Government gas price fixing explained

Well, sort of.

There's no point in having a provincial government price fixing analyst try and explain why the system of government price fixing for oil works. 

He only knows how it works.

Sort of.

Something missed in the interview with CBC this morning:  if David Hillier and his colleagues use spot pricing to set fix the price of gas in Newfoundland and Labrador, then what about companies that bought futures last at considerably less than the current spot price price?

We really didn't get that in his talk about supply and demand (an Economics 101 example with lumber).

There may be good reason for the current spike in prices.  The major problem seems to be that consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador won't get the advantage of lower prices which will comeas Gulf coast refineries come back on stream.  Won't get it like we haven't seen drops lately when 25% of refining capacity wasn't shut down but, all the same, gas prices didn't meet whatever triggers there are in arcane formula the gas price fixers use that would actually send gas prices down.

You see, market forces -  supply and demand and simple competition in the marketplace  - will move prices up and down on their own. It's Economics 101.

We don't need a bureaucratic apparatus - way too cumbersome, undoubtedly unwieldy, and completely inscrutable - to fix gas prices in the marketplace.

That's more like State Planning 101 from 1920s Russia.  We all know how effective that model of economics worked.

Well, that is if the "we" is consumers.

We consumers can get along just fine without government gas price fixing.

This government gas price fixing  scheme makes you wonder who the "we" is the this thing is set up for.

Makes you wonder about that almost more than why it is that the cabinet minister responsible for the price fixing scheme isn't on the air defending it.

Maybe we can ask the guy who introduced this price fixing scam to the province in the first place.

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Dion's in town

The first bit of his schedule is at liberal.ca.

Some announcements on fisheries and offshore revenues, according to news media.

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Full moon and a call to arms

Justice minister Jerome Kennedy took time to call the Sunday evening talk show at the voice of the cabinet minister to lambaste Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives.  He insisted, among other things, that the Family Feud was embraced by all Provincial Conservatives including him.

Fair enough.

It is a family feud, after all and Kennedy is part of one branch of the family doing the feuding.

In the course of his lengthy rant, Kennedy hit on a litany of supposed injustices done to Newfoundland and Labrador by Uncle Ottawa over the years.  Included among the old chestnuts was a reference to something that supposedly took place in 1931. 

Kennedy didn't elaborate.

The whole thing sounded like a call to the barricades.

But 1931?

How about Blaine-Bond, anyone?

If the Airing of Grievances is going back to 1931  - 18 years before Newfoundland and Labrador was a Canadian province - it's likely only a matter of time before the minister of justice finds some Great Injustice in a time before Canada even really existed.

And when was the last time d'Iberville's campaign in Newfoundland used for political purposes around these parts?

Generally, there had been little friction between French and English fishermen in the 1600s. There was growing friction, however, in that century between France and England, and the hostility between the two countries often spilled into Newfoundland. The winter campaign of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1696-1697, which resulted in the destruction of almost all of the English settlements in Newfoundland, was simply the most sensational demonstration of this fact. Eventually, because of military and strategic successes elsewhere in North America and around the world, the French agreed to recognize British sovereignty over Newfoundland.

There's an interesting connection in that story, by the way.  D'Iberville raided along the coast of Newfoundland until he reached Carbonear - in the district Kennedy represents - only to find the residents had taken refuge on a nearby island which they had fortified sufficiently to defend against D'Iberville's attacks.

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Yawn

Harper was in town on Saturday.

Just a bit of In-out, In-out.

And a candidate whose sign people can't even spell his own name.

 

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Family Feud? Try blood feud.

The local media are strangely silent the day of Stephen Harper's visit to the province. The prime minister comes to the province and not a single story graces the website of the Telly, CBC or the voice of the (provincial) cabinet minister. [Update: The Telly posted an extremely short story after 9:00 PM. VO updated at some point this evening but it isn't clear when.]

Okay, it's not like it's the first time a huge local story has been missed by the locals for one reason or another , only to be picked up by the national types and then covered locally later on.

Like this report from CTV's Bob Fife. Watch the video, even if you have to listen to Jim Morgan.

