5 years and counting: still no sustainable development act

A 2003 Provincial Conservative election promise  - to ensure that economic development and the environment were in sync  - remains unfilled five years after the Provincial Conservatives took power and two years after the law was passed by the province’s legislature.

The province’s Sustainable Development Act, passed by the legislature in early 2007, has not been proclaimed and is therefore not law.

In the meantime, the provincial government’s energy corporation is proceeding with development of the Lower Churchill, including a plan to sling high-voltage power lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

That certainly wouldn’t be the popular impression since then-environment minister Clyde Jackman issued a news release in June 2007 that made it sound like the Act was in place:

The sustainable management of the province’s natural resources is now enshrined in the Sustainable Development Act that was passed in the current session of the House of Assembly. Sustainable development will ensure the province’s renewable and non-renewable resources are developed to maximize benefits for the province, while protecting the natural environment so that future generations have the ability to meet their own needs.

The release said more than half a million dollars had been set aside in 2007 to establish the advisory committee that is at the heart of the act.  No legislation, though meant no committee.

The unproclaimed act featured prominently in the Provincial Conservative Party’s 2007 election campaign platform.  The second blue print also made it sound as though the act was in force and work was underway:

Through our new Sustainable Development Act, we will ensure that development proceeds in harmony with our natural environment, securing our greatest natural strengths while promoting eco-friendly enterprise.

…

• enforce the provisions of the Sustainable Development Act regarding the responsible and sustainable development of our natural environment, ensuring that our resource development decisions address the full range of environmental, social and economic values and that workers, environmentalists, industry, communities, aboriginal peoples and others have a say in how our resources are managed. [Emphasis in original]

Without the sustainability act in place, there can be no enforcement of its provisions.

Without the act, there is also no Strategic Environmental Management Plan, even though the provincial government committed to have one in place by 2009.

The SEMP was supposed to be the document that put the commitment to environmentally sustainable economic development into action.

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Uncommon tourism potential: A vision of hydro towers in a UNESCO World Heritage site

On Friday, the provincial government announced the creation of a new bureaucracy to promote tourism to the province, as if that was the answer to the dwindling return on investment from the current approach.

You can tell a lot about any plan by the way it proposes to measure success.  In this case, the new tourism strategy – Uncommon potential – wants to double the amount of money generated by tourism in the province.  Inflation would pretty much take care of hefty enough chunk of that in the next 11 years so whatever is left can be either explained away when the time comes or simply ignored.

You can tell this is a serious plan:  it has lots of pretty pictures in it, shop-worn jargon by the shovel-full  - “world-class” and “the possibilities are endless”, two great Chuck Fureyisms from his stint as tourism czar - but no indication of how much money it will cost to do all the things listed as the various action items.

One would have to read the release to appreciate, as well, that the strategy doesn’t really get at one of the current problems, namely the fact that more than half the $500 million generated by “tourism” right at the moment doesn’t come from people travelling into the place.  It comes from locals.

Odd, though, that there is no mention in this beautiful looking document of the tourism potential of high voltage direct current hydro-electric transmissions lines.  There’s lots about pristine wilderness, natural beauty, authentic experiences and a raft of other buzzwords but nothing about giant steel girders supporting buzzing electricity cables.

Odd, you see, because that’s exactly what the provincial government’s energy corporation is planning to string from Labrador down to the Avalon peninsula to meet a demand that can be met with other sources of power.

The energy company plans to run the lines, in one part at least, through Gros Morne National Park.  That would be the UNESCO world heritage site. Now there are already lines in the park that were installed long before the park was established in 1987. 

But you’d think that a company owned by the provincial government might be looking at ways of getting out of the park altogether rather than planning on increasing the power lines in a truly beautiful place.

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Selective perception

The Telegram’s front page story on Friday reports on a study released by the Montreal Economic Institute that, according to the Telegram, shows that Hydro Quebec profits hugely from the Churchill Falls power development.

Shocking!

What’s actually much more interesting is what the study was about.

Amazingly enough, it wasn’t about how much money Hydro Quebec makes of Churchill Falls.

Rather, the Montreal Economic Institute study argued that Hydro Quebec should be privatised because it is wasteful and inefficient.

The title of the report – conveniently omitted from the Telegram story -  is one that would surely ignite even more gnashing of teeth in these parts than the amazing revelation about Churchill Falls:

“How would the privatization of Hydro-Quebec make Quebecers richer?”

The title on the news release is even better:

“Privatizing Hydro-Quebec would give $10 billion more a year to Quebecers”

By privatizing Hydro-Québec, Quebecers would get $10 billion more out of it per year through improved productivity, higher electricity rates and an end to costly subsidy programs for aluminum smelters, according to a Research Paper published by the Montreal Economic Institute. The new private company would be required to pay substantial annual royalties to the government, says the study, prepared by Claude Garcia, member of the board of directors of several corporations and former president of the Canadian operations of Standard Life.

