In defence of the House of Assembly

 

If you were to read just the post at Polemic and Paradox, you'd imagine that the members of the House of Assembly management committee were trying to sneak themselves and their colleagues a huge bonus by changing rules regarding per diem payments to members of certain committees.

The post quotes some sources and certainly sounds like there might be some facts and hence some meat to the claims made in the post with the provocative title "Rebuilding confidence and upping the perks". 

To heighten the innuendo, there's even a description of the process by which the new rules  - actually amended rules - will come into effect: 

The new changes will not come into effect until they are voted upon at the next meeting of the Management Commission, rubber stamped by the Speaker, sanitized by Legislative Council, and approved by the Speaker and Gazetted. [Emphasis added]

The only problem is that the post is wrong.  All you have to do to destroy the smear and innuendo is look at the public record in its entirety.

First of all, there is the Hansard transcript of the meeting (June 4) at which the proposal first came up for discussion. 

It's pretty clear, as the Speaker presents it, that the payments for attending a meeting when the House is not in session only applies to two committees - management and public accounts - and on top of that only applies to that very small number of members not receiving salaries for other duties.

The Speaker rightly notes that the other committees of the House - such as they are - are really only called to meet when the House is sitting hence there's no extra payment involved for those members.

The total amount of money potentially involved here is $6,515.

Read further in the transcript and you'll find that opposition House leader Kelvin Parsons even suggests wording for the rule that would prevent someone from coming back later and trying to claim both the salary and the per diem:

That way there is absolutely no misunderstanding if somebody tries to put forward an argument that, well, I am Opposition House Leader but I am coming into town for a meeting with the Standing Committee so therefore I am entitled to the per diem; just so that is very clear that you do not do that.

Second of all, as the transcript makes plain, the root of the whole issue is the structure of the members' pay system as set up in the Green bill.  Chief Justice Derek Green abolished sessional payments and non-taxable amounts in addition to a basic salary and replaced them with clearly defined remuneration for a clearly defined purpose.  

The amounts are established in the Green bill itself, specifically, section 12.  The sub clause under discussion here is (3):

A member who sits on a committee of the House of Assembly, the commission or a committee of the commission may be paid, subject to the conditions and limitations prescribed by the commission, a daily amount of not more than $200 for attendance at meetings plus reimbursement of reasonable expenses in relation to that attendance when the House is not in session.

That brings us to the third point of all, namely the amount.  Not only do we have a well-established principle here, described in detail by Chief Justice Green last year and set out in law, but we have a set maximum amount of $200 per day. That amount and the associated expenses are laid out plainly on page 10-1 on the member's resource book.

But then we need to look at what the House management committee actually decided.

In the draft amendments currently proposed, the committee refined the simple statement contained in the Green bill and lowered the amount. They didn't raise it.  They didn't take the Green number literally. They lowered it.

While Green provided a maximum of $200, the new version provides a flat amount of $145 for a committee member and $190 for the chair.  Not a lot, you may say, but the difference is important.

Reading is apparently optional as is comprehension in some quarters.

What makes this sort of public smear all the more deplorable is that it involves the work of two committees and only two committees of the legislature.  Leaving aside the house management committee, the only other committee to which it applies is public accounts.

For those who don't know, public accounts has been - historically - a key mechanism by which ordinary members of the legislature hold the government to account for its spending of public money.  The committee in this and other places has typically used the auditor general as a means of investigating programs and spending. It does so either by examining issues raised by the auditor general in his or her annual report or by tasking the auditor general specifically.

However, from 2000 to 2006, the public accounts committee sat typically not more than four times during the year.  This key committee essentially fell apart.

Indeed, so dysfunctional was the committee in the recent past that in the first three years of the Williams administration, the committee met exactly twice.  it did not meet at all in 2004 and met once in each of 2005 and 2006.

Chief Justice Green discussed the public accounts committee at some length in his report.  He describes the importance of the committee in the Westminster system and proposes a renewed and strengthened role for the committee in the House of Assembly.

You'll find plenty of posts at Bond Papers on the slow and relentless diminution of the legislature in this province.  This cannot be allowed to continue if our democracy is to emerge from the recent dark period stronger and more vibrant.

As Chief Justice Green noted, the public accounts committee must have a crucial role to play in accountability and oversight.  It is for that reason that he established a payment schedule to pay members for work done, not for merely holding the appointment as it was previously.

Thus, by attacking the Green proposal, Polemic and Paradox is effectively arguing against the very measures needed to strengthen the legislature. The scurrilous innuendo of the post serves only to undermine a legislature which is already laid low by recent problems.  The post doesn't help;  it serves only to do more damage.  That it is built on half-truths makes it all the worse.

It is one thing to offer a legitimate criticism, founded on facts, aimed at correcting a problem.  It is quite another to misrepresent a set of circumstances in order to launch an attack. We need to restore the legislature to its important place in our political system rather than continue the trend of more recent times to demolish it through neglect, mischief or a combination of the two.

-srbp-

Damn-fool fishery: the politics of plunder

CBC News has a story that should cause concern among people genuinely concerned about the fishery along the northeast coast.

Information obtained by CBC - update: now online - suggests catch estimates for the recreational fishery in 2007 were four times higher than federal fisheries own internal estimates of catch rates.

As part of its own quality control, Fisheries and Oceans hired a market researcher to survey a sample of people who were involved in the fishery. They reported participation and fish landings significantly higher than DFO's own records and estimates.

DFO tried to find a fault in the telephone survey but so far they haven't found one.

That just leads us back to the abiding concern that the damn-fool fishery is nothing more than an exercise in ensuring there'll be a time when no fish swam. It's not like there's no evidence that cod stocks, especially along the northeast coast, are still under great pressure and are still just a tiny fraction fof what was once there.

Rather than risk destroying the stocks altogether by effectively unregulated - and entirely unecessary - fishing activity, far better to eliminate the vote fishery.

It's not about tradition. It's not about heritage and the people promoting aren't really going to conserve anything.

Nope.

The whole damn-fool fishery is about politics and the faster we get rid of it, the better off we'll be.

Politics killed the cod.

The politics of propping up communities and fish processors, some of whom continue to perpetrate myths about the fishery as they head deeper into their dotage.

Now it's the politics of the people who use words like heritage and tradition as an excuse for unrestrained plunder of our natural resources.

Proponents of the so-called food fishery are basically the same as the people who try to pass off screech-ins as an authentic part of Newfoundland culture.

That sort of politics killed the cod.

When will we figure that out?

Hopefully not before it's too late.

-srbp-

The energy bubble

 

Statistics Canada's export data for May showed, among other things, just how much oil and other energy products are driving the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador at the moment.

Energy  - primarily oil and refined products - accounted for 73% of the value of all exports ($990 million out of $1.347 billion) from the province in May.

Compare that to $89.2 million worth of agricultural and fisheries products or $26.9 million in forest products.

The industrial goods column, coming in at $229.7 million in May, includes metal ore like nickel and iron.  That's 17% of the total exports for May.

Aside from the fairly obvious distortion energy prices are having on the value of exports, notice as well that the economy continues to be built - almost entirely - on the export of raw materials or semi-finished goods.

