Expect more of this

The political fallout of losing Abitibi’s Stephenville mill was soaked up by the giant Alberta job sponge.

Well, that sponge is now being wrung out by the global economic downturn and the workers are heading back home.  They’re heading back home to places like Labrador West where slowdowns and project suspensions are the new norm.

People in Grand Falls might be cheering at the thought they somehow managed to wreak vengeance on Abitibi.

But what are they going to go for a job come March?

It won’t be Fort Mac.

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Expropriation impact

At left, a graph of AbitibiBowater share prices over the past five days on the New York Stock Exchange.

Note the peak on Wednesday followed by the precipitous drop.  That drop coincides with news spreading that the provincial government expropriated the companies Newfoundland and Labrador assets.

The chart at right is the Canadian trading record.

Coincidence?

Draw your own conclusions.

Around these parts it would be called the toque effect.  Tom Rideout may be gone from cabinet but his spirit still lives around the cabinet table.

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Haste lays waste

When it comes to things not local, the current provincial administration has two basic modes:  pick a fight with it or, if it is the federal government, go ask it for cash.

With a hat tip to Andrew Coyne, it would seem that this week’s expropriation bill came just a bit too hastily.

You see, AbitibiBowater would qualify for the new federal stimulus package. All they needed to do was fill out the application form.

Alas, as a result of the legislative exploits on Tuesday, the only things receiving stimuli over the next several months will be the bank accounts of very expensive lawyers.

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Crude breaks 40 – on the way down

West Texas Intermediate for January settled at US$36.22 in trading in New York despite a cut in production announced by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 

Brent crude, the benchmark used for Newfoundland and Labrador crude, finished the day at US$43.60. Longer term futures  - out to 2015 - showed varying declines, even though the current trading price ranges considerably higher than that for front month crude. [Long term charts:  WTI and Brent]

On the New York exchange, January crude finishes tomorrow.  February was more active, settling at less than US$44.

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One down…

One to go?

So if expropriating assets - “repatriating them” in WilliamsSpeak – worked in the AbitibiBowater case, what are the odds the provincial government might try to re-mount the water rights reversion fix for the Churchill Falls contract?

He did promise to seek “redress” and “repatriating” those assets would really make his place in the history books.

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Déjà vue all over again

Just when everything was settling down, the brute force expropriation of AbitibiBowater assets has stirred everything up again.

Lord Haw Haw of Brownenvelope is back on the airwaves praising his former employer to the hilt and taking issue with anyone who suggests that maybe the Premier might be acting a little rashly.  Then at the end of the two hours of blindly praising his former employer, Lord Haw Haw proclaims that people shouldn't blindly praise leaders.

The man lampoons himself every day and seems blissfully unaware.

The airwaves of Lord Haw Haw's afternoon laugh-fest and the morning talk show were crammed with every manner of worshipper praising the expropriation.  Then again, most of those were just the usual suspects spouting the usual pap.

Meanwhile, outside Newfoundland and Labrador, people wonder what the heck is going down in Hooterville.

Again.

Well, here are a couple of points to ponder:

1.  No one should doubt what would have happened in 2006 if the provincial government had the legal power to expropriate offshore licenses.  That's the time the Premier fumed about expropriation.  Too many people laughed the whole episode off as a big bluff.

2.  Since the provincial government can't expropriate the offshore, the oil industry is resting easy. Hibernia, White Rose and Terra Nova are salted away.  The companies wrestled huge concessions from the government on Hebron.  There's nothing for them to worry about.

3. Other companies on the other hand are probably not sitting quite so pretty.  Kruger, Vale Inco, Wabush mines, IOCC.  They all are likely checking their legal agreements with the provincial government. Some of them might even start discussions to secure whatever guarantees they can against precipitous actions by the provincial Crown. If the provincial government is prepared to use the extreme solution up front to strip the carcass of a dead project, no one would blame those companies for wondering what might happen to a troubled one.

4.  IOCC and Wabush Mines might want to take another look at their power contract and the whole Twin Falls Company.  The last time this issued was raised - in 2006 -  the Premier raised the completely false idea of sweetheart power deals and resource giveaways to bludgeon to death any suggestion the companies could avoid paying commercial rates the next time the deal came up for renewal.

