the country, paying attention to the bit of silliness otherwise known as the Danny Williams "anybody but Conservative" thing?

Well, here's as succinct a view as one might advance:

Since when did we need the Premier's blessing to not vote for Stephen Harper?

Most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, unlike their Premier, were smart enough to know better last time around. And the time before that.

There are more than enough reasons not to vote Conservative. There were last time around too.

But why do you insinuate that by questioning Danny Williams, you are thereby supporting the federal Conservatives? Or that questioning the provincial government somehow detracts from the "great fight" with Ottawa in which we all must uniformly engage?

It's like saying Newfoundlanders can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Just because "our" Premier can only focus on one issue at a a time doesn't mean the same holds true for the rest of the province's citizens.

Frankly, I think all this hullabaloo detracts from the real reasons we should be voting against the current federal government - their record on the environment is atrocious, the same for childcare, seniors benefits, their skewed prioritization of tax measures, their elimination of funding for the status of women, the court challenges program and other equality seeking programs, not to mention their misguided foreign policy.

But all of these issues were plain and obvious three and four years ago. The Premier voted for him anyway.
Maybe instead of imploring that all "good" Newfoundlanders follow Danny's lead, you should be imploring him to follow theirs. After all, in 2004 and in 2006, most of "them" ("us") got it right.

January 14, 2008 10:46 PM

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Just wondering...

As we come up on the first anniversary of the whole meltdown, what exactly is going on with John Hickey's lawsuit against Roger Grimes?

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It's not a contract to sell power

For some bizarre reason, CBC news online is claiming that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro announced an agreement to sell Lower Churchill power today.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro announced an agreement Monday to sell electricity from the Lower Churchill megaproject to consumers in the Maritimes and the northeastern U.S.

Hydro did no such thing, as the very next paragraph of the CBC story makes plain:

The Crown corporation said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nova Scotia Power and Emera Inc. "to explore the possibility of bringing energy" to the Maritimes and New England markets.

That's what the official news release said, too. it's just another memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility.  That's about as far away from a contract to sell power as it is possible to get, except for not having an MOU at all.  No company is obliged to do anything except study.

The only time people should get excited about the project going ahead is if the provincially-owned Crown corporation announces it actually has a contract to sell power to someone other than Newfoundland Power. So far, the only people on the hook to pay for the project are the provincial taxpayers, especially those on the northeast Avalon.

That's pretty much a captive market.

Even the Premier isn't sure the thing will go ahead.  Just a few weeks ago, he officially rated the prospect of the project getting the green light at 50%.

And while we're at it, consumers should beware of the project and the impact it may have on their power rates.

Under changes made to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2006, power rates in the province can be linked to Hydro's business actions that may not be related to electricity generation. The Williams administration added a subsection to a previous section of the Act to exempt the crown utility from a restriction on its business activities.

Restrictions on business
24. (1) Subject to this Act, a retailer shall not engage or invest in or carry on any business or activity other than the business of the production, transmission, distribution or retailing of power and the business or activity that is generally related to it.
(2) For greater certainty, subsection (1) shall not apply to a person who controls a retailer, including a corporation referred to in paragraph 23(3)(b).
(3) This section does not apply to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. (added in 2006)

The problem is that under section three of the same Act, the Public Utilities Board is responsible for setting power rates such that: 

(a) the rates to be charged, either generally or under specific contracts, for the supply of power within the province
...
(iii) should provide sufficient revenue to the producer or retailer of the power to enable it to earn a just and reasonable return as construed under the Public Utilities Act so that it is able to achieve and maintain a sound credit rating in the financial markets of the world, ...

If Hydro winds up involved in any other business activity besides electricity generation, as it may do under the Hydro corporation act, then it will affect power rates.

But then again, if the Lower Churchill corporation is set up primarily to export power outside the province, it isn't clear what effect this section of the act might have  - if any - on power rates as they relate to the portion of the power Hydro plans to ship to the island to replace the current oil-fired plant at Holyrood.