The largest category on the right side of the table, machinery and equipment, came in at a whopping $5.2 million.

The others are all less than $1.0 million.  Consumer goods exports was a mere $100,000.

One of the reasons for posting the Change and Challenge document was to give the opportunity for comparison between the current situation and the one some 16 years ago.

At the same time though, it's interesting to see the extent to which the goals set in 1992 have or have not been achieved. 

-srbp-

More important than people likely knew

A signals intelligence gathering site at Gander is hardly something you'd expect to turn up in a news story, but turn up it did this week on CBC.

The site is a large antenna array used to intercept radio signals.  It's still operational - which makes the news story so strange - and you can find plenty about it on the Internet, including this blurb from the Town of Gander website:

Known locally as the "Turkey Farm", an advanced communications installation at Gander is one of the three most secure military listening posts protecting the North American continent.

Not any more.

And if you want pictures, they can be found easily enough.  

Like the one above, from the 1970s.

Even without that sort of hunting around, you could figure out pretty quickly where the site was, using google maps, left.

 

 

 

Intelligence gathering was never so easy. 

-srbp-

Welcome to the Hurt Locker: Robert T. Johnson, Bronx District Attorney

In this first installment of our new feature, we'll take a look at a little political story from the Big Apple that promises to grow. 

Forget your Homer Simpson Moments. 

Those are just easy ones. 

When you really shag up a story in a way that will have predictably bad results, you earn a trip to The Hurt Locker.

Now, the New York Times story on the legal wrangles between the Bronx district attorney's office and a New York political blog, Room Eight, doesn't quite give the full detail on this tale from the big borough.

Yes, the Bronx DA served the blog owners with a subpoena seeking details about some people who had posted on the site. 

And yes, the subpoena included a warning that disclosure of the existence of the subpoena could lead to legal action.   Well, unless a judge of competent jurisdiction told you it was okay to talk.

And yes,  the DA's spokesperson said that the district attorney himself hadn't seen the subpoena before it was served but once he did review it, the subpoena was withdrawn.

What the NYT didn't mention in the article is that the people the Bronx DA's office was hunting for had made some critical comments about the Bronx Republican and Democratic Party machines. 

Other than that the DA's office was completely tight-lipped about why they'd be so keen to get IP addresses and other identifying information.

But now that the subpoena is no longer in play, everyone's getting in on the story. like The Daily News and even The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Of course, the blog world will be weighing in, in ever increasing numbers.  Odds are good the pressure will mount on the state attorney general to launch an investigation.

What were they thinking in the Bronx?  They likely weren't thinking at all.

The subpoena.  Free speech.  A blog.  Politically-charged comment.  Sounds like a recipe for political controversy in itself.

But you can definitely count on a trip to The Hurt Locker when the subpoena is delivered to two guys, one of whom formerly pounded the keyboards for the Daily News while his blog partner works for Ketchum. 

-srbp-

Change and Challenge: Chapter Five - New opportunities for growth

The Province's fisheries, forestry and mining industries cannot be expected to provide much, if any, net increase in employment during the years ahead. In fact, employment in these resource industries has been declining steadily over the last decade, as shown in Chart 5. In the forest industry, person years of employment declined from 5,300 in 1981 to 3,600 in 1991, and in the fishing industry employment declined from 21,700 to 19,200 during the same period. The decline in the mining industry was similar, falling from 5,600 in 1981 to 3,200 in 1991.

To provide the new jobs needed to reduce our high unemployment rate and to provide employment opportunities for our young people as they enter the labour market, new growth opportunities must be identified. While our economy is more diversified than is generally recognized, further diversification is no longer merely desirable - it is essential.

Advances in telecommunications, the globalization of trade, the environmental movement and the growth of knowledge-based industries have changed economic prospects internationally, nationally and locally, and Newfoundland and Labrador enjoys many potential competitive advantages which it can use to benefit from these changes. It has a strategic location dose to Europe which could allow it to act as a gateway to and from North America, a relatively unspoiled natural environment with magnificent scenery and untouched wilderness areas, and many well-educated and well-trained people, including a core of professional expertise in marine-related engineering and electronics.

The challenge is to recognize these new opportunities and for the private sector to take advantage of them, with Government's support. Traditionally we have thought of ourselves as producers of raw materials, but several companies in the Province have already become sophisticated traders of knowledge-based, value-added goods and services in local, national and international markets. It is through the creation of new wealth in new industries that the Province's problems of over-dependency and under-employment will ultimately be addressed.


In its strategic economic plan, the Province has identified three main areas of growth. These are:

• manufacturing and technical industries
• tourism and culture
• energy.

Manufacturing and technical industries will build on existing engineering and technical strengths, especially in marine-related activities. Tourism and cultural industries will grow by taking greater advantage of the province's natural environment, our unique culture, our quality of life and our human skills. Energy industries will grow through developing our significant growth potential in oil and gas, hydroelectricity, alternative energies (such as peat, wood biomass and cogeneration) and by a demand for greater energy efficiency. These three established industry groups offer significant potential for new wealth generation and increased employment during the next decade, and government's economic development thrust will be targeted on these industries.

Manufacturing and Technical Industries


In this strategic economic plan, manufacturing and technical industries include

• non-resource-based manufacturing
• innovative technologies
• information industries
• professional services
• environmental industries.

Non-resource based manufacturing (in Newfoundland and Labrador, virtually all manufacturing other than fish processing and pulp and paper making) declined after Confederation in 1949 because the elimination of customs duties made it impossible for many local firms to compete with cheaper "imports" from mainland Canada. But, more recently, and very gradually, non-resource-based manufacturing has become more important, so that now there are about 400 such firms operating in the Province, accounting for 4.1% of our GDP in 1990. This makes it more significant than some of our traditional resource industries.

Although Newfoundland and Labrador manufacturers produce mainly for the provincial market, some firms, selling such products as paint, footwear and ice cream, compete successfully in mainland Canada. There is also a small, but growing number of innovative technology companies (those using proprietary intellectual property and advanced scientific or technical know-how to provide new goods or services) that export sophisticated, knowledge-based electronic and telecommunications products to the global marketplace. This industry developed rapidly during the 1980s, so that by 1990 there were 55 such firms and organizations employing an estimated 1,200 people and with total annual revenues approaching $100 million.

Information industries are the fastest growing part of the economy, both nationally and internationally. Because of the way national statistics are collected, it is difficult to specify the actual number of firms and people employed in this industry in the Province, but it is estimated that Canada's information technology industry grew by 5% in 1991 despite the current recession, and had revenues of more than $16 billion.

Although it is not possible to identify the Province's share of this industry, we do know that Newfoundland and Labrador already has considerable strengths in the application of telecommunications technology. Altogether, it is estimated that more than 100 private- and public-sector organizations are now active in the province's information industry and employ dose to 2,600 people. To achieve more rapid growth, these private firms need better access to provincial government markets which are now served mainly by Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services. This Crown agency has recently been given a direction to cooperate and collaborate on efforts to promote the commercial development of this industry.

The services sector now accounts for nearly 30% of global trade, and Canadian trade and consulting services have seen exponential growth, rising from $42 million in revenues in 1969 to $987 million in 1985. Although the Province's business service industry now has some 250 professional consulting firms employing more than 3,000 people with expertise in such services as business consulting, construction management and economic analysis, the export of this expertise to bring new money into the province has been small to date. This industry is relatively undeveloped and has much potential for growth.