Here's an extract from the post on that issue back in early 2007:

In early October, the feisty Premier warned Iron Ore Company of Canada - owners of the other mine in Labrador West - that they could expect to pay commercial rates for electricity once the current agreement ended. Williams likened the IOC/Wabush Mines power purchase deal to the Hydro Quebec giveaway on the Upper Churchill presumably knowing full-well that his comparison and the truth were two completely different things.

Presumably the same thing applied to Wabush Mines. You can imagine the talk: Forget the low cost power, boys, sez Danny. No more give aways. Maximum benefits to the province or take a hike.

And since Williams had flatly rejected a power deal in public, there was no way he would back down.

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The forest for the junk

There's something about woods work in central Newfoundland that brings a tendency in some to take junks of wood to the sides of heads.

We don't mean here the tragic case of Bill Moss, the Newfoundland Constabulary constable killed during the woodworkers strike that started 50 years ago this month.

We are speaking here of the junks of legal wood then Premier Joe Smallwood took to the heads of the woodworkers themselves to settle that strike.  Smallwood used the brute force of the legislature to legislate their union out of existence and impose on them a government-controlled crowd.

A half century later, the pretender to Smallwood's demagogue populist Crown used the brute force of the legislature to cancel rights and seize assets.

Then, as now, the wider issue was lost amid the noise of the moment.

In the current day, the noise is exemplified by two statements.

First, in Wednesday's Telegram, a letter writer lays out the case for the government to take action to ensure that - as many other voices have cried these past couple of weeks - AbitibiBowater cannot walk away and "take our resources" with them. 

The company would be able to generate power from its hydroelectric assets and make money from it, according to Sean Dyke.  He's right on that but the power wasn't about to leave the island any time soon. 

The company might take the wood it held in Newfoundland and ship it somewhere else to be made into paper or toothpicks, Dyke warns. 

Nothing could be further from the truth, to quote a well known public figure.

AbitibiBowater was planning to shut down everything, including its port and harvesting operations. The cost of exporting the timber to another mill would be prohibitive.  If no company in Newfoundland could do it profitably by bringing logs from nearby Labrador, there is little chance it could be done profitably by shipping central Newfoundland trees to England or the United States or China.

No assets were leaving the province, unlike in Stephenville where the provincial government allowed the company to remove its 30 year old Valmet machine from Stephenville and ship it off to Heaven knows where;  ship it out of the province instead of moving it to Grand Falls-Windsor where it was originally supposed to go to replace one of the ancient and slow machines that are still running out there in the papermaking museum on the Exploits.

Second, there's the claim by Premier Danny Williams that there is little likelihood of court action by the companies involved.  According to the Premier, the only issue is compensation since, the brute force of the legislature transfers the assets to the Crown and that's all there is to it.

If it is possible for something to be even further from the truth than anything else, then that contention by the Premier would be it.

The expropriation legislation is unprecedented, in the Premier's own words.  It is unprecedented in a situation where the company was party to legal agreements with the provincial government, where there were no allegations of bad faith or of failing to meet its legal obligations.

The Premier tried a supposedly failed moral obligation but even that one can't stand up to reasonable scrutiny.  Over a century of successful operation is hardly a failed obligation.  It's also hard to accuse the company of perfidy when it tried diligently over the better part of a decade to revamp the mill only to find that no deal could be done with its unions, not once but twice in the space of a year.  in tough economic times, hard decisions get made.  Forces beyond the company's control - those words will ring true for the Premier come budget time - make necessary a tough business decision.

So where exactly is the basis for seizing assets?

There isn't one, at least not one that stands up to the barest of scrutiny.  Sure, the usual suspects are crowding open line shows to praise their hero but it is hard to imagine that even the Premier's frail mother could show such unflinching devotion to her son as some of these characters do. They love him anyway.

And if there was a way for the Premier to smack AbitibiBowater in the side of the head with another junk, that crowd would gnaw down the trees with their own teeth to keep him supplied with weapons.

AbitibBowater clearly had no interest in the timber any more.  It held land and mineral rights but odds are the company was looking to get rid of those licenses and lands anyway.

No.

The only asset of any obvious and enduring value were the penstocks used to create electricity. Smacking the company in the head with a legal junk was, evidently, the easiest way to get that.

Far from being a case of merely settling compensation, though, AbitibiBowater can argue that it had an interest in continuing to operate those assets. It had every legal right to do so.  They can argue that there was no legitimate reason to seize those assets by brute force.

