The market for oil and gas support industries

The real key to long-term economic benefit from oil and gas is not in revenues flowing to a state-owned oil company, but from the development of a healthy, innovative support and service sector.

Oil industry consultant Gerrit Maureau thinks the overseas opportunities for petroleum service companies have never been greater.

The hungry market is with foreign national oil companies (NOCs).

Foreign NOCs are so hungry for technology and training that Maureau believes a good service company will almost certainly find a market overseas if its sales effort is well-informed. But success is unlikely to come cheap, he warns: "Above all, be persistent. Canadians have developed an unfortunate reputation overseas for showing up once and never coming back." In his experience, a half dozen visits may be needed before a significant breakthrough occurs.

The rest of the Maureau profile can be found at

DOB Magazine.

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The best and the worst

From the Star Phoenix (Saskatoon), a perspective on the province and its politics:

It did not present a very becoming picture of the premier, certainly not of one who until recently at least, commanded the support of 70 per cent of the province's population.

The premier's less attractive side recently re-emerged when his government intervened in the selection process for the new president of Memorial University.

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Internet Explorer problems when loading? Try the mirror Bond Papers.

For the past 24 hours, some people have been reporting problems when trying to access Bond Papers using Internet Explorer.

This only applies to the blogspot.com address.

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Those of you reading Bond Papers via Blackberry, iPhone, Smartphone or other mobile device may also find the WordPress a little friendlier.

For those who want to shift from Internet Explorer, you can download the latest version of Firefox at the Mozilla site.

EGH

A small but significant distinction

The Telegram's Russell Wangersky gives cabinet some good advice this rainy Saturday in order to avoid what he describes as "boneheaded mistakes".
Around these parts, we'd make one small quibble over this otherwise apt comparison with the current Memorial situation:

Stymied at the CNLOPB, Wells miraculously became the best choice for head of the PUB - oh, wait. He was the only choice considered. Unlike at MUN, the Public Utilities Board job didn't bother with the niceties of anything like a messy old search for the best candidates.

Turns out there was a messy old search for candidates, after all, as Bond Papers reported last February.
Andy Wells doesn't appear to have been a candidate since there was no mention of the competition or of Wells winning said merit-based selection process after the initial ads appeared in the Telegram and elsewhere. The Public Service Commission parsed the details of the thing in such a way as to leave more questions than the parsing answered.
With that little piece of information corrected, Wangersky's piece  - particularly the Andy bit - now makes even more sense.

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The Looking Glass Cabinet

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone," it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

Through the Looking Glass: and what Alice found there

Tom Marshall must have received his law degree from the University of Wonderland.

You know.

The place Alice went.

She ran into Tom's old law prof, Humpty Dumpty, who first taught him that the words on the page are meaningless plastic things. 

Humpty Dumpty's lessons took.

Last week, education minister Joan Burke said that, in picking a new president for MUN, the university board of regents would send over a list of names and cabinet would make the appointment since - as the law provides, according to Burke - the president's job is a cabinet appointment.

Hang on there, said a number of people including Grenfell professor Dr. Paul Wilson who insist that the words in the law - 'the board of regents shall appoint a president" - doesn't mean that cabinet does the job.

Marshall, a former attorney general, insists that Wilson is being a stick-in-the-mud, and that Wilson is "not helping" the university.

There's that favourite government phrase "not helping" or "being unhelpful".

In this case, it would mean pointing out the obvious bankruptcy of the government position, but that's really a separate issue.

Marshall, sounding a bit like a 1960s hold-over, insisted that the professor was being square, Man.

What's interesting is the way Marshall (LLB, U Wonder) described Wilson's view:

Everyone is entitled to their view. He’s given his analysis. I consider his analysis a literal interpretation — a strict, constructionist interpretation. A proper interpretation of the legislation would have to consider the wording in context. When you consider the wording in context, the minister of Education plays a very important role.