Environmental firms are also enjoying rapid growth internationally as jurisdictions everywhere become more concerned about, and introduce new legislation to protect, the environment. During the past 10 years, approximately 25 Newfoundland-based companies have developed expertise in such activities as environmental consulting, oil spill clean-up, waste management, recycling, environmental assessment and information, geomatics and environmental technology development. This is still a small industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, but it has significant potential for growth.

The Government will place greater emphasis on these manufacturing and technical industries in the future, and will work with private firms to help them realize their, growth potential in both local and export markets. New initiatives will be introduced to encourage supplier development so that local products and services can gain better access to large private and public organizations that operate in the province, including government itself; and new programs will be introduced to help local firms gain access to, or become more competitive in, export markets.

To achieve these goals, the Department of Development will be re-focused and re-organized for the new challenges of the 1990s. The Tourism Branch will be incorporated into a new Department of Tourism and Culture (described in the following section) and responsibility for the development of resource industries will rest more with their respective departments. A new Department of Industry, Trade and Technology will be given a mandate to encourage and promote the growth of manufacturing and technical industries and will be affirmed as the provincial agency with the main responsibility for trade and industrial promotions, for attracting investment and for technology development. It will also provide a centralized business analysis service for other departments.

The new department will focus specifically on stimulating the growth of non-resource-based manufacturing, innovative technologies, information industries, professional services and environmental industries. The department will also be responsible for strengthening the Province's construction industry, which is a major employer, contributes significantly to GDP and affects the competitiveness of other sectors. It will also undertake initiatives to make Newfoundland and Labrador firms more competitive, both at home and abroad. These initiatives will include supplier development, technology transfer, trade development, business analysis, business policy, promotions and investment. The department will also take a targeted, proactive approach to attract outside firms to the province.

Consistent with a major theme of this strategic economic plan, the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology will focus attention on our marine environment. Special initiatives will be undertaken to assist marine-related industries, with particular emphasis on the development and commercialization of advanced marine technologies.

Strategy Statement. The Province mill stimulate growth in sectors of the economy where there are new opportunities, especially in non-resource-based manufacturing, innovative technologies, information industries, professional consulting services and environmental industries.


Actions. The Province will

51. Re-focus and re-organize the Department of Development into a new Department of Industry, Trade and Technology which will concentrate on stimulating the growth of the manufacturing and technical industries in local and export markets, improving the competitiveness of local firms, and actively targeting outside firms in the new growth industries to locate in the Province.

52. Establish a supplier development program which will provide the private sector with the knowledge and opportunity to capture a more significant portion of the public- and private-sector procurement markets, such as major capital projects and defense contracts.

The Province will organize supplier seminars and make supplier development a major part of the provincial industrial benefits policy.

53. Pay specific attention to the information technology industry; a standing-offer list of approved suppliers of products and services will be developed for use by all government departments and agencies.

54. Expand financial assistance programs to firms involved in manufacturing and technical industries. Assistance will be provided for research and development, commercialization of new technology, company development, export marketing and working capital financing.

55. Create within the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology the funding flexibility needed to attract public- and private-sector research organizations to establish in the Province.

56. Aggressively pursue multinational manufacturing and technical firms to locate here, particularly those firms which would fit established niches in marine industries and electronics applications.

57. Continue to work for the establishment of foreign trade zones as an economic development initiative.

58. Establish a Provincial Communications Agency, which will include representation from the public, private and educational sectors, for expanding data communications, for co-ordinating data networking initiatives within the Province, and for developing common standards for the industry. The Communications Division (currently located in the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs) will be transferred to the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology so that it can assume a leading role in this area.

59. Encourage the development of an education-related information industry to create products for the Province's education system and for export; develop enhanced instructional capacity in software design and development in our community colleges and university.

60. Support the private sector through the development and implementation of a program aimed at exporting the Province's business and professional consulting services. This program will match local companies with foreign contracts administered by such agencies as CIDA and the World Bank.

Tourism and Culture


The Province's unique history, environment, culture and lifestyle offer some of the greatest opportunities for economic growth in the 1990s and beyond. The combination of its scenic beauty, its long and colourful history, its pristine areas, its rich culture and the renowned talents of its people constitute a resource that is still underdeveloped and underestimated. These resources are not only renewable, but can continue to be expanded and enhanced.

Tourism and culture can also employ, both full time and part time, more people than any other resource or industry. Crafts production, for example, although a long-standing and growing contributor to the provincial economy, can become more business-like and professional and find new opportunities for growth. While our crafts have been successful in this province and in other parts of Canada, there are also significant opportunities in the international marketplace.

As business and daily living become more complex and globally competitive, alternative lifestyle and cultural values will increase in importance when businesses decide where to locate, to meet and to hold conventions, and when people plan vacations. With proper development and promotion of our traditional, indigenous qualities and advantages -especially our unique marine environment - Newfoundland and Labrador can create a niche as a major holiday destination and cultural region in North America.

All the necessary natural and human resource components to achieve these objectives have existed for a long time. What has been lacking is a concerted, co-ordinated strategic program to blend them into one major economic entity.

In the tourism and cultural industries of the future, our relative remoteness from highly industrialized areas, our sparse population in a large landmass, and our relaxed pace of life will be seen as major advantages.

We have much to offer, including

• the oldest and richest history in Canada, with two world heritage sites;
• a marine environment which offers opportunities for cruises, yachting, whale-watching, seabird sanctuaries, wind-surfing, sea-kayaking, ocean sports fishing and other marine-related activities;
• outstanding scenery and ecological diversity;
• world-class hunting and recreational fishing;
• excellent multi-season recreational facilities;
• the wilderness experience at affordable rates;
• a vibrant cultural community, with a rich folklore preserved through five centuries of continuous settlement;
• artists, musicians, actors, writers, sculptors, dancers, and craft artisans - both professional and amateur - in numbers that are disproportionate to our population, and many of whom have achieved national and international stature; and
• a quiet, peaceful, civilized life-style and a reputation for hospitality.

It has been proven in the past that Newfoundland and Labrador is a desirable destination for business and personal travel. We have to build on this reputation by improving facilities and services, and by developing the potential of adventure tourism, events-related visits, conventions, conferences, seminars and executive retreats, and emphasising the attractions for students, writers and researchers, naturalists, artists, artisans, performers and others engaged in both professional and amateur cultural activities.

The achievement of this objective will require a concerted, aggressive effort by both Government and the private sector. Tourism and culture are complex industries, involving the mandates of various government departments both provincially and federally, and further development will require active partnerships between industry associations and individuals, government agencies and departments, communities and municipalities.
At the present time, the essential components of a vibrant tourism and culture industry are spread through the departments of Development, Municipal and Provincial Affairs, Environment and Lands, and Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador. Consolidation and co-ordination of government activities is necessary.

Strategy Statement. The Province mil implement programs to ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador is developed into an internationally known destination of choice in the vacation and business travel industry by promoting our natural advantages, expanding and improving facilities and services, and enhancing and promoting our cultural resources.