Nowhere is that more plain than at Star Lake.  While the rest of the company's generating capacity primarily supported the mill, Star Lake was a separate project.  Abitibi and a private sector consortium developed the 18 megawatt site in response to a call for proposals from Hydro a decade ago. The goal was to replace some of Holyrood's environmentally dirty production with cleaner hydro. Why did government seize that asset?

Maybe it won't wind up being a legal argument.  Maybe the Crown can get away with taking an axe to contracts.  Maybe the brute force of legislation, without due cause, due consideration and due process is enough.

It should certainly be a political argument, even if the rump opposition in the legislature can't seem to grasp the wider implications of what they supported yesterday.

It's certainly a policy argument worth considering when the province depends - as surely as it did in 1905 - on attracting foreign capital to develop local natural resources.  It's certainly an argument worth considering given that in 2006, this same administration argued for the power to expropriate oil and gas licenses merely because the companies involved and the government couldn't reach a development deal.

Sometimes, it seems, it is hard to focus on the forest of problems with the AbitibiBowater expropriation.

It's masked by the the thud from the junks of wood being laid up side heads.   

 

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Whistling past the graveyard: forestry version

Union and town politicians in Grand Falls-Windsor appear to be under the ludicrously mistaken impression that Tuesday's expropriation by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador of AbitibiBowater's land, timber, mineral and water rights in central Newfoundland might lead to the contributed operations of the town's major private sector employer.

There was no indication that yesterday's legislation would prevent those losses [of hundreds of jobs when the mill closes in early 2009]. But Gary Healey, a Communications, Energy & Paperworkers representative at the mill, called it “an early Christmas gift.”

“If Abitibi's not interested in staying in the province, at least we have something to offer,” he said. “But losing the big employer in central Newfoundland is not what we want. I'm sure if Abitibi wanted to reconsider their plans, they'd be listened to.”

Grand Falls-Windsor Mayor Rex Barnes had a similar reaction.

“We would hope that Abitibi would reflect on what's just happened and come to a resolution with the unions to work this out,” he said.

Reconsidering the planned is not likely in AbitibiBowater's list of options.  The company is facing stiff competition in an industry that is under increasing pressure.  Two weeks ago the company announced plans to slash over 800,000 tons of production.  A major client, the Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy protection and, overseas, the company is facing intense price competition from smaller rivals.

AbitibiBowater discussed possible bankruptcy protection for the company earlier this year during efforts to restructure its finances. That point seems to have been missed by provincial government and union officials during talks aimed at keeping the Grand Falls-Windsor mill operating.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa Tuesday a paper industry lobby group issued a list of five proposals for action by the federal and provincial governments, the group would help save the ailing forest industry across Canada.

He said the restrictions have left the industry weaker, with many small failing mills, at a time when bigger companies are needed to compete effectively in tight world markets.

Provinces have put restrictions on consolidation to keep mill towns open, but Lazar said most of the jobs in the future will come from large operations that are able to win markets in Asia and other emerging economies.

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Related: 

• "Abitibi: forest and trees" (2005)
• "Danny Williams: read the fine print" (2005)
• "The hard and the easy: Abitibi and government subsidies" (2005)
• "A trading nation - Newfoundland and Labrador trade with the world" (2005)
• "Kruger closes CB paper machine, other companies may follow suit" (2007)
• "Let's do the time warp" (2007) This post, on Fishery Products International, includes an excerpt from Hansard, March 2002:

Mr. Williams:...It did not have to happen. We have a black eye now on the business reputation of this Province. People do not like heavy-handed intervention. They do not like it, and that is what happened in the business community. The national media are looking at it and they now see our intervention as heavy-handed. If it had happened back in April of last year, back in May of last year, there would have been no problem.

The hon. Member for Lewisporte talked about his concern about a privitive clause. We all share that concern. There should be no need for a privitive clause. There should be no need to hide behind your mistakes, so that people who have a right to sue you can rightfully sue you. We have done it; it is out there. You have this unique legislation that talks about privity, so you cannot sue us because we made mistakes. That is wrong. That could have been prevented. The legal opinion that you had last spring said that you could change that legislation for public policy reasons, and you did not do it. [Emphasis added]

Brute force of law: Williams administration revokes Abitibi rights and expropriates assets

In a move Premier Danny Williams described as unprecedented, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador introduced legislation in the House of Assembly Tuesday that canceled timber, land, mineral and water rights and expropriated title and rights to other lands and assets held by AbitibiBowater in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The bill moved through all three stages of debate and received royal assent in a single afternoon, thereby coming into immediate effect.