It doesn't matter if the accusations of heavy-handed tactics by the Provincial Conservatives are true or not. The point is that the charges are being made at all and made hard by the federal Conservatives on national news media.

Danny Williams already backpedaled on the ABC campaign's objectives today, likely setting up for a possible win by manning in Avalon. It's a tight race but you never know what can happen. Better to change the objectives to allow for something other than the total victory you wanted only a couple of days ago, you know, just in case.

In the meantime, the federal Conservatives have decided to play their own form of hardball. Even Stephen Harper's use of the Williams campaign slogan in 2007 is designed to get under the Premier's skin.

This is not a family feud. It's rapidly turning into a blood feud.

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What a difference it makes when you pay attention

First a link to Rex Murphy on The National in October 2007, with the references to Danny Williams being in the political sweet spot not found by a politician in Newfoundland and Labrador since Joe Smallwood. About three quarters of the way through there is a discussion of Stephen Harper. Williams seemed to have been unaware of speeches and other public comments until then; Murphy and Williams chuckle a lot. The tone is light with much emphasis on the political triumph for Williams and the economic miracle which seemed to be linked to it and him.

Murphy produced a glorious homage, right down to the line early on in which Williams attributes his popularity to his embodying the heart and soul of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Fast forward to this Saturday and a column in the Globe and Mail entitled "Danny boy has gone too far." Murphy's words are scathing:

This "standing up for Newfoundland" palaver is best administered in small doses, if at all. And it never fits the mouth of the person doing the "standing up." Furthermore, a difference of opinion, a clash of party interests, should never be categorized as a clash of patriotism. There is a jingoism of small places as well as of large. And Newfoundland is more susceptible to it than most. Newfoundlanders are ferociously fond of Newfoundland, but that very affection can play havoc with our judgment and our politics.

The final three paragraphs summarize as well as any might exactly what some in this province have been saying publicly and increasingly more are saying privately since 2004:

It's not Mr. Williams's quarrel with Stephen Harper that's at question. It's hauling into that quarrel all the rhetoric of "disloyalty" to Newfoundland, stirring the jingoistic fevers, and characterizing those on the other side as unworthy. Newfoundlanders have been lucky in past decades that, when we had strong premiers, we had strong ministers in Ottawa.

Danny Williams has reached such supremacy, however, that he has effectively become the only voice in Newfoundland politics. Mr. Hearn is gone. John Crosbie is in honorific heaven. And now there's only Danny. That's bad for us. It's bad for him, too, should he care to think about it.

He should look over history's shoulder and take in what happened to Joey Smallwood, a great premier who subtracted from his own legacy by succumbing to the vanity of power, the great corrosive self-flattery of believing that being in charge is the same thing as always being right.

Murphy is indeed right, but then again, regular readers will have heard similar arguments even if they were less elegantly expressed. Unfortunately, now that the cult of personality has met political hegemony, Murphy can only stand by for inevitable round of insults and accusations which have met everyone else who has dared to challenge the new orthodoxy.

It is perhaps just good enough that Murphy finally took a hard look at his home province. It is amazing what a difference it makes when one merely pays attention.

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The best versus the rest

Nik Nanos has shown through several elections that his public opinion research is second to none for accuracy. Nik is back doing analysis for CPAC, the cable parliamentary channel for this federal election.

Odd then that people seem to have ignored it thus far in favour of all the usual suspects.

You can find the results of his latest research at nikonthenumbers.com or nanosresearch.com.

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ABC release shows government officials lack google skills?

What was it that St. John's East New Democratic candidate Jack Harris said when the provincial industry department - then headed by Kathy Dunderdale - missed some problems with one of the companies it was dealing with, problems that were easily found by an Internet search?

Oh yeah, he said google was "due diligence for dummies."

Ouch.

Well, that inability to do a simple Internet search  might explain why the provincial government's intergovernmental affairs minister  - Tom Hedderson - issued a length news release Friday to attack the federal government for plans to move the elite anti-terrorist team JTF 2 to Trenton, Ontario not Goose Bay as the provincial government was suggesting recently.