"Strict, constructionist interpretation". 

You will note of course, that no where in Marshall's comment does he say that Wilson is actually wrong.  Not at all.

Not if you actually read what Marshall said:  according to Marshall, the legislation properly read with all the words in their context means that the education minister plays an important role in the process.

Marshall  - clever fellow - didn't define that role, however.  The role envisaged in the legislation is that the education minister takes the name of the appointed person to cabinet for approval.  That's the role.  it's largely administrative in nature.

And no where does it say cabinet picks, which is what Burke insisted she and her colleagues will be doing.

But still, according to Marshall,  Wilson is wrong because he is using a "strict, constructionist interpretation"?

Here's a simple solution.

Let's put this before a judge.

They are easy to find down on Duckworth Street.  Odds are, we could find one of them with a few spare minutes in between trips to the neighbourhood Timmies to hear the learned former attorney general appear on behalf of the Crown to argue the matter.  Now we'd be doing this no just to resolve the dispute between Marshall and Wilson, but to settle on the legality of the cabinet's move in this extremely important crisis.

The justices would likely fight over the chance to hear this one.

And they get paid to resolve disputes.

After all, government has been extremely successful in this Mad Hatter, March Hare approach to the things before.

There was the now famous October 2004 interview Danny Williams gave to the CBC's Carole MacNeil.  According to Williams, once the province didn't qualification for Equalization, clawbacks wouldn't be 100 per cent but zero., even though when the province qualified for just a fraction of a penny of federal handout, the clawback was 99.9999999 per cent.

Then there was Tom Rideout's classic time travel episode:

Consider Rideout's efforts to explain that while today might well have been June 14 when the bill was passed, tomorrow did not actually mean June 15. Rather it meant some date four months hence:

"Since Green didn't say the act comes into effect today, we, in consultation with him, said what can come into effect today comes into effect today, what needs time to come into effect tomorrow comes into effect tomorrow, and tomorrow is Oct. 9, 2007"

Or Marshall gamely trying to criticise Brian Peckford and in the process fibbing royally about the province's finances.

Or on legal matters, just ask Don Burridge, the current deputy attorney general and, odds are, the poor sod who would carry this threadbare Stanfield's of an argument downtown to see what others made of it.

Burridge is the extremely talented lawyer who was in the unfortunate position of having to carry forward government's argument in Ruelokke.  The government argument, one suspects, was dictated to him by the learned barristers in cabinet but he gamely laid it out.

They tried the argument that a clause in the 1985 Atlantic Accord which said the hiring tribunal's decision was binding on both the federal and provincial, governments really meant that the courts couldn't intervene in the matter.

Mr. Justice Halley loved that one, one suspects, so much so that he likely had to stab himself repeatedly with a fork under his robes so that the pain would keep him from rolling on the floor in laughter.

We all know the outcome of that foray into the courts.

All of this just goes to show just exactly how desperate the cabinet is to try and escape the Memorial mess they've created.  Tom Marshall is trotting out all sorts of verbiage to try and obscure things.

The problem for Marshall in this little drama  is that he is stuffed in the role played before by Burridge. He is carrying a preposterous argument and he knows it.

But if he is game, there are a few people wearing black robes in the later summer heat who will gladly sit and enjoy the government's revival of Through the Looking Glass or Alice in Wonderland.

We'd all enjoy the play immensely even if the outcome is predictable.

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Into the deep

The provincial government's crisis with Memorial University got just that much deeper today.

Op-ed pieces in the province's largest daily newspaper from two distinguished professors simply and succinctly laid out the problem in plain English. [Not available online]

As political science professor Steve Wolinetz wrote:

Simply put, universities can only function effectively when they are at arm's length from government or any single entity funding them. This not only ensures academic freedom and allows members of the university community to "speak truth to power," but also enables them to harness the creative energies of faculty, staff and students. Independence and autonomy are at the core of any university. It has enabled Memorial to explore vital issues and helped the province and its people grow and thrive.