Standard Life. 

Hmmm.

That would be one of the companies whose hydro-electric assets in Newfoundland and Labrador were nationalised by the the legislature last December.

The paper is far more provocative than the bit excerpted by the Telegram, especially in a province where the government is already committed to create in Newfoundland and Labrador a Crown corporation that is the mirror of Hydro-Quebec.

 

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Verbal tics (4)

Who: Danny Williams

When: Saturday, February 7, 2009

Where: Interview with Kathleen Petty for CBC Radio’s The House.

Score: 23 “you knows” in six minutes and 30 seconds.

Well, you know, I think we understood here in Newfoundland and Labrador that, you know, once the Liberal Party had made up its mind that it was going to support the budget for its own, you know, national reasons,
you know, we accept that even though we'd prefer a different outcome, but it's really Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans, I think, as a group just standing on principle and making a statement to the rest of the nation that they disagree with what the Harper Conservatives have done to try and, you know, compromise us during this budget and make us pay for democratically electing Liberals and New Democrats.

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“We want to be independent and self-sufficient”

Some views on Canada, Confederation, Newfoundland and Labrador and what it is all about, from the words of one man and his administration, sometimes within the very same interview.

1.   This land is my land!  Sort of.  Globe and Mail, February 7, 2009:

“…Separation is not something that is on my agenda under any circumstances.

This is a great country and I want to be part of it, but the country disappoints me when we don't rally to protect each other.” [Emphasis added]

Yet, what recently happened in the federal budget was not confined to the actions of one man or even one political party in a federal system:

“It should have been a legitimate celebration of coming out of the 'have not' status and being a net contributor to Canada. We're looking at that to be a very positive thing — and then Canada just struck us over the head.” [Emphasis added]

2.  Halifax, June 2001:  on the Great Plot that is Confederation…

“The more that I see, the more nauseous and angry that I get. The way that our people and our region have been treated by one arrogant federal Liberal government after another is disgusting. The legacy that the late Prime Minister Trudeau and Jean Chrétien will leave in Atlantic Canada is one of dependence on Mother Ottawa, which has been orchestrated for political motives for the sole purpose of maintaining power. No wonder the West is alienated and Québec has threatened separation. Canadians - and Atlantic Canadians, in particular - realize the importance of dignity and self-respect while Ottawa prefers that we negotiate from a position of weakness on our hands and knees….”

3.  On the goal, from the same speech:

We don't want handouts. We want our pride back. We want to be independent and self-sufficient.

4.  Eternal vigilance against the Foe:

We’re resilient, we’re survivors, ah, y’know, we basically prepared for this day. When, y’know, over the course of the last few years, you’ll notice from our Throne Speeches, we’ve talked about being self-reliant, we’ve talked about being masters of our own destiny. And we have been building up a war chest for when the feds come at us again, quite frankly.

5.  Throne Speech 2008:

As a result of our collective efforts to wrestle down the deficit, to ratchet up growth and to reach an agreement that fulfilled the promise of the Atlantic Accord, we are – for the first time in our history – poised to come off equalization very soon. This is a stunning achievement that will reinforce the bold new attitude of self-confidence that has taken hold among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. [Emphasis in original]

The revenues that pushed the provincial treasury to “have” status came entirely from agreements signed before October 2003.

6.  On the current economic problems facing the province, Globe and Mail, February 2009:

Williams says the per capita loss is roughly six times that of Quebec or Nova Scotia. He also said his financial experts are predicting provincial revenues from dropping oil prices will be down some $1.5-billion.

"That's a double whammy," says Williams, that will "cripple" his province and force it back into deficit spending.

"We've done all the right things fiscally," he says, "and then in one fell swoop 'bang' we're pretty well back where we started."

The warnings against overspending  - that one from 2005 - from early on in the Williams administration went unheeded. The Premier had a decidedly different view of the province’s economic fortunes only a few months ago.  He wouldn’t talk hard numbers even though the ones the provincial government is currently using were pretty obvious to regular readers of these e-scribbles. All that’s happened in the past couple of months is a refining of the numbers, not a surprise shift to big ones.  $1.3 billion in November.  $1.5 billion now.  Works out to the same thing.

7.  The oldest living father of Confederation, reincarnated, Globe and Mail, February 2009:

Independence talk, he says, is once again being heard: "But that's not where I'm coming from. Separation is not something that is on my agenda under any circumstances.

"This is a great country and I want to be part of it, but the country disappoints me when we don't rally to protect each other.

Ditto, circa2007:

Premier Danny Williams says he's trying to quell separatist feelings within Newfoundland and Labrador, despite a throne speech that suggested the province should push for more autonomy from Ottawa.