The 2006 changes altered substantively the intent of the original act on the hydro corporation, passed in 1977 and amended by the legislature following the 1989 general election:

Special Hydro provisions

17. (1) In considering the rates charged by the hydro corporation for the purpose of a reference under this Act, the public utilities board shall take no account of expenditures or revenues of the hydro corporation or its subsidiaries that are not attributable to the supplying of power to retailers and rural customers.

(2) Where the hydro corporation supplies power to a user who is neither a retailer nor a rural customer, the hydro corporation shall use its best endeavours to obtain for that power the rates or a class of rates that would be compatible with the power policy declared by section 3.

(3) Where the hydro corporation is unable to apply the rates or the class of rates referred to in subsection (2) because of public policy or existing contracts, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council shall enter into those financial arrangements or other arrangements that may be necessary to enable the hydro corporation to comply with the power policy declared by section 3 in respect of those other users of its power.

It also changes the intention of the 1994 version of the Act, which established clear regulatory control by the Public Utilities Board of power allocation and rates within the province, provided a mechanism to redirect power from Churchill Falls under certain circumstances and ensured that consumer rate would be based on electricity generation, primarily for power used within the province.

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May the farce continue...

The farce will be continuing this year, after all.

People in the province have a mere few days to get their submissions ready.

In St. John's, it's less than a week.  The first of the budget "consultations" start next Monday.

Don't count on any summary of the provincial government's financial position to help, either.

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The secret of life, and comedy...

is timing.

The day before Tom Rideout's volte face, these two letters appeared in the Telegram:

'is anyone else outraged?'

I'm a Danny Williams fan who was overjoyed when he came home with the $2 billion in Atlantic Accord money.

I also walked with a lighter step when he signed the Hebron deal.

I voted to help him get the huge majority.

Now things are changing. I hope it's not the old adage that power corrupts and absolute power, etc.
Tom Rideout has to be held accountable. To say that he hasn't been charged, therefore it's OK, is unacceptable. Tom Rideout was given permission for this suspect billing by the same person who gave permission to the MHAs now up before the courts.

Since the auditor general is now effectively mute, whose job is it to lay those charges?

I highly encourage all who are outraged by Tom Rideout's arrogant attitude towards these concerns to write to the editor and express their views.

Ron Wilson

'We deserve better.'

It's a sad day, indeed, when we read in our news media, and hear on the TV and radio, of wrongdoings by our provincial politicians and find ourselves asking, "Well, what else do you expect?"

It's more than sad. It's frightening.

According to news reports (Telegram, Dec. 19) Deputy Premier Tom Rideout spent thousands of taxpayers' dollars on house and office rentals and travel expenses - much of which, it certainly appears, was a blatant overspending of our money.

And you say, Mr. Rideout, you did nothing wrong. You claim you had all your expenses approved. Are we then to conclude that if the House of Assembly told you it was OK to rent two houses, three houses or any number of houses, then you would do it simply because it was approved?

Mr. Rideout, I ask you a simple question: is it too much for us mere mortals to expect you - as an MHA, a deputy premier, a minister of Fisheries - to use some discretion in spending our hard-earned money?
I believe I'm speaking for thousands of taxpayers when I say to you (and all politicians), for goodness sake, stop justifying your actions by insisting they were approved by Bill Murray or the House regulations or whatever. We are fed up with hearing it.

Those regulations (made by politicians) should never have been made in the first place. And no politician worth his salt would ever have had any part of them. Not only would one expect a person in such a position, who is dedicated to our province, to not partake in such action, but one would expect him or her to expose such flaws in the system as they are discovered and make the necessary changes to ensure such situations are no longer possible.

Let's start calling a spade a spade. They were unconscionable. Let's never hide behind them again.
If you continue to insist, with a straight face, that you have done nothing wrong, then your actions are nothing but an insult to our intelligence. We expect, and demand, better of all politicians.

George Martin

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A little naval history

As a kid, I built the old Aurora plastic model of the USS Skipjack and played with it for hours. The kit is still around, repackaged by Revell Germany, but these days the kit is likely bought by adults instead of children.