Actions. The Province will

61. Establish a new Department of Tourism and Culture. This new department will include the Tourism Branch of the Department of Development, the Cultural Affairs and Historic Resources divisions of the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, the Parks and Wildlife divisions of the Department of Environment and Lands, and the Crafts Industry activities of Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador.

62. Through the new Department, immediately initiate a consultation process with representatives of the tourism, cultural, environmental, and recreational sectors to develop and implement a comprehensive Tourism and Culture Economic Strategy. This joint task force would build on the extensive research and consultation of the Economic Recovery Commission, the O'Flaherty Report and other sources as required.

63. Give priority to the development of special year-round events of national and international interest within the Province, such as unique festivals, cultural activities, tournaments, historical observances and celebrations.

64. Assist the John Cabot (1997) 500th Anniversary Corporation to maximize the economic benefits to be realized from the international activities associated with the 500th Anniversary of John Cabot's landfall.

65. Initiate private-sector and other partnerships to develop further primary destination areas, especially those which offer multi-season potential.

66. Give priority to the development of winter recreation attractions, particularly further development of the Marble Mountain area as a major skiing destination area; and the development of cross country skiing, snowmobiling and dog-sledding events.

67. Expand the national and international conventions and meetings trade through promotional contact with societies, organizations and corporations, and encourage the development of facilities and services for business meetings and executive retreats; where possible, meetings and conventions should be coordinated with special events and observances. The success of these efforts will  likely create a demand for additional facilities to be provided by the private sector.

68. Recognize the western region of Newfoundland and Labrador as a specific cultural destination to maximize the economic benefits from its unique attractions, such as the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites (L'Anse aux Meadows and Gros Morne) located within a few hours' drive from each other, the 4,000-year-old Maritime Archaic Indian burial ground at Port au Choix, the Basque whaling station at Red Bay, the historic Grenfell Mission headquarters in St. Anthony, the Stephenville Festival of the Arts, French heritage festivals in the St. George's-Port au Port region, and other events and attractions of cultural importance.

69. Further develop the fine arts school at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook as an Atlantic Fine Arts Centre of Learning, for the development of drama, music, folklore, visual arts, writing and associated disciplines.

70. Seek a Cooperation Agreement in Cultural Industries with the Federal Government.

71. Transfer administration and control of Arts and Culture Centres to appropriate regional or community organizations.

72. Implement programs to facilitate the development of adventure tourism. Research and other initiatives will be undertaken in the areas of marketing, training and upgrading standards of quality and performance. Legislation, regulations and policies will be reviewed to remove constraints which restrict further development of this activity.

73. Give priority to the revitalization of recreational fishing on the salmon rivers of the Province - an activity which can become one of the major contributors to the tourism industry if developed fully. Management of these rivers will ensure that maximum economic benefits accrue to the adjacent communities. The new Department of Tourism and Culture will play a leading role in the development of all recreational fisheries.

74. Eliminate unnecessary and unfair regulations which limit opportunities to develop and promote attractions and services; and improve regulations which enhance the quality of tourism and those which protect the public, the environment and the wilderness resource.

75. Participate in industry's implementation of an accommodations grading system and a human resource development program focused on improving the quality of our hospitality services. Emphasis will be placed on training, enforcing occupational standards and certification through licensing and assistance programs.

76. Ensure that funding assistance for new tourism activity will not be detrimental to present operations.


77. Extend the operating season of selected provincial parks and historic sites in response to tourist demand, and request the Federal Government to take similar action for facilities falling within their jurisdiction.

78. Seek Federal Government participation in the establishment of a National Wilderness Park in Labrador.

79. Pursue improvements in the quality of the Gulf ferry service operated for the Federal Government by Marine Atlantic and seek a reduction in fares.

80. Implement a new highway signs policy to address current industry concerns and provide dear direction and information for travelers.

81. Increase production and enhance the quality of crafts through expanded community college programs and additional field instruction.

82. Through adequate research and development of products, effective promotion, provision of operating capital for producers, and the establishment of marketing agencies (retail and wholesale) within and outside the province, ensure that craft production and marketing are integral components of the tourism and culture industry.

Energy


Energy represents a large and growing component of the provincial economy. It is a critical part of virtually every production process, and its price, availability and reliability are of the utmost importance to economic progress. Factors affecting energy thus influence our productivity and competitiveness, especially the heavy industrial users of electricity. Its price and availability also affect the standard of living of the Province's citizens.

Total energy demand in 1990 was equivalent to about 20 million barrels of oil. Increases in the residential and transportation sectors were offset by a substantial decrease in the industrial sector, attributable to a decrease in mining and manufacturing activity. Overall, refined petroleum products accounted for 65% of energy consumption, electricity 27% and wood fuel 8%. Transportation is the largest energy-consuming group (42%), followed by industries (29%), residential use (20%) and commercial establishments (9%). It is estimated that the direct contribution of the energy industry to the Province's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1990 was in the order of $571 million, or 7%.

Strategy Statement. Government mil work to ensure that efficient energy resource management is used to strengthen the contribution of energy to overall economic development objectives.


Action. The Province will

83. Undertake a thorough review of existing energy policy to ensure that it is consistent with changing local, national and international economic conditions. An important aspect of this work will be to consolidate the many components into a comprehensive and integrated energy policy document.

Electricity Generation


Under current demand forecasts, there will be a need for an additional supply of electricity to the island portion of the province as early as 1996. Given the anticipated demand estimates and the lead times necessary to bring a new supply on line, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro recently called for proposals for the supply of 50 MW of capacity from small hydro sites for that time frame. Decisions about these additional sources will have to be made within a year or two.

One option for meeting the shortfall beyond the year 2000 is the development of the Lower Churchill River hydro sites, including a transmission link from Labrador to the Island. The National Energy Board shows the Lower Churchill River development as ranking number one in economic priority among 45 identified energy projects in North America. This option would provide an assured long-term supply of electricity to the Island for the 21st century and would accommodate any feasible industrial activity in Labrador but is dependent on an agreement between Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and Hydro Quebec.

Because of uncertainty associated with the Lower Churchill development, it is necessary to consider a strategy to meet the anticipated supply shortfall in case that development is delayed or does not proceed. In either case, to meet its requirements the Province would have to rely more extensively on other alternatives, such as other hydro developments, alternative energy developments and/or expansion of the existing Holyrood oil-fired plant. In addition, the Province will have to pursue improvements in energy efficiency and cogeneration, primarily as a means to improve the competitiveness of local industry.

Strategy Statement. The Province's objective is to ensure the development, generation and distribution of electricity in the most economical and efficient manner, to ensure that the balance of supply and demand is maintained and to maximize economic benefits to the Province from energy projects.


Actions. The Province will

84. Continue to pursue development of the Lower Churchill River so as to maximize economic benefits to the Province and provide residents with a long-term supply of electricity at a stable price.

85. Through the Department of Mines and Energy and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, prepare a plan for energy efficiency and the development of various energy sources to ensure the future balance of energy supply and demand for the Province.

86. Amend the Electric Power Control Act to broaden the mandate of the Public Utilities Board, including giving the PUB the authority to review agreements such as that envisaged for the Lower Churchill River Development.