"The fans of sovereignty are here. If anything, I've been trying to dampen those fires as much as I can," Williams said yesterday.

8. Autonomy!  Throne Speech 2007:

…our people have now also learned that we will achieve self-reliance economically only by taking charge of our future as a people. To that end, My Government will harness the desire among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to cultivate greater cultural, financial and moral autonomy vis-à-vis Ottawa. [Emphasis added]

9.  What autonomy means, in greater detail,  Hansard, 24 April 2007:

Political self-reliance simply means that we cannot rely upon those elected to offices outside of this Province to deliver what is in our own best interest. We must achieve that on our own. Self-reliance will not come by depending on others to achieve it for us. That is a lesson we have learned year after year, generation after generation. So we will harness the desire among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to cultivate greater political, financial and moral autonomy vis-a-vis Ottawa. As a distinct people and as equal partners, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal together, we will write a new future for Newfoundland and Labrador; a future of our own design, where mutual understanding, justice, equality, fairness and co-operation are the order of the day. [Emphasis added]

10.  Foreshadowing.  If recent events are any indication federal politicians and those at the time who were wannabes clearly ignored that point, as Bond Papers warned at the time:

It should surely give pause to all those incumbents federal members of parliament from this province and those likely candidates for it means clearly that Danny Williams does not and will not trust you. These words mean, unequivocally, that elected representatives of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are not to be trusted merely because they represent the people of the province somewhere other than in the House of Assembly controlled utterly by the current provincial administration.

Scott?  Walter?  Paul?  Peter?  Siobhan?  Fabian?  Gerry?  Loyola?

One wonders if they get the point.

11. And you want to be my latex salesman? Budget speech 2008:

We are standing tall as powerful contributors to the federation – as masters of our own domain, stronger and more secure than we have ever been before. [Emphasis added]

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The Hurt Locker: Monkey-tossing can’t work when people know the truth

Remember that right from the start Bond Papers pegged this latest Equalization flap as a way of pretending that whatever fiscal mess the government is in, the whole thing is really someone else’s fault.

Now for those who don’t know, monkey-tossing is one Danny Williams’ great political skills.  If they gave gold medals in tossing the monkey from his own back, Danny Williams would own them all.

He tried to toss responsibility his own failure in the Andy Wells/Max Ruelokke affray.  For those who are keeping score, incidentally, it’s worth taking a look at the judge’s decision in that case.  The number of times the provincial government changed its position  in the case rivals its multitude of contradictory stands on on Equalization.

He monkey-tossed the whole smelter in Long Harbour a couple of years ago, although hat one is still a wee bit odd.

Now it’s the whole $1.5 billion. 

Look at how the Premier puts the thing in a letter to the National Post on Saturday. 

Guaranteed by now the thing has been blasted over the plant internal comms system such that come Monday every single one will be talking  - on the open line shows and anywhere else plants turn up  - about the recent federal offset changes as if the impact comes entirely in one year:

Not in our most pessimistic moments did we dream that we would be negatively impacted to the tune of $1.5 billion — approximately one quarter of our annual provincial budget.

The thing is: that statement isn’t true.

The provincial budget was short for the coming fiscal year by $1.5 billion before anyone learned about the Equalization/offsets thingy.

The loss represented by the offset changes – even if we accepted the provincial government assumptions and projections -  would be a little over $400 million in 2009. That works out to be six per cent of the 2008 budget and, as we’ve said before, it’s not even a real number.  It’s entirely made up base don a raft of assumptions which might not turn out to be true.

What is true, as it turns out, is the Bond Papers prediction  over the past few months that the provincial government is facing a $1.5 billion shortfall on the annual budget.

That is about 25% of the upcoming budget.

The culprit?  Oil mostly:  down a billion next year over last year using an assumed value for oil in the mid—50s Canadian.  Incidentally, for all accounts that is exactly what the provincial government is currently using for their estimates.

The other culprits?

Well, you can hack off another few hundred million for the collapse of mineral prices.

Then, there’s the impact of tossing 1,000 highly paid paper workers to the curb.

On top of that there’s the 4,000 or so migrant labourers who were making Alberta money but now will have to subsist on the earnings from Lotto 10-42.  Notice that the downturn in the oil sands alone is having four times the job impact in Newfoundland as Abitibi.

That means fewer purchases and hence a drop in sales tax.  That means a sizeable chunk of income tax revenue will disappear.

By the time you add it all up, the provincial government is in the financial hurt locker:  expenses as big as 2008 – around $6.0 billion  - and the income from 2004 – somewhere around $4.5 billion.

No wonder the Premier is trying to toss that monkey off his back.