The JTF 2-to-Goose Bay idea cropped up in the latest round of begging letters to Ottawa from the provincial government, to borrow yet another Jack Harris phrase.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is shocked that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has willfully disregarded another opportunity to strengthen defence presence at 5 Wing Goose Bay. The reaction came in light of the recent announcement of $500 million in funding to support the relocation of Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2) from Ottawa to Trenton, Ontario. This announcement was released without fanfare just two days before the call of a federal election.

Odd.

The provincial government is shocked?

It's not like it's been a big secret.

But it certainly is shocking to see a provincial cabinet minister admitting publicly he sent letters to the federal defence minister as recently as June 2008  proposing JTF 2 be based in Goose Bay apparently not knowing the decision on JTF 2's future home had already been made 18 months beforehand.

That makes Hedderson look stunned or even incompetent. 

The federal government decided to relocate JTF 2 from its current base at Dwyer Hill, just outside Ottawa, to a new addition to the base at Trenton Ontario back in late 2006.  The story broke in the Ottawa Citizen  - dated January 2007 - in a story by widely respected defence correspondent David Pugliese.

Plans for the expansion were also reported by Pugliese in January 2008:

Defence Construction Canada, a Crown corporation that handles the Defence Department's building needs, is asking for "expressions of interest" from contractors and consultants for the development of what it calls a multi-functional training and administrative campus.

The new facility is to be in "Eastern Ontario," with the specific location considered secret at this point, according to the information provided so far to construction and engineering contractors. But Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier has recommended to cabinet that JTF2's new base be located at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

Public Works and Government Services Canada has already purchased three properties adjacent to CFB Trenton for the Defence Department.

The operational reasoning behind the move is something Pugliese also covered.  it's worth noting because the provincial government's whole pitch on Goose Bay has been about pork and entitlement rather than demonstrating how Goose Bay fits into the military's operational requirements.

Positioning JTF2 at CFB Trenton, one of the country's main military airbases, allows the unit immediate access to aircraft for domestic and overseas missions. It is also an ideal location because another unit in the special operations command, the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit, which deals with nuclear, biological and chemical incidents, is already located there. JTF2 works closely with that unit on counter-terrorism exercises.

And if by some chance the provincial government officials responsible for monitoring this stuff missed it, plans for development at Trenton already made the news in March 2008 when plans for some of the buildings were found in a trash can outside a downtown Ottawa office building.

Of course, even if the local officials are a bit overtaxed, it's not like we don't have Our Man in a Blue Line Cab who is supposed to be watching these files from an office not far from Parliament Hill.

Some things - like say keeping on top of important files - are not as easy as ABC.

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Williams shifts ABC position in wake of polls

From the outset, Danny Williams has claimed the main goal of his ABC campaign was to deliver a big goose egg - no Conservative seats in Newfoundland and Labrador - to Stephen Harper's Conservative Party.

With publicly available polls showing real cracks in the ABC grip on the public imagination, Williams is now completely changing his views. Williams likely has polls of his own but he won't release those.

"The primary goal is not to deliver the goose egg.  I'd like Newfoundlanders to deliver the goose egg but if they don't, they don't.  That's certainly a goal.  The primary goal is to prevent him from winning a government, certainly a majority government." [Emphasis added; quoted in a Telegram front page story by Peter Walsh. Update:  The full story isn't online.  The link is to an abbreviated version carried by the Telly's sister daily in Corner Brook.]

Gee, it's not like we haven't seen that sort of shifting of position before in the face of bad polls.

Here's an idea, let's take down the flags.

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Related:

Harper-Williams family feud affecting how feds deal with NL: poll

Another poll shows the NL starting numbers

Anything But Clear: poll

The first poll: some thoughts

Layton/Harris/Cleary promise to boost federal taxes on provincial OilCo

Newfoundland and Labrador's new oil company - doing work offshore as partner on the multi-billion dollar Hebron and White Rose projects - will be paying more corporate taxes to the federal government under a New Democrat federal government.

According to the Telegram, Layton hit one of those points during a campaign stop in St. John's on Friday:

Layton said one promise he is making is a rollback on corporate tax cuts to banks and oil companies, which he says both the Conservatives and Liberals have supported.