Skipjack was the first submarine with both a nuclear powerplant and a tear-drop hull. It's the hull that made a difference in this revolutionary craft. Previous submarines, including the first nuke boat - Nautilus - used hulls shaped like the hulls of surface ships. Skipjack was different. Her hull worked best underwater and her nuclear reactor gave Skipjack the ability to stay submerged under crew or food supply was exhausted.

Here's a newsreel from the time. [Update: a link for those who might not be getting the embedded video.]

While on the slipways, one of her sister ships was cut open, and a length of new hull was added to turn her into the the first American ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington.

No small irony here. In later years, as the Washingtons and follow-on boomers reached the end of their service life the missile compartments were removed and the subs turned into attack boats as they had originally started life.

This picture - of the 1950s and early 1960s vintage submarines awaiting disposal is remarkable for a whole bunch of reasons.

It includes the first of a class of operational nuke boats in history, for example, the USS Skate. She's the first blunt nosed submarine, two to the left as you look at the photo. Skipjack, incidentally, is second from the left of that entire section.

The longer conventional hull is USS Seawolf. She's the second nuclear powered submarine, after Nautilus and the only boat to carry an experimental reactor cooled by liquid metal. At this newsreel, you'll find a short segment on the Seawolf and her reactor problems.

Look closely and you can also see the de-evolution of some of the hulls back to training ships for attack subs.

All the boats in this picture are now buried in the desert, their entire reactor and associated bits stored in metal canisters.

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Jack Brod, diamond merchant and boat builder dead at 98

Jack Brod is dead.

Don't know him?

He died January 6 at the age of 98 years and was touted by the New York Times obit piece as being the last original tenant of the Empire State Building.  Jack's company - Empire Diamond - has a suite on the 76th floor in the building where it's been since 1931.

The curious thing about Brod's life, though is this line:

Mr. Brod’s other business interests included running a boatyard on City Island in the Bronx and a boat factory in Newfoundland.

Now which boat factory might that be?

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Rideout misrepresents former cabinet colleague's remarks

Fish minister and deputy premier Tom Rideout must be having a bad day. 

Not only is he now on the hook repaying several thousands dollars of taxpayers cash he received but was not entitled to, but it turns out his rebuke of former cabinet colleague Loyola Sullivan is based on Rideout's misrepresentation of Sullivan's comments.

Here's Tom's version, as reproduced by CBC:

We were astounded and surprised at the view taken by [fisheries ambassador Loyola Sullivan] when he made the remark that we're 10 years too late for the fight," Rideout said in a statement, describing Sullivan's appearance at a Fur Institute of Canada meeting in St. John's earlier this week.

Here's the next bit of the CBC story, giving Sullivan's actual words.

However, Sullivan's precise comment while speaking with reporters was substantially different than Rideout's rendering of it.

"It's difficult because it's advanced so far," Sullivan said, describing the effectiveness of campaigns by groups protesting the seal hunt.

"I would love to have been in this position 10 years ago, to be able to advance it before it got such a foothold."

It's like the different between an office and a house.

Last month, The Telegram revealed that Rideout had claimed rent of a house in his constituency, even though House of Assembly rules at the time didn't allow members to claim rent or mortgage costs for property in the districts they represented.

Confronted with the claims totalling $23,000 over eight years, Rideout initially defended the expenses saying that he had permission from administrative staff at the legislature for the arrangement. On Friday, Rideout took a very different position:

"I have personally concluded that the way in which these residential expenses were billed to my constituency allowance was not appropriate," he said during a news conference.

"I take full responsibility for that and it is therefore my responsibility to ensure that it is rectified."

Rideout's initial defence started to come apart at the seams when he made incorrect statements on a local radio talk show.  As reported previously, Rideout said that he had only claimed per diems for meals and similar expenses.  Documents obtained by the Telegram showed Rideout claimed both per diems for meals as well as per diems for accommodations even though he was occupying a house and office already being paid for by taxpayers.

Rideout was a member of the House internal management committee at the time he began the expense claim arrangement.  During Rideout's term on the committee, it approved changes to legislation governing the House administration that led, in one instance to the auditor general be barred from auditing the legislature's own accounts. The period was well described by Chief Justice Derek Green in his recent report on the period.