87. Put in place policies to maximize electricity generated from small hydro developments as a means of increasing economic development and reducing dependence on imported oil.

Petroleum


The current policy of the Province with respect to onshore and offshore petroleum resources is to encourage and promote development in a manner which maximizes economic benefits to the Province. Presently, however, prospects for offshore oil and gas are uncertain because of such factors as the withdrawal of Gulf Canada from the Hibernia development, low prices resulting in low cash flow to industry, and competing projects elsewhere in the world.

For Hibernia, the best scenario is that the remaining owners will find a new partner and that the project will be finished with a production start in 1997. The worst is that the current difficulties experienced with Hibernia will not be overcome. In other offshore projects, the Province should see the start of development on at least one and possibly other fields, such as Terra Nova, Whiterose and Hebron, by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter.
Though the present level of exploration is low, the geological potential of the Grand Banks area is significant and future drilling is expected to find additional commercial-size fields. The offshore and onshore areas of the Province's west coast also offer some promise, as evidenced by the interest in land sales and seismic surveys in the past two years.

Strategy Statement. The Province will encourage both onshore and offshore exploration and development opportunities through all measures available to it, including the continuing development of a regulatory framework sensitive to changing economic conditions and global competition for investment.


Actions. The Province will

88. Develop and implement competitive generic royalty regimes for both onshore and offshore petroleum production.



89. Work with the Federal Government towards identifying and eliminating constraints in the current land tenure system for the offshore area.

90. Actively monitor and provide advice and direction, as required, to the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board to maximize the use of goods and services provided from within the Province.

91. Insist on having appropriate input into employment and industrial benefits plans as a prerequisite to the start of individual oil exploration programs and new oilfield developments.

92. Aggressively pursue supplier development initiatives and ensure that full and fair opportunity to bid is provided for contracts related to petroleum exploration, development and production.

93. Develop a program to ensure that onshore and offshore petroleum resources are promoted in an effective manner.

94. Ensure that the employment and industrial benefits from the Hibernia project production phase are maximized.

Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy


Energy efficiency and alternative energy can play an important role in the state of the Province's energy supply in the 1990s. The Department of Mines and Energy, in consultation with representatives from the private sector, has prepared a ten-year Strategic Plan for Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy. This plan will improve the efficiency of energy use in Newfoundland and Labrador through new technologies and better operating practices for vehicles, equipment and buildings. The plan also encourages the development of local alternative energy resources, such as waste wood, peat and small hydro developments.

Strategy Statement. The Province will develop its alternative energy resources and promote energy efficiency as a means of contributing to its overall energy requirements, to lessen its reliance on imported petroleum products and to create new business opportunities.


Actions. The Province will

95. Implement the recommendations of the Strategic Plan for Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy. Some of the key actions of this plan are

• to establish a diverse program of measures, ranging from information dissemination to legislative changes, to reduce costs through energy efficiency improvements and the use of alternative energy sources, with the aim of improving the competitiveness of local business and industry;
• to continue to promote, through support for energy research and development, alternative energy technologies and engineering studies, and economic development of the province's vast peat resources; and
• amend regulations to facilitate the development of hydroelectric and other potential energy sources by independent power producers.

-srbp-

Change and Challenge: Chapter Six - Enhancing our resource industries

Nova Scotia gets $870 million in offshore settlement

Notice what is going to happen to the money.

92% will go to debt reduction.

Eight per cent will go into three different long term funds:

• one for long term energy research;
• one for protected lands; and,
• another for university infrastructure.

-srbp-

The Sunday Funnies

Do a google search and sometimes weird things pop up.

For example, some poor sod from somewhere near Quetta looking for commentary on school reform in Pakistan would up finding a Bond Papers post.

In this case, your humble e-scribbler was searching the archives for something else and came across a quote from Andy Wells.  This was from back in the time when the head of the public utilities board - a provincial regulatory agency - was in another job as mayor of the Great City.  His buddy Dan was trying to stuff into a job at another regulatory agency.

But here's part of what Andy said at the time:

...The problem I've got with it is not particular to the board (C-NLOPB), it's with all regulatory agencies, it's that the regulators become the regulated. And I'm not saying they're wining and dining and handing out cheques to people, just, psychologically, the regulators become too close to the people under regulation....

Make of it what you will.

-srbp-

More bang for the buck.

There's no secret to it, fat or otherwise.

It doesn't cause cancer, nor is it a secret cancer cure.

It's definitely green, though, as in green like all outdoors.

Natural.

Pristine.

The green of the ocean showing against the white of a gigantic iceberg breaking up on the north east coast of Newfoundland, near a place called Twillingate.

If you want to draw people to Newfoundland and Labrador, you can spend 11 million bucks and show them pictures of a local musician - as fine as he is - in an entirely contrived setting being quaint and folksy and cliched, or you can show them this:

Done correctly, the power of social media could earn a much greater return on investment than anything seen in this province thus far.

Bear in mind, the growth in the number of real tourists - those from outside Newfoundland and Labrador - hasn't really matched the growth in the money spent to lure them here using the old methods.

It's called the Law of Diminishing Visitor Returns.

Let's see if we can change that with the cost of zero dollars and a little Internet promotion, not counting Wilma Hartmann's travel expenses.

From cliche to nature.

Call it the green shift.

-srbp-

Note: If the layout of this post is different from what you are used to, that's because it was created using ScribeFire, a new Firefox plugin.

Enough's enough Percy. Get a lawyer.

If Jerome was still in private practice,  Percy Barrett could have hired him to deal with what is evidently a very serious mess in the justice and finance departments.

As it is, Jerome is now The Man dropping the hammer, so Barrett will have to get someone else to fling the hammer back and see if it lands on any government lawyer toes.

Enough is enough.

Mr. Barrett needs to stop dealing with these claims from the House scandal all by himself.  Find a good lawyer. 

Barrett should have found one a long time ago, especially when the government continued to press its claim for repayment before the police investigation was done and now persists in the Barrett case, long after Crown prosecutors opted not to lay charges against him.

Not police, incidentally.

This was an RNC case. 

A major case like this one would typically have been decided by the Crowns  - the prosecution lawyers - not by the police alone and may well have gone to the very highest end of the Crown prosecution service for sign off.

Heck, didn't the FPI thing  go to cabinet? 

Aside:  where is that Great Prosecution by the Great Public Counsel (recently departed) of the Great Crime against the Great People by the Great Foreign Enemy of the Moment?

But to go back to the story, if the Crowns didn't want to take it to court, then Barrett should know they didn't have a leg to stand on.

Getting a lawyer will be far less costly both to Barrett's pocket and to his reputation in the long run.  A good lawyer should also put a stop to what appears to be a monstrous abuse of the province's legal system.

Get a lawyer, Percy.  it's not an admission of guilt in any way.   This thing won't be over any faster just by settling up.  In fact,  Barrett's probably just given them more excuse to keep coming since they figure he's a soft touch. 

Heck Percy, you might even have grounds to sue them.

And speaking of missing things and monstrous abuses, where is the infamous John Hickey defamation suit against Roger Grimes?

Any sign of it at all?

Blue paper?

White paper?

Toilet paper?

Deposition?

Anything?