Independence and autonomy are indeed at the core of any university and they are at the core of the current problem. By injecting herself into the selection process for a new president, education minister Joan Burke she has not stepped across an invisible but well-defined boundary, she has committed to completely ignore the law by making the presidential appointment a cabinet one instead of a decision of the board of regents, as the law provides. She has usurped the authority of the board to appoint the president, which in itself is an expression of the university's independence and autonomy.

Nor has no one outside cabinet and government back benches is able to ignore the evident contradiction between Burke's action in this case and the government's commitment to make Grenfell College "autonomous."

All that is pretty much old hat now, as this story ends its first of what may prove to be several weeks of political pain.

What made the hole Burke dug even deeper is the revelation in another op-ed piece - this time by former academic vice president and pro-chancellor Evan Simpson - that the university has been reduced, in effect, to the status of a Crown corporation or agency:

The university depends heavily upon its operating and capital grants from the government. Memorial used to receive block grants and set its priorities within the financial limits they imposed. Now, in submitting a budget, the university presents a menu of initiatives and the government chooses those it likes. In effect, Memorial has surrendered its capacity to set its own priorities. Basic operating funding continues but room for innovation is limited. The government expects Memorial to have a strategic plan, but it is difficult to take this seriously when the Treasury Board decides what it will or will not fund.

Clearly, the current crisis at Memorial University has been brewing since the fall of 2003. The clash over Burke's intervention in the hiring process for a new president is merely the tip of a very large and very dangerous iceberg. Former president Axel Meisen's early departure from the job was perceived publicly as flowing from the clash with government over the Grenfell issue. Odds are that there have been a series of events that led to his move to Alberta eight months before his first term expired.

Burke did not recover with her late-afternoon news release. The release was in many respects cumbersome and contained errors of style and punctuation suggesting it was very hastily written.

In it, she insisted - despite the evidence to the contrary in plain sight - that she had not interfered and that her actions were within the bounds of the law. She also insisted the government has not violated academic freedom, however with that claim she simply pushed the next shovel deeper into the earth at the bottom of the hole in which she currently resides.

“I have yet to hear one concrete example of how exactly our government has impeded or interfered in academic freedom or autonomy,” said Minister Burke. “We have never told people what to teach or how to teach nor have we suppressed opinion. We are very simply saying we will exercise our legal obligation under the act, which clearly states that Cabinet has an approval role as an oversight, and I can assure everyone that we take that role seriously and will exercise our responsibility.”

Right away the claim that government had not interfered in the university's autonomy is nonsense given the evidence already in the public domain.

However, on the other issue, that of academic freedom, Burke's protests will likely prove unconvincing. The reason is easy to see.

Throughout the week, Burke repeatedly used government's financial stake in the university as justification for government's action. There may not be an example of interference in academic freedom yet. There may be no signs of political arm-twisting yet.

But given all that the public has learned to date, it is not hard to imagine a day in the not too distant future when a member of cabinet will find some public comment by a professor or student to be unwelcome. A call will be made and the justification will be simply that the government is concerned the comments are damaging this, that or the other interest of the province.

If the matter ever became public some minister may undoubtedly say that there has not been a violation of academic freedom, despite the plain evidence to the contrary and using exactly the same words and the same rationalizations Burke has used already:

We have invested heavily in our post-secondary institutions. The current and capital budget for the university alone this year is nearly $240 million. Memorial University and College of the North Atlantic are making names for themselves in the international arena.

Do I think that government needs to step away from this process? Absolutely not. As long as we have a budget of $240 million, we have 2,500 staff, we have 18,000 students (at the school), I think that we are expected by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to play the leadership role that is ours.

Newfoundland and Labrador can certainly make its own decisions and we don't have to act in the way that other provinces or other universities do.

No, it's not hard to imagine it at all.