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Related links:

"Beholder, beheld and beholden", a post that notes the curious change in perspective on the Rideout affair from a newbie local blogger once the Premier spoke on the subject:

If Deputy Premier Tom Rideout had permission from the House of Assembly, and thus a special arrangement, to claim for accommodations in Lewisporte, then what has he done wrong? The accommodations exist, permission was granted to claim a legitimate expense, and he has done nothing illegal.

Wonder what the view is now that even Rideout admits there was something wrong in the billing arrangement.

Lookin' up from the basement

RBC Economics' latest forecast for provincial economies has Newfoundland and Labrador looking at growth of just one half of one percent in 2008 and one percent in 2009.

It won't take much to turn that into a recession for one or two years in an economy that just a couple of years ago was starting to fire strongly on all cylinders.

On the upside, RBC expects things will start improving again some time after 2010.

Production is sharply weakening at Hibernia but remains on track at Terra Nova,
White Rose and Voisey’s Bay. Because of these projects, exports of energy and
industrial goods (which include key commodities such as iron ore and nickel)
now account for about three-quarters of the province’s total exports. Recent
approval for a sizeable production increase at White Rose is an added support.
While Newfoundland may well become a “have” province in 2009, it will take
several years before it stands another chance at posting province-leading growth
rates. The go-ahead is now in line for Hebron to start construction in 2010 and
production by 2013. There is the potential for construction of a second major oil
refinery at Placentia Bay, which would also coincide with the rough timelines on
the development of Hibernia South and the Lower Churchill hydro project.

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It's never the principle.

It's always the money.

Beleaguered deputy premier Tom Rideout will be reimbursing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for money he received which he wasn't entitled to, according to The Telegram.

The St. John's daily revealed last month that the former premier and current deputy premier and fisheries minister:

claimed more than $23,000 for “rental accommodations” in his district of Lewisporte from late 2004 to early 2007, while tacking on an additional $53 per day for accommodations whenever he stayed in the area.

Rideout acknowledged spending the $23,000 out of his constituency allowance to rent a house in Lewisporte.

The landlord who received the cash was a key local Progressive Conservative party organizer.

House rules in effect at the time barred MHAs from charging taxpayers the cost of renting a home or apartment in their district — no matter who they rented it from.

Rideout justified the claims by saying that his Lewisporte rental home contained an office — even though he also operated a rent-free constituency office in a government-owned building less than a kilometre down the road.

MHAs were permitted to claim a per diem of $53 without receipts for accommodations whenever they visited their constituency.

Rideout charged both — a monthly house rental of between $750 and $850, and $53 each day he stayed in Lewisporte.

That means Rideout could be forking out the better part of 30 large, given that the per diem claims for accommodations came to about $6,500 according to the Telly reports.

Repaying the cash once caught seems to be the standard approach taken by politicians in the province these days, as if the numerous questions raised by Rideout's actions in this case weren't cause for having him removed from office.

The same approach has been applied to members of the legislature - Rideout included - who pocketed a bonus payment in 2004 yet never told the public about it at the time. The Premier, for his part, knew about and tacitly approved the payment to members of the House even though he himself didn't accept the cash.

The whole sorry mess - in which everything is supposedly made right if the cash gets paid back, but only after one gets caught -  may work for some people but it's an ethically unsound way to run a province.

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FY 2008 budget set already: annual charade becomes accountability farce

Any organization looking to influence provincial government spending in the budget for Fiscal Year 2008 can cancel their plans.

The budget is set.

An announcement Thursday by two cabinet ministers of capital spending for the fiscal year starting in April is proof the spending program is already done and likely has been done since well before Christmas, if not before the last general election in October 2007.

The announcement included a little jocular disingenuousness on the part of one minister:

Included in the money is $73 million for the 2008-09 provincial roads improvement program. That's a 10 per cent increase over the $66.5 million the program got last year.
"I hope I don't give Finance Minister (Tom) Marshall a heart attack today because I'm going to be looking for another 10 per cent over and above my $66.5 million," [transportation minister Diane] Whalen joked.