And how about that law suit against Quebec over Churchill Falls?

Sacre bleu.

What's this?

A story in the Grand Falls Advertiser - take note, Ryan, they likely have job openings - in which a reporter for one of the weeklies updates the province on the lawsuit.

Turns out there won't be one, as even anyone who learned all they know about lawyering from watching reruns of Night Court could have told you when natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale blundered it up a few weeks ago.

Jerome didn't get his schooling that way, of course, and he likely knew from the start this idea of finding a legal basis for suing Quebec Hydro over the Churchill Falls contract - as bad a deal as it is - was a time-waster.  It's the stuff for amateurs and blowhards who know nothing about the law or about Churchill Falls.

Well, at least we hope Jerome knew that smarter legal minds than his  - and that's saying something - have battered themselves bloody trying to figure a legal means to resolve the problem.

There isn't one. 

There is a political solution, if there is one at all.

And if you are a politician who doesn't have a political solution, then best to shut your pie hole and move along.  Blaming Ottawa is not merely an excuse for, it's a gigantic public admission of,  your own failure.

The story's not online but labradore has a copy from which he quotes sparingly but sufficiently enough for you to get the point.

-srbp-

The local employment picture

With data from Statistics Canada, a picture of the change in employment in Newfoundland and Labrador, June 2007 compared with June 2008.

FFMOG = Fishery, forestry, mining, oil and gas

-srbp-

Proud. Strong. Determined.

Nothing says "pride" like licking a puffin's arse and being a newfie.

Only in a period of pseudo-nationalist revival could we expect to see the provincially-owned liquor corporation  - now "re-branded" without the "and" in the name - start pushing the screech-in, again. 

Things haven't been this good for the entirely invented "tradition" since the last time a pseudo-nationalist administration ran the place.

We can all be assured apparently that the thing will be supervised by trained staff.

"The format will have to be approved and we'll do our best to ensure there's no deviation. Nothing will be said that is in any way demeaning," [liquor corporation president and CEO Steve Winter] said.

Nothing said, maybe but the very notion of the screech-in, never more than a marketing gimmick, is nothing but bad.

What's next? 

A little black face, a banjo and a good ole fashioned minstrel show to push the Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort?

Better still, let's introduce saki to the yokels by having some guy stuff in false buck teeth, wear giant black horn- rimmed glasses and shout "so solly" at odd intervals all the while running around doing a really bad Jelly Rewis impersonation. 

Boffo!

And it can all be done by staff who have been run through an intensive course and then duly certified to orchestrate a ceremony that keeps up the authentic tradition of racism and ethnic stereotyping the civilised world long since abandoned.

The fools.

This screech-in is indeed a wonderful artefact from our distant past, as we've been told. 

Ah yes, the 1970s. 

And what better time to revive it.

Seems the provincial government - which can't find the time to polish off legislation on its own university policy  - can manage to remind the universe once again of the only image many of them have of Newfoundland: the seal hunt.  That's a link to the Forbes website, incidentally so the thing has been noticed.

Abso-freakin'-lutely bree-farkin'-illiant branding and marketing invented by people who clearly have no idea what a brand is.

*sigh*

As we've contended around these parts from the start, only the self-proclaimed nationalists like to tell Newfoundlanders they are dumb. 

Only the self-described nationalists would promote the "newfie" image to world and think the whole thing wasn't degrading.

Not being one of those, you humble e-scribbler will continue to make the argument for the other side.  Little did we know at the time just how much the cliches were now becoming part of the official government promotional policy.

We could have saved the million and a half on the triffids crap.

-srbp-

Telling it like it is

Some choice Indy quotes:

"We've been free to investigate and explore all things Newfoundland and Labrador, free from the responsibilities that come with being the daily newspaper of record.  Our ambition is to remain a weekly." (from the editor-in-chief's column)

"The Independent did not request the expenses for PC MHA Trevor Taylor due to budgetary constraints."  (from a front page story on expense claims by provincial fisheries ministers between 1995 and 2008).

Investigate and explore, but only the bits we can afford.  S'pose the job of telling the whole story will have to fall to the daily newspaper of record using its evilly-deep, evilly-Quebec-based evil pockets.

For those who don't know, Taylor was fisheries minister from October 2003 to November 2005.  He is currently the minister of innovation, trade and rural development and the acting fisheries minister. 

Interesting editorial decision.

Of the others who the Indy did spend money on, Yvonne Jones was fisheries minister for eight months and Gerry Reid served as fisheries minister from February 2001 to February 2003. 

 

Some other choice quotes:

"The Independent is on the block, if you haven't heard and care to know." (from the editor-in-chief's column)

"[Peter] Cashin's son Michael is scheduled to return home this month from New York City, where he lives. I plan to ask for the editing job. [on the second volume of his father's memoirs]" (from the editor-in-chief's other column)

-srbp-

When the trend becomes an excuse

Bond Papers has noted before the once lamentable, now deplorable, trend to reduce the number of sitting days of the House of Assembly.

The issue is not one merely of the number of days the House sits.  The root of the problem is the increasing tendency for the legislature to pass bills with only a cursory glance. 

In the spring 2007 sitting, for example, 57 out of the 72 bills passed through the major stages of debate in less than a day.  That's a House of Assembly day, by the way, which is typically a few hours in the afternoon Monday to Thursday. 

One of those bills was the Green accountability bill which was pushed through on the last day of the sitting.  The public, and indeed, many members didn't realize that a few amendments made quietly ensured that some of the more important parts of the legislation setting controls on spending wouldn't take effect until the fall.

In most legislatures, ordinary members of the House, that is those without ministerial portfolios sit on committees.  Those committees take legislation, examine the bills in detail, sometimes holding public hearings and discussion to gather public reaction.  Sometimes bills get changed from what government intended,.  Sometimes they pass, as is.  Sometimes they get killed.

That's an important part of the process.  The public gets to know what the government is planning.  Interested individuals and groups can study a bill and figure out it will affect them.  They can recommend changes which may or may not be accepted.  The public gets to see the laws being made, they are consulted and, in some instances they can actually change the direction that government - in its wisdom  - thought was the right way to go.  If nothing else, including people in the process gives the outcome greater legitimacy and acceptance than it otherwise might have.

In the session just ended - the first since the election last fall - the House struck some committees but purely for the purpose of expediting passage of the budget.  They didn't get to study the energy corporation bills for example. 

Heck, the whole House didn't get to even know the bills were coming until the last week or so of the session. When it did come, there were some inconsequential amendments to the bill restructuring the energy corporation but for the most part, most people had no idea what the implications were of the measure. 

The pernicious impact of this approach is easy to see.  Even one seasoned reporter who has covered the legislature thought the bill would let reporters find out about corporation spending but protect sensitive commercial information like technology secrets from disclosure. 

He couldn't have been more wrong if he tried but, in fairness, the words "commercially sensitive information" are in the bill.   If you didn't carefully read the bill or if you didn't get the chance to read it at all you might assume those words had the typical meaning.   They don't.  It's in the bill.

Sensitive commercial information is basically any information related to the business of the company.  Number of pencils and pens used?  Apparently that's sensitive. As the legislation put it:

"commercially sensitive information" means information relating to the business affairs or activities of the corporation or a subsidiary, or of a third party provided to the corporation or the subsidiary by the third party, ...