After all, until recently, no one might have though the government would ever interfere in hiring a president for the university.

And then Burke did just that.

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Why Joan and Danny rejected Eddy

Eddy Campbell has withdrawn from the presidential competition.

His statement is an eloquent defence of the university in a time of crisis:

That [presidential search] committee should be free to conclude the mandate it was given without interference or outside influence, as is the case with all presidential search committees at other Canadian universities.

Heresy!

Jeffrey Simpson starkly describes the issues and problems tied up in the Memorial University crisis.

Once the usual suspects find out about it, they'll be screaming to the Great Oracle of the Valley for Simpson to be tossed in jail for hating Newfoundland.

Only one problem with Simpson's column: "But nary a peep is heard about the principles involved in political interference, because no one dares question the man who can leap tall icebergs."

The entire body of public criticism on government's illegal intervention is focused on the principles involved.

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53K in ACOA cash for Lego contest

Where to begin?

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, originally set up to foster economic development, has dropped a total of $53,861 years ago since 2004 to send a group of junior high school students to a Lego robotics competition in Georgia.

1.  Time to sort out ACOA:  The agency is badly off track, having become  a funnel for all manner of federal pork.

2.  Connie hypocrisy: The Connies claimed they wanted to scrap ACOA before they got elected. Turns out that, they love ACOA's pork pushing properties.

3.  Connie hypocrisy:  Fabian pushed more pork into this pork project.  This bit of business started while John Efford was regional minister and the member of parliament for the area.  Fabian Manning has somehow managed to get the amount of cash increased, according to the Chronicle Herald story.

4.  The robotics competition is an excellent learning project but... this isn't something that ACOA should be funding.  This is an educational project and should be supported from provincial coffers.

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Purely coincidental

July 29.

1.  CBC:  "Too muggy to operate"

High humidity is creating a sticky situation in operating rooms in a western Newfoundland hospital, where a dozen procedures have been postponed.

July 31.

2.  Western Star: "Four days affected by humidity" (posted 1:33 AM)

Western Memorial Regional Hospital had to modify its surgical services for four days because of humidity.

3.  Globe and Mail (Canadian Press): "Surgery rescheduled due to high humidity" (posted early morning)

Dr. Minnie Wasmeier says the operating room schedule at Western Memorial Hospital was modified on July 11, 16, 17 and 25 because of an increased risk of infection during periods of high humidity and high temperatures.

4.  NLIS (government news service), "Progress being made on new Corner Brook hospital" (issued at 4:25 PM)

The Provincial Government is moving forward with plans to build a new hospital in Corner Brook with the announcement today that AMEC of St. John’s has been hired to undertake site investigation.

Backed by quotes from no less than four politicians:  public works minister Diane Whelan,  Premier Danny Williams (MHA for Humber West), finance minister Tom Marshall (MHA Humber East) and Terry Loder (MHA - Bay of Islands).

But... "Premier Danny Williams has not been available for interviews this week..." according to the Great Oracle of the Valley. 

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The Old Approach

Turns out the scuttlebutt on the Hebron announcement was off.

No announcement this week.

The deal is apparently done, but the formal announcement has been moved.

Best guess:  August.

After the by-elections are underway and somewhere in the middle of the CRA polling time.

Perfect time for an announcement in the old fashioned political tradition.

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Regents chair has splainin' to do; high jump in his future?

According to an education department spokesperson, board of regents chair Gil Dalton gave the short list of candidates to education minister Joan Burke.

If that's the case, then Dalton needs to quit immediately as chair of the board and chair of the selection committee. If Dalton is the leak - which apparently occurred last winter or this spring - then it goes along way to explaining Dalton's silence on the whole matter of the selection and Burke's interference.

If that isn't the case, then he needs to parse the details of the process and set the record straight.

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And then the crisis deepens...

Like no one saw this coming.