Layton used the example of Exxon, but evidently he didn't realise the provincial government under Premier Danny Williams is now one of the oil companies he plans to tax more heavily.

In a separate campaign appearance, Layton pledged to "honour the Atlantic Accord", apparently in reference to the 2005 federal transfer side deal between the federal and provincial governments. 

But his blanket pledge also included the real Accord, the 1985 deal signed by Brian Mulroney and Brian Peckford that establishes joint management of the offshore between St. John's and Ottawa and which sees the provincial government collect 100% of royalties from the offshore as if the resources were on land.

Under clause 41 of the 1985 Atlantic Accord, provincial or federal Crown corporations are taxed like all other companies:

Crown corporations and agencies involved in oil and gas resource activities in the offshore area
shall be subject to all taxes, royalties and levies.

OilCo, the oil subsidiary of the province's still unnamed energy corporation, is incorporated like all other corporations in the private sector, even though its shares are owned 100% by the Crown.  The company also isn't a Crown agent.

While in St. John's, Layton also pledged to transfer federally-owned shares in the Hibernia project to Newfoundland and Labrador "over a period of time" [Telegram story on Layton at Memorial University, not online.  CP story here.]

Those shares, representing 8.5% of the project, would also be handled by the province's energy corporation.  They would also be subject to the NDP's increased taxation.

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Layton shafts Williams on key ABC demand

Jack Layton's promise to "honour the Atlantic Accord" doesn't meet one of Danny Williams key ABC demands and would deliver nothing in new federal transfers to Newfoundland and Labrador under the 2005 Williams deal with Paul Martin.

Williams is seeking to have the province's revenues from offshore oil and onshore minerals  - likely $2.0 billion this year - left out of the formula used to calculate Equalization transfers from Ottawa to the provinces.

Canadian Press gets it wrong:

Premier Danny Williams estimated the difference between the accord and the Tories' revised equalization plan was $10 billion - a sum he recently demanded Ottawa pay over 15 years.

The $10 billion number comes from the pledge made by both Stephen Harper in 2006 to drop non-renewables from Equalization. The estimated value to the province came from projections by a Memorial University economist. The actual value of the Harper 2006 promise Williams is looking for now would be considerably more given the current high prices for oil and minerals.

Harper didn't deliver in 2006.  His government instead went with a revised Equalization formula based on recommendations from an expert panel. It's that failure that ignited Williams' anger at Harper.

In 2006, Layton promised only to deliver an Equalization formula with "A better measure of fiscal capacity."

Evidence of Layton's confusion between Williams' demand and the 2005 deal is in the estimated value of the new Layton "commitment, said by Canadian Press to be worth $400 million according to NDP researchers.

Under the 2005 deal Layton referred to on Friday, the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial government will receive extra federal transfers to offset declines in Equalization coming as a result of growing oil money.  But the extra cash comes only as long as the province qualifies to receive Equalization in the first place.

The provincial government won't qualify for the federal transfer this year, hence it won't be entitled to cash under the 2005 deal. 

Layton's commitment won't actually involve any new cash transfers either.

As part of the 2005 deal, Newfoundland and Labrador received an advance payment - essentially a credit against future earnings under the deal. That money won't be completely exhausted this year by the time the province goes off Equalization.  The credit in the account is considerably more than $400 million.

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Another poll shows the NL starting numbers

Corporate Research Associates released results today of questions posed to a sample of voters in Newfoundland and Labrador in August and the results confirm, in some respects, the picture of the electorate drawn by the recent NTV/Telelink survey.

When asked to indicate which party they would vote for in a federal election, 43% of decided respondents said Liberal, 35% said Conservative, 20% said NDP and one percent indicated they would vote for the Green Party.

Thirty-nine (39) percent were undecided, would not vote or refused to answer. The survey of 402 residents of Newfoundland and Labrador was conducted between August 12 and August 28, 2008.  It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The table shows how the numbers line up with the results of the 2006 general election and the NTV poll. The table should not be read as reflecting a trend.  The Telelink and CRA surveys are sufficiently close together in time so that the results confirm each other. 