The move was explained as the "repatriation" of provincial resources from a company based on, in the Premier's words during Question Period, "the fact that the bargain was broken which had been established over a century ago." The bargain, as he described it, was the use of timber, land and hydroelectricity to produce pulp and paper.  AbitibiBowater announced two weeks ago that it would close its mill at Grand Falls-Windsor in the first quarter of 2009.

The bill provides no compensation and absolves the Crown from any legal action arising from the expropriation, except for the hydroelectric assets.  However, the manner and amount of that compensation is to be determined by the cabinet alone.

In Question Period, the Premier said that the government wrote the company last Friday seeking transfer of all assets to the Crown without any charge.  The company replied on Monday that it would not do so but wished to enter into discussions on transfer and compensation.

"At that point, of course, we felt that this was certainly an urgent matter that should be dealt with forthwith. As the House is moving towards the Christmas period, it is a closer time, a tighter time, and we felt the matter was of such importance that we should deal with it as soon as possible."

According to the Premier, the company as well as the company's partners and creditors in two hydro-electric developers, were notified 30 minutes before the House of Assembly opened for the afternoon sitting.

The move is in stark contrast to the orderly dismantling of Abitibi's Stephenville operation.  That closure included - for some unexplained reason - removing a paper machine from the province that had been originally destined for Grand Falls before a deal was struck between Abitibi and the Peckford administration to open a paper mill at Stephenville.

Included in the expropriation are two joint ventures between Abitibi and private sector companies to generate hydroelectricity.  One of them, at Star Lake, was developed entirely in response to a request for proposals from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to replace some of the power generated by Hydro's diesel generator at Holyrood.  It did not supply power to the mill.

As Bond Papers noted last week, "[e]xpect NL Hydro to purchase these assets from the private sector partners, one of which is Fortis, with the power being sold to Vale Inco."   That's pretty much what will happen except that cabinet will dictate the terms and conditions of the deal. The hydro assets will now be operated by Hydro directly or through another subsidiary of NALCO Reborn.

This whole move is not without some context and foreshadowing.

The most immediate context may be the prospect of AbitibiBowater declaring bankruptcy, a point raised in series of questions by the opposition.  That issue was raised in the the House of Assembly, interestingly enough at the time the Premier and natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale were outside the legislature announcing Nalco Reborn.

Innovation minister Shawn Skinner fielded the questions on behalf of government that day:

We are aware of the challenges that AbitibiBowater as a company are facing. We are looking at the options and the alternatives that may come from the situation they find themselves in. They may be in a situation of bankruptcy or receivership, they may bounce back and maybe become a very profitable and productive company, but as it is right now, Mr. Speaker, they are a company that is open. It is operating. It has many operations throughout the world. They are still operating and we will monitor the situation as we have done to ensure that our rights as a government and the rights of the people who work with Abitibi, who are residents of this Province, are protected.

As it turned out, that was a day before the government issued its demand for transfer of the assets free of compensation.

The Premier dealt with similar questions on Tuesday, responding at one point:

Of course, the core reason for this particular action is because, in fact, there was, as I said before, back in 1905, a Charter Lease which was executed which very clearly tied the milling and logging operations to the waterways and the water power and the hydro power. So, as a result of their announcement that this particular mill in Newfoundland and Labrador is closing down, we feel, obviously, we have the right then to repatriate those assets and, in fact, expropriate the power assets, but we have no information before us right now that indicates that this company is going bankrupt. If it did go bankrupt, then there are other consequences.

The curious thing about that response is the reliance on the initial charter which established the mill in 1905during the administration of Sir Robert Bond.  Many of the timber, land and hydroelectric assets expropriated on Tuesday were acquired subsequent to the original charter.  The government also didn't expropriate the mill itself, perhaps due to potential environmental remediation costs associated with that asset.

The Premier told the legislature on December 8th that the government had been considering legal options with respect to the Grand Falls-Windsor operation for several years.  He said:

I can quite honestly say that this government has looked at the legal issues surrounding that mill for a considerable period of time - over several years since we have actually been in office - with regard to demands that Abitibi were making, based on previous agreements and previous rights that they assumed that we have. So we have been constantly reviewing this from a legal perspective and made sure that we protected the interests of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

From our own perspective, on an ongoing basis, we obviously are obtaining legal opinions. I think it is in the best interests of everybody involved that we not share those legal opinions because, obviously, we have a preferred advantage there and some leverage with the company and that is something that we would prefer to continue on with.