As if that all weren't bad enough, the province's education minister is now saying legislation to create a second university in the province will be delayed until at least the fall sitting. 

The idea was approved by government a year ago and it's been a controversial decision.  Rumblings around the university in St. John's would have you believe that the external recruiters hired to find a new president found one.  But their choice - the current acting president - was turned down by government since the fellow is not all that thrilled with the Grenfell scheme.

That's really all to one side.  Legislative drafting on an issue like this shouldn't this long.  But if it does, there must be a reason for it more convincing than this one:

"We are just at the point, I guess, with a busy schedule in the house of assembly and certainly the tedious work in developing the legislation, that we didn't have sufficient time … for the full debate that it deserved"...

CBC's television report gave a bit more information than that though.  West coast reporter Doug Greer there are indications one minister was not satisfied the bill lived up to what Grenfell had been promised. Now it may be the fall of 2009 or later before the changes take effect, according to CBC news.

All of this is to suggest that a decision like creating a second university can appear to be a good one at the beginning but that, at the very least, other information can lead to a reappraisal or an adjustment of the course. 

Your humble e-scribbler changed his mind as he found out more about the proposal.  Obviously - if the education minister's comments are taken at face value - others much more intimately involved in the process have been adjusting things as well.

In other words, time and the supposed business of the legislature isn't the problem here.  Something else is. If the Grenfell decision is controversial as it has been presented, maybe other ideas can come forward from a full debate in the legislature.

The same can be said of other pieces of legislation which have been rammed through the House with barely enough time for the ink to dry on the order paper.

Maybe it's time to reform the House of Assembly and let the rest of us in on the discussion of public business.  That's one of the things legislatures are for and its one of the potential solutions to the government's problem with the Grenfell bill.  A properly functioning legislative committee system could take this one on and navigate the controversial waters exactly as they are supposed to do in this messy, complicated thing called democracy.

As it stands, though, the current House with its handful of short sitting days each year hasn't been the source of the delay in this decision.

In blaming the delay on a busy schedule in the House, Joan Burke just offered a huge excuse that obviously isn't true.

-srbp-

Related:

nottawa - "Busy, busy, busy" and "Busy, busy, busy (II)"

The silent majority got it right

Not surprisingly, the likely death rattle of the Independent - yet again - is stirring up some local controversy.

There's an interesting thread over at Geoff Meeker's blog at the Telly site if anyone is curious about what might wind up being a long one.  The post in question is actually a guest piece by former Current publisher Mark Smith.

Smith took some exception to comments made by Indy supreme editor Ryan Cleary about poaching advertising.  He also laced into the circulation claims Ryan made.

One comment  - thus far - from Frank Carroll offered a defence of the Indy and Cleary that got the old e-scribbler's blood racing.

The most important issue is that the province may be about to lose a vibrant competitor to the Transcontinental monopoly. The Telegram has responded to competition in the past by beefing up its editorial operations. (There would be no Sunday edition of the Telegram were it not for the Sunday Express.)

Let's get one thing clear right up front.  With a paid circulation of  only 4,000, the Independent wasn't competing with anyone else in the local media marketplace for anything.  It sure as hell wasn't competing with any of the dailies or weeklies anywhere across the province. 

The weeklies outside St. John's never had much competition anyway, even when they were owned by Robinson Blackmore.  When the Indy first started, it was pushing into some markets and finding some success in Goose Bay and Corner Brook. Somewhere along the line, the paper seems to have retreated from its province-wide approach and focused on the townie crowd.  Makes sense, given that the pink, white and green people all live within spitting distance of the Ship.

The Telly likely never sweated the Indy for a second.  That's because in the modern age, all media compete with each other.  Long gone and dead are the days were radio fought radio, television battled television and the print heads tossed jars of ink at  each other.

It's a bit of speculation, but it wouldn't be too surprising to find that when Russell Wangersky gets up in the morning, he's wondering what Gullage and Furlong are up to.  His online spot news is looking at VOCM.  And the other newsrooms are looking at the Telly.

As noted here yesterday, the Indy had more than enough time to fix itself both editorially and financially to make the paper work.  If it really wanted to compete with the Telegram and the rest, the Internet was the perfect way to put the talent pool in the newsroom to work five days a week at a low cost.  If there was any investigative journalism or longer form stuff, then the weekly edition was the place for it. 

Know the niche, fill it, deliver the product and offer the advertisers a solid platform for reaching their desired demographics.  It's not rocket science.  It's not easy either.  But Mark Smith lays it out succinctly all the while managing to keep his wheaties where they belong.

The sad truth is that for the past three or four years Ryan was better at breaking wind than breaking news. It didn't have to be that way.

As a last point, there's the bit that actually got the blood racing.  It's the Sunday Express thing.  The Express had a short life.  In the time it was around, the paper broke news and it ran with its own stories relentlessly.  There wasn't much in the way of bluster and trash talk.  People just worked hard at the craft of reporting.  Not everything was gold but just by doing the hard work day in and day out, the men and women there got more hits than misses. 

And to understand that is to understand the difference between being a decent newspaper and talking about being one.

So enough of the Indy and Ryan Cleary. 

The world moves on. 

Except for the handful of us who seem to have some inexplicable need to chew on the paper's entrails, the rest of the province made its decision about the Indy a long while ago.

For all the whining and bombast, for all the pleas and the grandiose claims and the nationalist posturing,  Ryan only ever managed to persuade 4,000 to have the Indy delivered to their homes each week.

The rest of us should go with the silent - and overwhelming - majority.

504,000 people can't be that wrong.

-srbp-

No election reports from provincial elections office since 2003?

"The post of the year"

Well, if democracy, and openness were the topics the answer would be yes.

labradore has posted a scathing indictment of the province's elections office demonstrating the repeated failings of the office to comply with the law - apparently - and certainly by failing any reasonable standard of public communication.

Quebec's elections office has already posted to the Internet results of the may by-elections.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we are still waiting on any statistical reports on elections since October 2003. 

"Publish". The only sign that any recent electoral results have been published is the library catalogue entry noted above. (And no, offering to mail a copy to anyone who thinks to ask, does not constitute "publishing.")
And "within 9 months".

In respect of the Exploits by-election, that mandatory nine-month deadline expired on March 23, 2006. For Placentia & St. Mary's, the deadline was November 21, 2006. For Signal Hill—Quidi Vidi, it was August 1, 2007. For Ferryland, Port au Port, and Kilbride, November 8, 2007. Humber Valley and Labrador West met the deadline five days later.

And for the general election of 2007, having been held on October 9, 2007 — the day before the much-larger Ontario, whose poll-by-polls have been available for quite some time now — that mandatory statutory deadline was on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008.

There simply is no excuse for this complete failure.

But the first comment on the post is right:  this is the story of the year.  it demonstrates in one single spot:

-  a complete lack of transparency and openness as set down in the elections; and,

-  a persistent failure of accountability since the House of Assembly to which the elections office reports, apparently hasn't been able to sort the situation out.

