From the voice of the cabinet minister, last week, as the Memorial University crisis ramped up:
Premier Danny Williams has not been available for interviews this week, but a spokesperson says he supports Education Minister Joan Burke. [Emphasis added]
From the Telegram's Monday editorial:
CBC reported the minister [Joan Burke] had departed Thursday for an urgent attendance at an Eagles concert in Moncton, N.B. - VIP grandstand tickets $249, "plus taxes and applicable service charges." The CBC concluded a radio interview with Burke on Thursday by playing the Eagles' "Desperado," which starts with the line: "Desperado - why don't you come to your senses?" Nice edgy touch, national broadcaster. [Emphasis added]
From the Moncton Times and Transcript:
Four private jets, three for bands and one belonging to Newfoundland Premier and multimillionaire businessman Danny Williams, brought more than $100 million worth of glamour to the humble tarmac of the Greater Moncton International Airport Saturday night. [Emphasis added]
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Telegram editor Pam Frampton has been writing about the Memorial University thing for some time now.
Her column on Sunday is not for the faint of heart.
She's fried.
Pissed would be a better term.
And she's got good reason, since she's discovered that sometimes people in government like to dance on the extremely fine meaning of words. They'll answer the question you asked - literally - but not even think about giving the answer to the question they know you were really driving at.
In the media relations business that sort of thing is something you do rarely. It's the kind of stuff you save for when they ask you about invasions from Mars and you are sitting on the body of a Venusian. No sez you, no Martians. The only justifiable motive for that kind of semantic dancing, in other words, is something of supreme national importance.
Even then a simple response like "we don't discuss national security issues" is way better than what amounts to a lie by omission:
In June, long before the Globe and Mail published its speculative piece about what was going on behind the scenes of the stalled presidential search process, I asked Joan Burke straight out: "Has MUN's board of regents, acting on the recommendation of the presidential search committee, brought any names forward for cabinet's/the premier's consideration?"
Her response: "We have had no correspondence from the board of regents and the presidential committee."
Really? So how did Minister Burke know there were two shortlisted candidates winnowed out from a longer list by the search committee?
According to Burke's public relations specialist, Nora Daly, "The minister became aware of the short (list) last winter/spring through routine contact with the chair of the board of regents."
Well, golly, I'm no education minister, but to me "routine contact" certainly falls under the definition of correspondence.
The problem with this sort of too-cute-by-half stuff is that it doesn't erode credibility, it smashes it with a battle axe.
Pam Frampton just won't trust Joan Burke and her colleagues ever again on anything. Sure there have been plenty of examples of other people being jerked off over the past few years, but until it happens to you, there's always the temptation to think it isn't really as bad as others portray it.
Then it happens to you.
And you wind up being done browner than a wedgie left in the deep fryer too long.
No amount of malt vinegar and ketchup will make that taste disappear.
And it won't disappear.
Part of what the public have been seeing over the past six to eight months in Newfoundland and Labrador has been the dismantling of the very comfortable situation between the news media and the government. Some would say it's lasted too long anyway, but basically, it stayed extremely positive for government civilized as long as reporters didn't feel they were being frigged with too much.
In some respects the change in reporting mirrors the considerable volume of critical public comment coming in the online spaces. Some of it might be planted, but with the opposition parties in the state they are in, they'd be organizational miracle workers if they could sustain the variety and intensity of the stuff turning up so far in 2008. People aren't shy to voice their disquiet as they might have been before 2007. The cause is irrelevant; it's just notable that there's is such a change.
None of this means that the government will collapse tomorrow. it just means the news media and the public have changed. Government will have to shift itself and start responding differently to the new environment than they have been.
Otherwise we are witnessing that start of something which could get quite ugly. It's not like we haven't seen that happen before. Reporters who haven't been able to get the Premier on the phone even though they know he's in town might ask their gray-haired colleagues about the days when they couldn't get Peckford at all even the Premier's press secretary didn't answer his phone messages.
Much depends on the man behind the curtain and whether he really plans to pack it in next year, as he suggested in 2006. Danny Williams might just tough the whole thing out for a few months and leave everything to his cabinet to cope with, if they wanted to. That would possibly meet his needs but, frankly, the long term prospects for his party would just get dimmer with each unanswered e-mail.