The first option is the best option. The company does the right thing, does the right thing for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and particularly Grand Falls and surrounding areas, after 100 years is that they pass these assets back over. That would be the timber assets - which actually, a month ago, we were actually prepared to pay for on the basis that we wanted that x number of dollars to go back into the mill and allow the mill to have some longevity, which is what the workers indicated.

The other remedy would be a court action, the other remedy would be an expropriation, and the other remedy would be an act of this Legislature which deals with the entire problem. [Emphasis added]

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"Solidarity, Reg", patronage appointment version

Somehow this slipped your humble e-scribbler's notice.

Provincial New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael knew back in September what most New Democrats would understand:  a conservative is a conservative is a conservative.  That's what she said back in September when the who Family Feud thingy was on the go during the federal election.

Well, for all those who think that labour is aligned with the New Democrats, think again.  Outgoing labour federation boss Reg Anstey stood four-square behind the Provincial Conservatives in September.

That's not the first time Reg showed his solidarity with the current administration.

Remember the Rally for Danny?  There was Reg.

How about attacking the Liberals and New Democrats last spring for daring to suggest pattern bargaining in the public service should go the way of the dodo?  Reg was there to slice into the government's political opponents.

He took his leave of the labour federation in the first week of November, telling reporters he didn't know what he was going to do with himself now that he'd retired.

Less than two weeks later he had a sinecure on the offshore regulatory board, courtesy of the Provincial Conservative cabinet.

Loyalty clearly has its rewards.

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Fowler missing in Niger

He was deputy minister at National Defence through the Somalia debacle.  Now he's gone missing in Niger while on a diplomatic mission.

How long before Scott Taylor turns up doing interviews about the missing man, Bob Fowler?

Notice that the Globe's update discusses everything in Fowler's career except what he is best known for.

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Floundering

Question:  In what year did Earle McCurdy and the fisheries union not go to the provincial government looking for cash to bail out the fishery?

The economy is booming.

Earle tells us the fishery is in trouble and needs a government bailout.

The economy is tanking.

Earle tells us the fishery is in trouble and needs a government bailout.

McCurdy's answer to problems in the fishery is - of course - more of the same sort of thinking that got everyone into this mess in the first place. He is to fisheries management what Taco was to 1980s popular music.

Too bad Earle makes the news while people who actually have a roadmap out of the mess get ignored again and again and again and again and again... .

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Local math prof stirs international economics controversy

Odds are no one heard of Antal Fekete.

The Hungarian-born emeritus professor of mathematics at Memorial University in St. John's isn't someone local media  look to for commentary on economic issues.

But through a series of articles published on his website - professorfekete.com - he's earned some measure of international notariety for his arguments about backwardation of gold, the problems of unsupported debt and the global economic crisis.

Backwardation is the phenomenon of spot gold prices being higher than futures prices.  That situation happens frequently in other commodities but seldom in gold.  The difference is that gold, once used as the ultimate support  for paper currency, is a monetary commodity.

It's also a clue that the commodity is, or is perceived as being, or will be in short supply.  Logically, no one would buy gold today at a price higher than it could be purchased in as little as two weeks time.  The only reason to do that would be in a case where there was some doubt about delivery in the future.

Here's the way Professor Fekete describes the situation in his most recent article:

We are facing a pathology of the international monetary system based, as it is, on irredeemable promises to pay. People are enjoined through 'legal tender' legislation to use these irredeemable promises as if they were the ultimate means of payment, even though they are not, and the world would rather use gold and silver as the natural and ultimate extinguisher of debt. But gold and silver have been coercively eliminated from monetary circulation for the competition they offered to synthetic debt-liquidating devices.

Mainstream economics pretends that the issue has been settled for once and all. It asserts that liquidation of debt through the coercively maintained payments system has no threat to the national and world economy. Yet what is happening is that the government keeps kicking the toxic garbage upstairs which keeps accumulating unobtrusively in the attic, only to come crashing down in its own good time to cause untold amount of social damage.