What the office has been doing, apparently, is filling out "plan" documents filled with pap like this from the communications section on page 10 of the "business plan" for 2008-2011:

It is important for the Office of the Chief Electoral Office to communicate clear, strong messages to its primary clients and the general public. Various types of communications are used frequently to address issues, particularly important dates and reminders. Public notices, advertising, press releases, media kits, and public service announcements [sentence break in original]

are just a few of the methods that are used to inform the public of ‘need to know’ information. For example, the Special Ballot process was advertised in local papers, radio and television. Additionally, a news release was sent out to alert electors about Special Ballot deadlines and general information.

The OCEO also has a website that contains a wealth of information on the electoral process. The Office strives to keep the website up-to-date and current with issues that pertain to elections.

Those three paragraphs are clearly bunk written by people who don't know what they are doing.  Can you have more than one primary client, for argument sake?

The last one beggars description given that at the time it was written the people writing it knew full well that the office was grossly out of compliance with its major public statute, the Elections Act, 1991. 

The website should be the main communications vehicle.  Technology allows fewer people to do more things with less effort. All the missing reports could have been posted to the Internet within seconds of being completed thereby meeting the office's duties to the voters of the province - its "primary client" - and meeting the requirement to be open and transparent.

Openness and transparency are simple attitudes that can be tied to simple behaviours. Clearly the attitudes don't exist or the behaviours required, like filling out the formula "plans" lead people to waste energy on stuff that ultimately doesn't get the job done.

Something is seriously screwed up at the elections office. 

More people and more cash won't fix what is clearly isn't a resource problem.

If public servant Wayne Greene could meet his statutory obligations with few people and not much cash,  there's no excuse for the former cabinet minister who succeeded him and the former partisan activist of the current governing party who succeeded him.

There's a leadership problem.

Someone needs to fix it.

Soon.

But just don't hold your breath waiting.

Just stand by for the "messages" to be "delivered" to "primary clients".

-srbp-

The race to the swift

From the Guardian, online the story of how one media giant took a money losing print publication on line with dramatic results.

But axing print editions of popular magazines is a bold move and McGovern acknowledges this was a risky strategy - InfoWorld was distributing 180,000 copies in the US every week when it decided to ditch print, retaining online and events. "Many said without print people wouldn't be reminded every week of our brand and 40% of our revenue would disappear overnight," he recalls.

One year later McGovern, who still privately owns IDG, says InfoWorld's online revenues had trebled, the magazine's overall revenues were up 10%, and without the costs of print, paper and postage, profit margins went from -3% to 37%.

Flip of the fedora to In front of your nose and Andrew Bruce Smith.

-srbp-

Requiem for a lightweight

The Independent is no more.

Well, not at this moment but the prospect of the paper surviving the latest withdrawal of investor Brian Dobbin is limited.

Editor Ryan Cleary told CBC Radio a bunch of things this afternoon. 

He noted, for example that the paper's circulation has grown 10% in the past year or so.

Okay.  Then if the paper was making money, and circulation was on the rise, and Dobbin remained committed to the idea of the weekly pseudo-separatist broadsheet, he might be willing to keep his cash invested.

Evidently he wasn't.

There was a noticeable drop in government advertising in the last issue.  Only two pages compared to five or six full pages before now.  That's got to hurt.

The loss of Stirling Press may have hurt, if the Indy was using their offset.  But, the non-stop crap-fight Cleary waged against Transcontinental certainly wouldn't help any chances of cutting a deal with them to print the Indy.

There's a thing called friendly competition but Cleary made it a vicious, public blood feud which was of no value at all to anyone.   The Indy was never a market threat to the Telly but there'd certainly be no great willingness to even talk about cutting any kind of deal.

But face it:  if the Indy was making money or making enough, Brian Dobbin wouldn't be taking his teddy and if not throwing it in the corner at least taking it  somewhere else.   If it was a marginal venture or losing money, it's easy to see why Dobbin'd be heading elsewhere and taking his dough with him.  If the paper was marginal or a money loser, he also wouldn't have had any interest in shelling out more cash to buy the Stirling press and take on that along with everything else.

The Indy has obviously gone through a bunch of changes in the past year or so all in an effort to reduce costs.  They've moved out of the downtown and into cheaper digs on LeMarchant Road.

Obviously, it didn't work.

This marks the second withdrawal by Dobbin and the second death of the weekly. As Bond Papers noted the last time the lights went out at the Indy, the paper failed to live up each week to the boasting and bragging of editor Cleary. That certainly hasn't helped the paper.

Cleary also said something to the effect that there is room in the province for another paper.  We'll we already have a flood of papers in St. John's and it wouldn't take much for any of them to spread province-wide.

 The Scope and The Business Post are doing reasonably well, but they use a different business model and they both have content the Indy has never been able to match on any level. They can expand and fill whatever gap the Indy leaves behind.  Neither will likely look for a circulation boost from Joan Forsey or Patrick O'Flaherty, though. 

Different business model plus content people look forward to reading and you have a winner.

Both the Scope and the Business Post can also move to new media approaches more readily than the Indy seemed to be willing to do.  It's online presence sucked from the start, but it could be forgiven in a start-up.  By this point, though, the Indy could have shifted dramatically in the direction to more successful print media elsewhere: online daily content updated as the day rolls with new and different stuff in the print. 

Or Cleary could have just as easily shifted the whole thing online at lower costs long ago.  Put the energy into producing a decent quality daily, hard news product and go head to head with the big guys. Maybe they'll try to reform the whole thing in that direction now.  For some reason, that doesn't seem likely.

Here's the ultimate point:  print as done by the Indy is either dead or on life support with a prediction of imminent death.  The smarties have changed their business model - The Business Post - or morphed into another approach, like the Telly over the past couple of years.  Other old dailies and weeklies have gone for more dramatic makeovers with good results.

So the Indy dies again.

Two weeks of wailing on the Open Lines.  Maybe another "Save us" campaign.

And then we can all go back to the rest of the local media marketplace. 

Heaven knows there's plenty of quality content to chose from.

-srbp-

Shell shelves Sarnia sands refinery

Royal Dutch Shell won't be building a new 200,000 barrel per day refinery in Sarnia, Ontario to process oil from the Alberta tar sands.

The company cited poor market conditions and surging costs, according to Reuters.

In other words, a company with its own guaranteed source of raw material isn't building a greenfield refinery close to both the source of raw material and markets. 

Instead, Shell will be expanding capacity at existing refineries to serve the North American market.

That would be pretty much consistent with this previous Bond Papers post on NLRC's problems with its larger project proposed for Placentia Bay and very much at odds with any suggestion that tight American capital markets due to the subprime crisis are to blame.

-srbp-

Covering Britney is cheaper

Well, it would be, given how little the woman usually wears in public.

A doff of the derby to Lee Hopkins, one of Australia's leading public relations practitioners in the so-called new media, for posting a link to the following video.

It's a presentation from February by Alisa Miller, of Public Radio International.  She was speaking at a TED conference - Technology, Entertainment, Design - and dazzled the audience with her assessment of changes in American coverage of international stories.

We like to think that Canadian news coverage is different, that it's better than what the Americans do.  We cover the world better, are better informed about what goes on beyond our borders.

But is that true?

Is it true when our borders are sometimes the provincial ones politically and in our heads?

-srbp-