1.  Former education minister Chris Decker:

"I can only see one possible way to redeem this, is for the minister to resign or for the premier to have her ... shuffled to another portfolio. I can't use words strongly enough."

Add to that Decker's cabinet colleague Dr. Phil Warren, who is quoted by VOCM as saying he was shocked by Burke's action.  Warren noted that in his time he did not interfere in the selection of Dr. Art May.

2.  Professor Paul Wilson, university senator and a prof at Grenfell (!!!):

“She can be as defiant as she wants — as she was in the scrum — but I’m sorry the legislation is absolutely clear and there is no room for interpretation of that simple sentence in English. There’s no legalese. There are no notwithstandings.”

3.  From the Great Oracle in the Valley, otherwise known as the voice of the cabinet minister comes some predictable stuff from the other perspective:

• Finance minister and former attorney general Tom Marshall weighs in, backing his colleague in their complete misrepresentation of the law.  No quotes but those who heard it were surprised at Marshall's continued insistence that up was down.
• The Premier was unavailable - as in out of the province, presumably - but an unidentified publicist from his office said the Premier did back the minister.

4.  And in the same online story  - headline:  "Burke gets support from colleagues" - we find that opposition education critic Roland Butler doesn't like Burke's actions at all.  That's not the only thing wrong with that online story but there's only so much space, even in a Bond Papers post.

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Poll goosing, the UK version

Via Guido Fawkes, world-class politicians in a world-class country do what world-class knobs do:  they pay attention to a call-in poll.

Anglerfish, maybe?

Gary Kelly posted to a video of an unusual fish caught off Burgeo on the south coast of Newfoundland.

Maybe it's an anglerfish, a deep sea fish. 

Just a thought.

Update:  Identified.

Triplewart seadevil (Cryptopsaras couesii) - Pêcheur à trèfle, found frequently in the delta of the St. Lawrence Seaway, not far from Burgeo.

 h/t bigcitylib (see comment)

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Phoning it in

Education minister Joan Burke turned up this morning as the first caller on Open Line with Randy Simms.

She was calling from Stephenville, or "from the district" as Simms put it.

He made it sound like Burke was just back in her district for a visit.

After all, that's likely what you'd expect given that the department she runs is headquartered in St. John's. Being a minister is usually a busy life, even in the summer, what with the meetings related to cabinet and the meetings in the department and just being available to sign all those letters that have to be signed even in an age of computers and e-mail.

Thing is, Burke likely wasn't just stopping in for a visit.

And she likely isn't the only minister who tends to head back to the district during the times the House isn't in session.

Something keeps coming back to your humble e-scribbler about a comment Burke made having to do with ministerial expenses. There was a document establishing her primary residence, which, if memory serves, government officials expected would be in St. John's while she held Her Majesty's commission. The declaration was part of determining what set of expense rules from treasury board would apply.

Burke's comment stood out as she found that form a bit problematic, given her primary residence was in Stephenville. There was some mumbling criticism about the whole arrangement reflecting the "old boys club" of politics.

Now memories can be faulty, not the least of which being the one between the ears of your humble e-scribbler, so it's possible that wasn't exactly what was said.

The old boys club crack just stood out, though, because it was from straight out of left field. Why would it be surprising that an employer would expect you to live within easy commuting distance of the place where your job was located? There's something sexist in that?

Anyway, Tom Marshall is another minister not originally from the capital city who seems to spend a whack of time working from somewhere other than the Confederation Building.

Sit and think for a second and you could probably come up with a bunch of ministers who have offices and work responsibilities in the capital city but who seem to spend a huge amount of time not in the office.

Well, not in the main office. Marshall likely has a suite in the provincial government building in Corner Brook. Burke too, could likely scare up a bit of space in Stephenville.

John Hickey? Patty Pottle? Trevor Taylor? Tom Rideout when he was still a minister? Charlene Johnson? Kevin O'Brien?