	2006 GE	CRA Aug 08	NTV Sept 08
Conservative	42.7	35	31.8
Liberal	42.8	43	42.4
New Democratic Party	13.6	20	19.6
Green	?	1	?
UND/Ref/DK	-	39	55
MoE (95%CL)		+/- 4.9%	+/- 3.3%

 

As indicated in an earlier post, based on the polling data and an analysis of historic voting trends, this breakout would suggest that the four ridings that went Liberal in the last election would remain Liberal but with high margins of victory.  The three ridings held previously by the Conservatives would be potentially tight races.

At least one media report in Newfoundland and Labrador noted that two thirds of decided respondents would not be voting Conservative.  This is not unusual in federal politics in Newfoundland and Labrador, where a majority typically vote for a party other than Conservative. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians typically vote anything but Conservative.

One interesting result from the NTV survey - not covered by the CRA poll - is the feeling by almost two thirds of respondents that the ABC campaign is harming federal-provincial relations.

This is hardly surprising given that the provincial government has been repeatedly claiming that the province is being punished for the Family Feud between the federal and Provincial Conservatives.

As well, there has long been a perception in local politics that districts should side with the perceived winner in an election or risk not receiving road paving, school and hospital construction or other public spending.  The power of pork in traditional politics both federally and provincially remains strong.  A party would not have to threaten this in order for the perception to exist and for it to influence voting behaviour.

As well, while it may not be documented, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that some voters approach voting choice as a lottery in which one must be on the winning side or risk "losing" ones vote.

All of that can have an impact on voting results, especially if the races on the Avalon peninsula indeed are tight. Voters may switch between now and polling day based on perceptions of the national campaign.

Not surprisingly, at least one federal Conservative candidate - Craig Westcott  - has used the argument in several media interviews that the province needs to have an elected representative in the federal cabinet.  Both Westcott and Avalon incumbent Fabian manning have also referred to the need to get past the current wrangling  between the provincial and federal governments in the best interests of the province.  This was not implicitly threatening but reflected - at least by the words and tone - an effort to point at the political benefit of supporting the party which currently leading in the polls and which many observers believe will form another minority government.

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Another bad day on the campaign trail

Federal leader New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton and former provincial party leader Jack Harris have trouble blithely dismissing Ryan Cleary's opinion about New Democrats or about the need to maybe remove Newfoundland and Labrador from "Confederation's death grip". [h/t to nottawa]

Scroll down in the nottawa link and you find another bit of the story as it unfolded, when Cleary scrummed:

the principles of the ND party, NDP, NDP best reflect who I am and what I stand for. I believe that Jack Layton is the best leader in this country to bring us all together. To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation.

To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation?

Evidently, Cleary missed at least one little piece of history.

 

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Harper-Williams family feud affecting how feds deal with NL: poll

Almost two thirds  - 63.6% - of respondents to an NTV/Telelink poll believe that the Family Feud is "having a negative impact on how Ottawa deals with Newfoundland and Labrador." 

29.5% said it wasn't and only 6.9% were unsure.

When asked if the Premier should take his Feud on the road across Canada, things weren't quite as clear. 41.2% felt he should while 39.1% said he shouldn't.  19.7% were not sure.

The telephone survey of 919 voting age Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who were aware of the provincial government's ABC campaign was conducted between September 6 and Septemeber 9.

Most likely, this is the poll picked up by the federal Conservatives and reported by Geoff Meeker.

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Strange bedfellows 2: Paul Oram's fickle affections

How quickly doth love turn to hate in the land of politics.

Remember this from Day 9 of the Summer of Love 2007?

Even the Premier's parliamentary assistant will be able to get in on the electioneering. The last SOL release for Thursday was an announcement of a photo op involving federal fish minister Loyola Hearn and the Premier's Open Line crackie, Paul Oram.

Oram and Hearn can be photographed at a municipal water and sewer project in Oram's district, on Friday at 1:30 PM.

In an election campaign, even the crap is apparently so potentially vote-worthy that a cabinet minister and a wannabe cabinet minister will pose for happy snaps with it.