All of that just remains to be seen.
All we can say today is that Pam is fried. And if Pam is fried, things are not good for government and its relations with news media.
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Politics is a strange thing.
There's a lot of individualism and ego but at the same time there's some really obvious group behaviour within the party pack.
The ambitious ones are always hungry to move up in status.
Nothing surprising in that. That's what ambitious people do.
There's nothing wrong with ambition. That's what keeps the blood pumping in a party that otherwise might be mistaken for dead.
Joan Burke for example, is one of a couple of the current crowd who fancies herself and is fancied by some as an eventual alpha to replace the alpha currently running every pack around the province.
Jerome is another one.
These ambitious betas will not challenge the alpha outright. Rather, they actually copy the alpha in many respects, especially speech patterns and attitudes.
Most obviously, they become supremely loyal: they will do and say anything the alpha demands, no matter what, since currying favour with the alpha raises their own status within the pack in the meantime.
They'll even try to anticipate the alphas demands so they can be ready to satisfy him immediately and appear therefore all that much more loyal within the pack.
No surprise then that someone familiar with Joe Smallwood would consider Burke to be aping one of the biggest political alphas in the province's history.
"The way Burke is acting is as if the 1973 amendments never took place," says [retired Memorial University head librarian Richard] Ellis. "It's a little bit ironic for a Progressive Conservative to be harkening back to Smallwoodian legislation."
Ellis had responsibility at one time for the Smallwood archives, among other things, so when it comes to the recent past, Ellis would know a thing or two.
He's off by a few decades but the idea's the same.
Danny Williams is the one channeling Joey Smallwood, either deliberately or inadvertently. And, by the transitive property, Burke is channeling Smallwood, but only doing it through Williams.
She's adds some ruffles and flourishes of her own to her public speaking - the completely flat affect in her voice, for one - but the attitude behind the words is unmistakable: this is the way things are because I said so. Period.
We likely won't be seeing any ticking right shoulders on the education minister soon and neither will she likely develop less harsh speaking voices - at least without professional coaching. But that's really just packaging.
What you can expect are more of what we've seen over the past couple of weeks. It's really the same Joan Burke we've seen in other cock-ups or controversies in her department already - like the Eastern School district alleged fraud case that cropped up while her current parliamentary assistant was running the school board -but for some reason it just stands out more in the current Memorial University crisis.
Joan Burke, the alpha wannabe will stick even harder to her guns under pressure because that's what the alpha would do (or what he wants) and in order to be loyal and eventually replace him, the covetous beta must be more alpha than alpha.
And like all ambitious politicians, Burke like knows there a pattern to how the future alphas move around government and move up within cabinet.
If memory serves, she has done or is doing her stints in financial management on treasury board. She's the government House leader which gives her more parliamentary experience - such as the House is these days - and more experience managing her colleagues in cabinet.
Running the big social departments would be crucial to her future. Having run education for the past three years, Burke is likely angling to replace Ross Wiseman in the next shuffle, whenever it comes.
And if she gets the promotion to health, as a number of future alphas and presumptive alphas did in previous administrations [think Grimes and Aylward most recently] putting Burke in charge of health care would be a sign of her heightened status within the pack.
There's no guarantee health is a stepping stone to greatness. Look at poor Tommy Osborne. From minister of the largest department in government one day where all he had to do was follow orders and not shag up, to government backbencher the next via a castrated justice department in between.
The only way Osborne could have been handed a bigger slap in the goolies was if he'd been given permits and licenses instead of justice on the way out the door.
But in the current crisis in education, Joan Burke has really done anything to diminish her status as one of the betas most loyal to the alpha.
She's done all the things she needs to do to prove her status. Burke will be rewarded, at least in the short term with an alpha who will back her to the hilt. He will go to the ends of the Earth for those who follow his orders tirelessly.
When he emerges from escorting second place essay winners around, the Premier will likely lash out at everyone and everyone. Everyone that is, except Burke, who will be commended for her hard work in the best interests of the province and the people.
Yada, yada, yada.
In the politics of the pack, loyalty counts above all else.
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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.-srbp-
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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For the past 24 hours, some people have been reporting problems when trying to access Bond Papers using Internet Explorer.
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EGH
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.
"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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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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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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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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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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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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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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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:
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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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.