These are just tossed out as possible examples because their districts are not within typical daily commuting distance of the metropolitan region.

Any of them keep two offices and work from home, home being somewhere other than within an easy commute of Sin Jawns?

This is not just a matter of some mouldy old rule after all. The cost of maintaining duplicate offices can be steep. Add to that the cost of having to grab a quickie flight at full fare from Stephenville - for argument sake - and then hopping back the same day just to do a media scrum.

Then there are the regular cabinet meetings and the committee meetings and all the rest.

Pretty soon, the cost of commuting like this would get to be a tidy sum.

Then there are the intangible costs. It would be much easier to meet and discuss some business face to face rather than do it by e-mail or over-the-phone. Ministers living in St. John's - where their main office is located - also have the chance to be more accessible to news media in a slow period during the summer. It gives all sorts of opportunities to increase the amount of information government provides to the public on its activities.

Well, that assumes government wants to give more information or that ministers are capable of doing more than parroting prepared lines, but let's just work on the assumption the current situation is an aberration in the great scheme of things.

Still it seemed a little odd that Burke was in St. John's for a 2:45 newser on Tuesday and then bright and early on Wednesday morning was safe on the west coast again.

Maybe it's just a misperception but then again, there have been too many references to some sort of dual office arrangement over the past couple of years to make it a case of being completely mistaken.

There's a subject for a little bit of investigative reporting.

In the meantime, it might be worthwhile to keep track of the number of cabinet ministers who are phoning in their media hits during times when the House is not in session.

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Memorial University crisis to deepen

A member of the university senate apparently had a chat with the Western Star and told it as it is: the board of regents appoints the president, not the minister of education or cabinet.

Once the first one speaks, more are likely to follow.

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Nothing says election like politicians and cash: the desperate leprechaun version

Oil prices may be plummeting and with them gasoline prices, but if you are an incumbent politician looking warily at the electoral weathervane, you'd be talking out loud to anyone who will listen about finding a way to gasoline and other fuel costs.

He might be running a deficit, but federal finance minister Jim Flaherty is talking about finding some way to interfere in the marketplace in a way that would likely bring more problems than it cures.

Next thing he'll be screaming for tight monetary policies and jacking up interest rates to frighten off the inflation demon.

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Memorial University autonomy crisis: choice quotes

From The Telegram coverage:

1.  Education minister Joan Burke:

"When those names and that selection process hits the cabinet table I want to ensure that we have the best possible selection, the best leadership that we can possibly find," said Burke.

Okay.

Define "best" and define it publicly and quickly.

If we all know what the cabinet thinks "best" means, then we might be able to figure out why it is that the board of regents Burke and her colleagues appointed and the people who run the university were suddenly struck incompetent.

Potential applicants would like to know what "best" means, especially since they now face a new and thus far secret process with secret selection criteria.

2.  Undergraduate student union external affairs director Cameron Campbell:

"I think the main problem here is the lack of accountability and the lack of transparency in the process, and I think that's really the issue we have to deal with," said Cameron Campbell, MUNSU executive director of external affairs.

While Campbell's comments earlier appeared to be somewhat equivocal, this line is an indictment of a government that supposedly embodies accountability and transparency.

3. The bizarre, from the cbc.ca/nl news story user comments by someone logged on as Anthony11:

I only hope that the next time the Premier is shopping at the South Carolina Home Depot that he stays there.

Huh?

This is either completely off the wall or a clue to some sort of back story that sounds interesting.

Made only more weird if someone googled "charter flights from South Carolina to St. John's" and landed at the Bond Papers post about Miss Teen South Carolina and her concern for education.  Remember Caitlin?

There's education for you and a totally freaky connection.

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CAUT: Prov Gov threatens MUN autonomy

Predictable but still, a voice worth heeding:

“This is an unprecedented and serious violation of university autonomy,” says CAUT president Penni Stewart. “Universities must be free from political interference or any outside influence.”

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