Now sure, as the Telegram recently pointed out, these cost-shared programs have a promotional clause that requires a news release at least.  That was the official response when a government rep was asked this year about the joint funding announcement issued last week.

But last year - before the provincial general election - it apparently required a photo op and smiles with the minister with whom the provincial government was supposedly locked in a blood feud.

How times change. 

Campaign photo ops one day.  Daggers on the open line shows the next.

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A simple question with no good answer

In the week ending September 9,  the average price of gasoline across Canada dropped by 1.9 cents per litre.

Read that again.

Gasoline prices dropped last week, on average by almost two whole cents.  That was regular.  Mid-grade and premium dropped by even more.

In some parts of the country, the drop on a litre of regular gasoline was as much as a nickel.

So how come it is that in Newfoundland and Labrador - like the other provinces using the bankrupt system of government price fixing - gasoline went up by a cent and a half this week?

Anyone?

Even George Murphy, who justifiably earned the respect of consumers for tracking gasoline retail prices with his superb price forecasts, can only offer answers to CBC News that make no sense.

If the loonie and the potential interruptions in supply from refinery shutdowns were the factors, then how come there were parts of the country which saw such dramatic decreases in gasoline prices last week?

Market forces, is the answer to that one.  The free market system working as it worked for everyone before government price fixing was introduced in 2001. 

Last week, markets without government price fixing typically saw a drop in the price consumers pay for gasoline.

In the places unfortunate enough to have a price fixed by government, gasoline went up.

It makes no sense.

Well, not unless you are an oil and gas company.

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Results of Labrador parcel sale: offshore board

The following was released today by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

C-NLOPB Releases Results of 2007 Land Sale for Labrador Offshore Region (Call for Bids NL07-2)

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board today announced the results of the 2007 Call for Bids NL07-2 (Labrador Offshore Region) for exploration rights in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area. Bidding closed at 4:00 pm on September 10, 2008 and bids were received on 4 parcels totaling $186,430,680.

The Bids represent the expenditures which the bidders commit to make in exploring the parcels during the initial 6-year period of a 9-year term exploration licence. If companies discover significant quantities of petroleum resources as a result of the exploration work, they may then seek a Significant Discovery Licence from the C-NLOPB. Any Significant Discovery Licences issued in respect of lands resulting from these exploration licences will be subject to rentals which will escalate over time.

The following bids have been accepted:

Parcel 1

Husky Oil Operations Limited (100%)   $10,162,800

Parcel 2

Vulcan Minerals Inc. (50%) and Investcan Energy Corporation (50%)  $9,601,000

Parcel 3

Husky Oil Operations Limited (75%) and Suncor Energy Inc. (25%)  $120,166,880

Parcel 4

Chevron Canada Limited (100%)  $46,500,000

Total  $186,430,680

Subject to Ministerial approval and the bidders satisfying the requirements specified in the Call for Bids, the Board will issue an Exploration Licence for each of the four parcels in November 2008. The Licences will be for a term of nine years, with an initial period of six years.

Bond Papers Note:  The CNLOPB release (available at the link above) included a map of the parcels.  Parcel 3 surrounds two existing significant discoveries (natural gas).

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The first poll: some thoughts

Courtesy of a loyal Bond Papers reader comes this translation of the NTV poll results, compared to the 2006 general election. 

 

	2006	Sept 08
Liberal	42.8	42.4
Conservative	42.7	31.8
NDP	13.6	19.6

 

Based on very preliminary analysis of this poll result coupled with a study of long term voting trends, these numbers suggest that the four Liberal seats from 2006 would see an increase the margin for the Liberal candidate compared to the 2006 results.

The three seats currently held by the Conservatives would appear tight.  Given that two of the incumbents are not running, the Conservative position gets tougher.  By the same token, this statistical analysis obviously doesn't factor the actual candidate mix into the results.  Who the candidate is compared to the others does matter.

The main impact of the Family Feud appears to have been a softening of the Conservative vote.  The extent of that softening isn't completely clear.  The Feud can deliver cabinet ministers and hard core party workers in some cases but it won't clinch it for the party that seems to be favoured by the Feud supporters.