In the real world it is natural law, rather than man-made coercive laws, that prevail. The pathology of the regime of irredeemable currency has not been attended to, and day of reckoning has dawned. Our pathological monetary system has allowed the burgeoning of debt beyond all rhyme and reason. It has no mechanism to extinguish debt. It pretends that transferring debt to the banks, and ultimately to the government, is tantamount to extinguishing it. However, the truth of the matter is that only gold circulation is able to extinguish debt. When it is stopped in its tracks, as it is under conditions of backwardation, debt explodes. [Italics in original]

Fekete's theories have attracted global attention since gold started backwardising in early December.  That's the first time such a situation has occurred since the early 1930s by some accounts, let alone lasted for more than 24 hours.  As The Australian columnist Robin Bromby put it:

It wasn't just the internet sites. London's Daily Telegraph was reporting the gold markets being in turmoil, with traders saying it was extremely hard to buy physical metal in the form of coins or bars, a problem the paper attributed to the emergence of backwardation.

Fekete said the development showed a drastic drop in the velocity of gold circulation and was a repeat of the situation in 1931 when, in the face of serial devaluations started by the British, gold circulation seized up. And we all know what happened after 1931 -- 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.

It's not like Fekete hasn't been predicting this for a while.  In June - before the peak crude price and long before the credit meltdown - Fekete forecast gold backwardation.

There are plenty of people around who will tell you what everyone else says.  Sometimes it's the ones who go against the grain who are worthy of more attention than they get.  Sometimes they are a bit more clued in that people forecasting more of the same. 

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Separated at birth: the tag line version

"Never give up.  Never give in."

"Never give up.  Never surrender."

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Forget TORSTAR: Latest Harper/Ignatieff poll results

Plus other stuff of equal importance, because politics is such serious business.

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Purple Reign of Darkness

Danny Williams receives personal files on reporters who interview him.

He confirmed that fact, telling reporters the files are to help him prepare for those interviews.

"When I am provided with a personal file it's an information file to get me ready for an interview with the press," he told reporters at the news conference. "It is not the down and dirty on you or you or you or anybody else."

The Telegram learned of the files last December when one of its reporters received a government e-mail by mistake that asked a political staffer to prepare "purple files on both" that reporter and another who had also requested an interview with the Premier.

Not for both, as in for the interviews, but on both, clearly implying the files were to be prepared on the reporters.

Briefing notes and talking points are routine material prepared for interviews.  They include background information, suggested responses to questions and other similar information that focuses on the subject matter of the interview.

They typically don't focus on the reporter personally, unless the reporter has been following a particular - usually contentious -  issue for a while and hence has an understanding or interpretation of an issue that's already established. Even then, the clippings are only useful to get a perspective on how the issue has been approached, not on the reporter personally.

In the Telegram case, the interviews were for year-end wrap-ups. 

"A reporter basically came in the room one day and saw a purple file on the desk and assumed it was a purple file about that reporter... absolutely untrue," Williams said. "That insinuation, I've got to tell you, is really offensive."

What insinuation, you may ask?

As usual it's Williams who provided the sinister cast to the whole episode.  He suggested that the request by the Telegram for those purple files under the province's open records laws was based on the belief that the files contained personal profiles of the reporters.

The Telegram just went looking for the files, without specifying the contents.

The official response from the premier's department said that there were "no responsive records" meaning they had no such information or files.

Clearly that wasn't true, as the Premier admitted last week and as the Premier's communications director had already admitted to the Telegram via e-mail months ago.

Telegram editor Russell Wangersky focuses on this issue for his Saturday column, recounting much of what is presented above. He takes the cue from the notion of offensive to raise another point:

As offensive, say, as collecting files on political rivals to trot out in Question Period? "When the member opposite was minister, she bought two cases of wine." That sort of thing?

Indeed.

Nor hardly surprising from a politician who likes to talk about the amount of energy he spends on people who criticize his regime.

Or one who likes to call reporters to bitch about their columns and articles.  Like in this case where Williams called a reporter involved in the purple files controversy to complain that the reporter had appealed the case to the province's information commissioner.

Or a guy who calls ordinary citizens about their letters to the editor.

Politically, Danny Williams is in yet another hard spot on the subject of transparency and accountability, let alone free speech.

He likes to pat himself on the back for his supposed commitment to the virtues of open government, but whenever push comes to shove, his first response is to shove back hard and slam the doors shut on disclosure.

In this case, Williams' office has been caught both compiling personal files on reporters as interview preparation material.  Then his department has been caught denying the files exist, at least as far as the province's open records laws.  And let's be absolutely clear, under those laws, the contents of those files - irrespective of the colour of the folder - is accessible.