Tom knows all about it. So does everyone else in cabinet, most likely.

Otherwise, Diane wouldn't have been able to make the announcement.

And the pre-budget "consultations" usually organized by the finance minister?

No sign of those yet, but when they do come they will have returned to what they were when Brian Tobin's crew started them in 1997: a charade.

dannywilliams.ca

If the crotchety East Coast premier is worried about having his name used in a dot ca domain, he's too late.

A search of the Canadian Internet registry shows that dannywilliams.ca is owned by Shane Barnes of 10 Dollar Domain names in Cornwall Ontario.

If the premier wants to dispute the registration, there is a policy covering it.  Quite frankly, at the end of the day, a dispute likely wouldn't settle in the Premier's favour under that policy.

Domain dannywilliams.ca

Registrant Name
Shane Barnes

Registrar
(10dollar.ca) 10 Dollar Domain Names Inc.

Renewal Date
2008/04/09

Date approved
2007/04/09

Last changed
2007/04/09

Description

Registrar Number
1064689

Registrant Number
1120459

Domain Number
1845382

DNS1

ns.fw2.com

DNS2

ns2.fw2.com

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Provincial labour force numbers

Overall, the Canadian economy lost jobs, according to the latest Statistics Canada information and in Newfoundland and Labrador, the economy showed a December to December flat line.

Full-time employment grew by 2.3% comparing December 2007 to December 2006, while part-time employment in the same period declined 11.7%. 

About 2,000 fewer people were unemployed in the province in the same period, a decline of 11%.

The month to month change - November '06 to December '06 - appears to be a shift from part-time to full-time employment. Full-time employment grew by 4200 jobs while part-time employment declined by 4000 jobs.  Unemployment decreased by 3900 in the same month over month period.

Overall, the labour force remained the same in the last two months of 2006. On a seasonally adjusted basis, there were 1900 fewer people in the province in December 2007 compared to December 2006.

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The blogger, the Premier and a bigger story

No, it's not another meltdown at what the local plants used to call "blogsters" who sometimes irritate their beloved leader.

[Aside: Anyone else notice that since the whole process has been outed, the plants have dropped from the airwaves?]

This time, it's Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach who has his political knickers in a knot over a website - edstelmach.ca - run by a University of Alberta political science student and former Alberta Liberal opposition staffer Dave Cournoyer.

The Alberta Tory had his lawyers threatening to sue for misappropriation of persona unless the site disappeared. They even included a little threat that is lawyer code for "we don't have a case but maybe some fancy letterhead will work instead".

The URL now redirects to a Wikipedia entry on a social credit premier, in case you are wondering. According to Canadian Press, it used to redirect to daveberta.ca.

Pretty tame stuff.

However, as a result of the threats, the story has become a national embarrassment to Stelmach and given the blogger bags of free publicity.  Stelmach won't sue  - he was bluffing from the beginning - and has already sent his chief of staff to try and find an amicable solution to the whole thing. 

Even if the whole thing vanished tomorrow, the story puts the Premier look what the people in Fort Mac know as "stunned":   Had Stelmach spent $14 bucks  - that's what it cost the blogger to register the domain - when he got into politics he wouldn't be shelling out for huge billable hours to his lawyers and dealing with the media over what essentially adds up to nothing. 

It shows incredibly poor judgment for a guy who is also looking at a story about lost oil royalties [see below].

Your humble e-scribbler left a comment at Dave's blog that suggested, only partially tongue in cheek, that it would be appropriate to have every Ed Stelmach in the province sue the Premier for trying to appropriate their persona.  An evil political mind could surely find ways to drag this one out for as long as the Premier wants to keep it going.  After all, Stelmach is paying for the publicity for his own self-immolation.

The only thing that would be more embarrassing than Stelmach's reaction to the daveberta story is a column in Edmonton Sun that laces into Cournoyer on a purely partisan basis. 

Neil Waugh reads like his copy was clacked out by some highly placed thumbs in Stelmach's office. What a novel concept.