In Avalon, it is currently shaping up to be a two-way fight between the Conservative Fabian Manning and Liberal Scott Andrews.  Dropping a new prison in Harbour Grace, as Stephen Harper is expected to do this weekend, would be a significant boost for Manning.

In the St. John's seats, the race would be tight, based solely on the numbers.  Factor in Jack Harris in St. John's East, take out the advantage for the Conservatives from incumbency and the softening of the Conservatives because of the Family Feud and Harris would look to have an upswing.

The challenge for Liberal Walter Noel would be to make himself relevant, compared to the current public perception of Harris as the sole beneficiary of the Family Feud.

Likewise, in St. John's South Mount Pearl,  the political challenge for the Liberals and New Democrats will be to take maximum advantage of the softening of the Conservative vote and to turn the election into a two-way fight.  Siobhan Coady is widely perceived as the front runner.  Expect the New Democrats to start turning their guns on her directly in an effort to make it a two-way racket.  That can work to Coady's advantage if she can actually capitalize on it.

Campaigns are not foregone conclusions.  Polling numbers and past voting patterns are only indicators. They are clues. There is nothing deterministic about them.  Much depends, as in every election, about how the candidates and the campaigns perform on the ground.

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The politics of strange bedfellows

Bob Ridgley is the Provincial Conservative member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North and part of a family clan that dominates a significant chunk of Conservative vote in the metro St. John's area.

Since his provincial district sits almost entirely within the federal riding of St. John's East where more and more incumbent MHAs (all Provincial Conservatives by the way) seem to be turning out in support of the New Democrat's Jack Harris, it's a fair bet that Bob will be voting Orange in October.

That's hardly surprising given that the Liberal  - Walter Noel - is a former provincial cabinet minister and the Conservative candidate is a guy who has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Premier Danny Williams.  Former journalist Craig Westcott did a game job today of defending Stephen Harper following a speech by the Premier at the Board of Trade,  but it's got to be getting harder and harder for Westcott to keep up a defense of the clearly indefensible.  He said the words but they lacked conviction. It's too bad to see a decent guy like Westcott - the contrarian's contrarian - do this kind of damage to himself.

But that's digression.

CBC News this evening included an interview with some local politicians on the federal campaign.  Energy minister Kathy Dunderdale  - a provincial Conservative - proudly announced she'd be working for the Dipper's Harris.  Not surprising given that she punted Noel to the curb in 2003.

But what of the others, like Ridgley?

While he didn't say so in a Telegram interview on Tuesday, Ridgley made clear a couple of other things. 

First of all, it's pretty obvious he is a Conservative - Provincial and usually federal - right down to being a voter in the merger election that saw Stephen Harper elected. 

Yep.  It is a Family Feud at heart and no one should be naive enough to believe that in a few years time this whole thing won't have snapped back to the usual friendships, relationships and voting patterns.

But here's an even more interesting  turn of phrase in Ridgley's e-mail response to the Telegram reporter:

When Stephen Harper was running to be the leader of the 'new' Conservative Party, I supported Belinda Stronach;  I thought she was as shallow as a saucer but I believed that she was the only one who had a chance of stopping Harper...

Ridgley keeps going, saying next that he was persuaded Harper was alright a little later on.  Ridgley's conversion to the Harper cause survived two federal elections.  Ridgley evidently kept pounding doors or whatever a key local Tory organizer does to get Stephen Harper elected despite the concerns raised about Harper, the evident problems Ridgley had at the time Harper became leader and well, just about anything else that might have given him pause.

Okay?

Well, not really.

You have a guy here who was prepared to get into political bed with someone he believed wasn't qualified for the job  - lacking in intellect is the polite version of what he said - because he believed that candidate was the only way to stop someone else from winning about whom he claims he had serious misgivings at the time.

How serious?  Well serious enough to vote for someone who to him seemed too shallow to be a national party leader.

What's the word for that sort of logic? 

Facile.

Well, yeah. 

But there's a better one.

Shallow? 

Yeah, shallow.