Now Williams' himself has compounded the problem by insisting on hiding the files he himself acknowledges exist based not on anything other than his own self-righteous indignation.

He will surely understand that a great many people are highly suspicious of his actions.

This is just the latest in a long string of secrecy issues for the Williams administration:

• A couple of weeks ago, the Telegram revealed the extent to which the premier's department - Executive Council - controls what is released to the public under the open records laws.
• Before that, we had the spectacle of the Premier making up excuses to keep the auditor general from reviewing files on a controversial business deal between the government and company's run or managed by his former business partners.  He subsequently relented, using the same discretionary power that many pointed out from the beginning that he held.
• Then there was a health facilities report, which the government sat on for three years until the health minister accidentally revealed confirmed it existed.
• And let's not forget the changes to the provincially- owned energy corporation's legislation that, in effect, shield the entire company from public scrutiny and limit the auditor general's ability to review the company's finances. Incidentally, that energy company unveiled its value statement this week alongside its grossly overpriced logo:  Accountability - Holding ourselves responsible for our actions and performance.  Yes, if you take the plain English meaning of those words, a public owned company will be accountable to nothing but itself.
• Then there are changes this week to the province's public records management laws.  Under the old approach public records were managed by a committee of public servants. There were only public records and that included cabinet ones. Under the new approach, the government is creating a special category of files called cabinet records that it alone defines and controls. Watch out for an up-tick in shredder activity.

In this case, as in all the other cases, including the numerous reports the administration sits on in spite of the pledge to release them within 30 days of being received, the Premier and his staff deliberately fight any attempt at disclosure.  They kick and scream when - if things are really as innocuous as they claim - the simplest thing to do would be to release the documents.

Russell Wangersky makes an eminently sensible point in that respect.

But when a politician and his staff try to conceal things - as they obviously are - and when other public servants make false statements - there are responsive records in this case - you have to wonder what they are trying to hide.

You don't have to wonder why they try to hide things:  the administration has demonstrated repeatedly it does not believe in openness, transparency and accountability. 

If it did, people within it - including the Premier himself - wouldn't spend so much time trying to hide things from the public.

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Fun with anagrams

Anagrams.

Take a word or words and mix up the letters to make new words or phrases.

Like, say, NALCOR ENERGY, the provincial government's new name for its old idea of state involvement in things best left to the entrepreneurial private sector.

Flip around the letters and you get, among others:

• General Crony
• Enlarge Crony

Add the letters corp on the end and you can end up with some other odd phrases:

• Cancer Prone Glory
• Clean Crony Groper
• Porn Recycle Groan

Those samples came from an online anagram generator.  Maybe the human brain can do something more creative than create random words.

For example, this all started with an e-mail that asserted that one anagram for NALCOR ENERGY CORPORATION was CRONY CAREER PROLONGATION.

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NALCO Reborn

If nothing else, the current provincial administration is good at naming  - branding - things.

Well  that is, if by "good" you mean willing to make some completely unimaginative or even risible choices.

The risible included a new provincial government logo, erroneously called a brand, which consisted of three flowers of a lazy carnivorous plant billed as symbolic of the proud people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The latest example of a decided lack of imagination appeared on Thursday with the name of the holding company for the provincial government's energy corporation.

NALCOR.

As in Newfoundland and Labrador Corporation, the name of another Crown corporation in local history that went by  the acronym NALCO.

Created as a Crown corporation in 1951 by Joe Smallwood's first administration, NALCO held rights to all the province's undeveloped land resources.  As a Crown corporation at the time, the thing was exempt from federal taxation.

NALCO grew from the brain of Alfred Valdmanis, the Latvian economist with a dubious past who ingratiated himself with Smallwood with plans of turning Newfoundland and Labrador into a modern industrial powerhouse.  He had the odd habit of referring to Smallwood as "my premier", in much the same way as Germans referred to Hitler as "my Leader", a point not lost on Smallwood's critics.

By 1954, NALCO was in the hands of John C. Doyle and Canadian Javelin.

The new NALCO, with a R added to the end, is the parent of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation (CFLCo), the unimaginatively named Oil and Gas Corporation and may well become the parent of others under the legislation that gave it life.