The references to "juvenile" and "little Liberal" are embarrassing since Waugh ledes with reference to a much bigger story that he ignores entirely in the main part of the column:

For a few hours this week, it looked like the hopeless Alberta Liberals might be making a comeback.

The Grits energy watchdog, Edmonton Gold Bar MLA Hugh MacDonald, released some disturbing research from the government's annual accounts - the so-called Blue Book.

He revealed that a numbered company controlled by former energy department bureaucrat Kellan Fluckiger had been paid an obscene $1,358,645 to redesign the province's electricity system.

Fluckiger left the government mysteriously in the fall. And the highlight of his handiwork so far was the near brownout the province suffered before Christmas which forced the Tories to delay putting on the legislature Christmas lights for fear of crashing the grid.

Not to mention the sky-high electricity rates consumers have experienced.

And if Neil bothered to read Dave's blog - he likely cribs much from it but wouldn't admit it anyways - he'd find reference to an Alberta government report showing how much the province was losing in royalties.  The original story appeared in the Edmonton Journal, but, c'mon: a good story shouldn't be ignored just because it was covered by another newspaper.

-srbp-

The polls were wrong?

While voters in Newfoundland and Labrador are used to seeing utterly useless political polls reported by local news media as if they were correct, the same in not the case in the United States.

Hillary Clinton's three percentage point margin of victory in the New Hampshire primary is the talk of the pundits, since pre-vote polling showed Barack Obama decisively ahead.  Political polls are not known for being out of whack from the vote by as much as 19 percentage points, or even seven, as was the case with recent polling in this province.

salon.com writer Joe Conason blames the "mainstream" media's anti-Clinton bias for what he contends was a backlash by voters in favour of Clinton.

A more plausible explanation focuses on the polling methodology.

Start with this summary of the results from the Washington Post:

Most polls accurately reflected the large bloc of likely Democratic voters yet to make up their minds, or said they were open to switching their support in the closing days. On the network exit poll, nearly 4 in 10 said they made their final decision within the last three days; 17 percent said they decided how to vote Tuesday. Among those making up their minds on Election Day, 40 percent supported Clinton, 37 percent Obama. Clinton did even better among the half of the electorate who settled on their top choice a month or more ago.

But the late polls missed on how votes divided by gender. Pre-election polls from CNN-WMUR-University of New Hampshire and USA Today-Gallup showed Obama and Clinton about evenly splitting female voters and Obama winning men by a margin of 2 to 1. But Clinton won among women by 13 percentage points, exit polls showed, and she lost among men more narrowly than suggested, drawing 30 percent to Obama's 42 percent.

What the polls may have missed, as the Post notes, is what the undecideds finally decided to do. That's a plausible explanation but one that awaits further detailed analysis by someone with access to the data. No matter what, it's much more plausible than the so-called "Bradley effect' in which white voters are presumed to hide their real voting intentions when an African American candidate is on the ballot.

The New York Times suggests that the impact of having two historic candidates - one black, the other a woman - on the Democratic ticket, coupled with the relatively short time gap between the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire may have had an impact on poll results.  NYT also suggests that methodology - in this case the use of tracking polls and their high margin of error - had an impact if not on the result than on the reporting of the polls.

And that's where another well-known phenomenon emerged, according to NYT:

Still, reporters who cover a particular campaign face a special challenge that was documented as far back as Timothy Crouse’s chronicle of the 1972 presidential race, The Boys on the Bus: Their ability to take in all that is happening may be limited.

At 8 a.m. Wednesday, Joel Achenbach, a reporter for The Washington Post who had been covering Mr. Obama in New Hampshire, posted a mea culpa on the newspaper’s Web site.

“Count me among those who thought Obama was a runaway train, that he’d blow Clinton out of the water,” Mr. Achenbach wrote. “You had to see the crowds! Feel the energy!”

Inaccurate polls and media commentary influenced by time spent on an airplane with the candidate?

What a novel idea.

-srbp-

Additional links:

USA Today:  "Pollsters struggle to explain Clinton win"

Telegraph (UK): "Inquiry after pollsters miss Hillary Clinton win"

CBC Newfoundland and Labrador campaign blog 2007:  "Embedded on the big blue bus"