When that first shallow bit of logic didn't work out, Ridgley changed his mind and got into bed with Stephen Harper.

If that's not enough to make you a little uneasy, there's maybe the whole reference to Stronach as being "shallow as a saucer". 

That's gratuitous. 

It's a cheap shot.

It's a pretty low personal attack, along the lines of calling someone a quisling or a traitor or showing a puffin crapping on the leader of a rival party.

If nothing else, it was totally unnecessary in the context of the e-mail on any level and that too says as much about Ridgley's judgment as the other stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Nancy Riche, among others, reacts to having Ridgley knocking doors on behalf of Jack Harris. Does Bob share Jack's views on choice and equal marriage for example?  There's a set of questions to pose to the Blue Crew who are turning Orange suddenly.

Ridgley's backing the ABC thingy  for a very specific reason and when the reason goes away he and the rest of his "progressive" Conservatives will head back home, just as he was prepared to switch from Belinda to Steve when it suited.

Politics can make for some truly strange bedfellows.

-srbp-

Anything But Clear: poll

If the latest poll by NTV News is any indication, the Premier has a gigantic job of work ahead of him just in his own province to make the Family Feud relevant to the federal election let alone taking the thing across the country.

Of the 1200 likely voters polled, 27% hadn't heard of the Premier's Anything But Conservative campaign.  That's two years after he started it and despite more than a few references to it on the news.

The poll, conducted by Telelink for NTV, then asked the voters who were aware of ABC - that's 919 respondents for those keeping track - if they though it was appropriate for the Premier to be engaged in it in the first place.

45.6% said yes, 34.5% said no, 19.9% were unsure. The margin of error is +/-3.3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Whip out those calculators, ladies and gentlemen, and do some math.  Sensitive people may avert their eyes at this point.

That's 45.6% of the 73% who indicated they'd heard of the Premier's campaign.

A couple of clicks on the old calculator later and you see that works out to only 33% of all respondents.  One third of the public think it's appropriate. 

That's all.

But it gets worse, at least for the ABCers:

Telelink had more difficulty than usual getting people to answer the survey, and those who did -- 55% -- were undecided. Meanwhile, 19.1% said they would vote Liberal, 14.3% said they would vote Conservative and 8.8% said they would vote NDP.

Now it's almost impossible to understand if that means 55% of 1200, 55% of 919 or 55% of some other small number who answered the question but any way you put that together, it should make some people in the province very nervous about the outcome of the election in some of the seats.

Like say the three on the Avalon peninsula that are really the only ones up for grabs.

And through this you have to bear in mind that Telelink's survey during the last provincial election was eerily accurate.  We're talking off by a few percentage points as opposed to the widely quoted CRA poll which was off by a country mile and then some.

People aren't indicating their unquestioning and everlasting support for the crusade.  Who would ever have believed such a thing possible, take one step forward.  Certainly not your humble e-scribbler who has contended that at the very least survey respondents in these parts are adept at concealing their real intentions. 

Sometimes.

Other times, they describe themselves as undecided when they are thinking of doing something that goes against the perceived popular or dominant opinion.  It used to be - not so very long ago - that people in the undecided column were usually those ticked at government about something but either parking there until the matter resolved or leaning toward the opposition party but not sure if it was safe to say it openly.  About 15 to 20% can be genuinely undecided or won't vote.

In this case, a significant chunk of the 55% who were undecided could very well be potential Conservative voters or more likely are Conservatives who have made up their minds but just don't want to say. There may also be a bunch of undecided Liberals who are unsure of the vote or who might be looking at another option.  Heck, with numbers like that, pretty well all three major parties have some softness in their support.

The parties have a job of work to do. In many instances, that job won't be made easier by mixing around party allegiances among workers or by having candidates from one of the provincial parties cuddling up to people they usually don't agree with let alone work beside on a campaign. 

If Telelink and NTV released the full data set, someone could crunch some numbers and give you a much more accurate view of the poll and the electorate than the online story does.  Even as it is, though, this first poll of the campaign should really shake up the popular perception of what has already turned out to be a campaign of surprises.

-srbp-