Interesting that CFLCo is now known as Churchill Falls.  The entry in the registry of corporatrions for the province shows, as of mid afternoon on Thursday that the registered name is still Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation and that the company last filed a return in may 2007.  It isn't in good standing, according to the online registry record, meaning the CF or CFLCo or whatever it will be called now hasn't paid its annual registration fee.

The new company name hasn't been registered yet.  Instead - as of last Thursday -  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has reserved the name "NALCOR Energy Oil and Gas Inc". They have less than a year to get the thing properly registered.

The web domain  - nalcorenergy.com - was registered in November, though, by M5i, a division of M5, a local  marketing communications firm. They also registered "nalco.ca" at the same time.  Craig Tucker, one of M5's senior executives, was a Williams administration appointee to the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro board of directors.

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Facing oblivion

From the guy the insiders picked to run the Liberal Party:

I’m not looking for a road to 24 Sussex. I'm looking for a road that takes us out of crisis towards a stable, responsible government with the national interest in mind. Mr. Harper has to understand the extent and depth of the anger -- the justified and righteous anger among the opposition parties at the way we've been treated in this Parliament. He seems to misunderstand the very nature of Parliamentary government, and he better start understanding quickly

The political problem facing Canada, as Michael Ignatieff now states it,  is not that Stephen Harper is running the country but rather that he isn't running it properly.

According to Mr. Ignatieff, Stephen Harper simply needs to listen a bit, to "understand".

So why exactly is the new Liberal leader looking for volunteers, ideas and  - what was that other thing? oh yeah  - money out of your pocket to accomplish this goal?

Not clear.

Not clear at all, especially considering that Mr. Ignatieff states flatly that he is not looking for a road to power.

He defines the goal here in a way that does not mean - as a matter of simple fact - that the only possible "stable, responsible government with the national interest in mind" the Liberal Party backs is a Liberal government.

The Prime Minister doesn't have to do very much of anything to hang on to power in that scenario.  He can just remind everyone that he has already moved on the major irritants that caused the proroguing kerfuffle.

Things should be peachy in Ottawa over the holidays. Mark your cards right now that there is no way the Liberal caucus in Ottawa will continue with the coalition and bring down the government. The Conservatives know they have the government firmly in their grip and with Michael Ignatieff safely fronting the Liberals, they know nothing will threaten that in the near future.

This would be pretty much what your humble e-scribbler concluded days ago.

In fact, there really isn't very much of anything that Mr. Harper could do to compel the Liberal insiders who picked this guy to run the party to bring him down and force an election.

If you thought that the old Liberal caucus was feverishly trying avoid an election, just wait 'til you see this crowd. If you want to clear out the Liberal caucus room next year just walk into the place and yell "division!" They'll be out the door and headed down the 416 faster before the "n" leaves your lips.

That's because the Liberal Party under Michael Ignatieff will be too busy looking for the road that takes you away from the centre of national political power in this country.

Sure, they will be looking for people to join a conversation, as Mr. Ignatieff puts it on his blog.  All very much the look and feel of what someone thinks a political bloggy thingy is supposed to look like.

And yes, Mr. Ignatieff does practice the Dale Carnegie crapperific approach to speechifying.  Mention people by their first name a lot and you can imitate what a politician is supposed to sound like, at least to some people's way of thinking.

What you don't get, though, is what a leader and a political party is supposed to act like, what is supposed to be.

You don't get people looking for the road to 24 Sussex.

That's where power is and if the political party isn't lead by a guy looking for that goal, he isn't facing the future.

He's facing oblivion.

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True or false

One of these statements is true.

The other is not.

The only question is which one is which.

Natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale, in the House of Assembly, December 2, 2008:

IOC informed me on Friday morning, Mr. Speaker, that they were going to delay Phase 1 and Phase 2 of their expansion program,...

Natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale, in the House of Assembly, December 10, 2008:

I have met with Terry Bowles, the CEO for IOC, within the last six weeks. I have had a number of telephone conversations with him, Mr. Speaker. I will have another one today. The last communications we had around this piece, which I reported in the House, was that they were going to complete the work that was already started in Phase I and Phase II of their expansion but otherwise, plans were on hold.

Interestingly enough this is not the first time in the House, in December, that Kathy Dunderdale said two completely contradictory things about exactly the same subject.

Anyone remember Joan Cleary?

The government suddenly closed a short session of the House in 2006 when Dunderdale was caught at this sort of misstatement.

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