In 2004, he could toss the fiscal monkey onto the shoulders of the crowd who’d been in office.

He did.

He also tossed the cost of cuts onto the backs of the province’s public sector workers. 

The Premier could monkey-toss for England.

He does it all the time.

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Verbal tics (3)

Who:  Danny Williams

When: February 3, 2009

Interview:  Scrum video.

Score:  55 “ya knows” in 16 minutes and 56 seconds. Does not includes coughs, “quite franklys”, “nothing could be further from the truth” or shoulder twitches.

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Dog-whistle

In politics, dog-whistling is the use of words that are likely to be interpreted by certain segments of the population in ways that others wouldn’t get.

Penetrating insight into the obvious warning: It comes from the idea of the whistle that is pitched high enough such that only one species of mammal can hear it and react.

In his scrum yesterday, the Premier said something which might be a dog whistle, what with all the anti-Confederate comments being tossed around since last week:

We’re resilient, we’re survivors, ah, y’know, we basically prepared for this day. When, y’know, over the course of the last few years, you’ll notice from our Throne Speeches, we’ve talked about being self-reliant, we’ve talked about being Masters of Our Own Destiny. And we have been building up a war chest for when the feds come at us again, quite frankly. [Emphasis added]

War chest for when the feds come at us again.

Curious.

It wouldn’t be the first time that some incongruous phrases have turned up in Newfoundland and Labrador politics over the past five years or so.

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A duff in the…

So maybe Senator Mike Duffy was a bit over the top in his remarks a couple of days ago – and grossly inappropriate in the senate chamber -  but he still managed to generate a laugh or two among Newfoundlanders in this CBC streeter raw video.

If you’ve got a sensitive disposition, then don’t follow the video link. [CBC video]

Then again, it’s not the first time over-the-top sexual metaphors have found their way into Canadian political discourse over the past six months.

For his part, Duffy didn’t apologise for the remark but he did withdraw it in the senate.

From the Premier’s perspective, it appears shafts are a bit like sledgehammers; it depends on who is doing the shafting.

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Face-off!

A study in contrasts between two hockey players.

The one:

Kovalev said he talked to Lang when he got out of the hospital.

“He didn't sleep at all last night because the nurses were asking for autographs like, five times a night, but otherwise, he feels fine,” said Kovalev.

The other:

"Instead of making money, I'm just turning grey and trying to stay away from getting sick because I'll have to face the doctors and the nurses if I end up going to hospital," he said, to a loud round of applause.

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I wanna be your sledgehammer

“But you don't get hit over the head with a sledgehammer,…”

The legislature is supreme and that is good, as Premier Danny Williams assured us in December.

But then again, maybe it isn’t so good and it isn’t so supreme.

Guess it matters who is swinging the sledgehammer and who is getting it in the head.

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PurPle haZe

“Who the f*ck’s he trying to impress?” came the voice of a steadfast friend as soon as the phone came up close to an ear.

“Who?” says your humble e-scribbler still choking back the hello.

“Ignatieff” he said, then reeled off a section of some online story about the Liberal leader’s statement that he will let Liberal members of parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador vote against the federal budget this evening even though the party caucus will be voting for it. Five of the six had already said publicly they’d be bucking Iggy and the caucus anyway.

“No one,”  says your scribbler.

“Well, he’s doing a great job.”

“You know,” he added after a long silence, “sometimes it seems like you and me are the only ones around this place not on acid.”

He hung up the phone as if this was just a snippet of an ongoing conversation.

A couple of days ago, another old friend brought up Michael Ignatieff’s increasing tendency to refer to the country  - Canada  - as The Federation.  “I thought Danny was the only trekkie”, he’d said over a coffee, “but that stopped once he got a piece of the action and became a have province.”

The second friend took to calling him Sarek after that. “Buddy started out playing a Romulan, you know,” he reminded, tapping his finger on his nose, as if that meant something.

The Canadian Press story my steadfast friend had been reading over the phone had a few more of those mind-benders in it.

There was Danny Williams praising Sarek for letting members of caucus buck the whip:

“He shows real courage this early in his leadership to be making a move like that. The MPs are being allowed to do what they need to do on behalf of their province and I think the fact that a national leader recognizes that is very important.”

Williams’ own caucus, of course, is not allowed to think for themselves without permission from the Premier’s Office, let alone follow the direction of another party leader. 

The six federal Liberals from Newfoundland and Labrador got bombarded with telephone calls and e-mails this past week, most of them coming from Williams’ caucus directly or at their behest. The original orders came from the 8th, of course.

Someone on the 8th even managed to rouse John Hickey out of his hibernation.  Hickey, who is rumoured to have some  cabinet responsibilities, has been all-but-invisible until the day after Groundhog Day. He called the local morning call-in show on voice of the cabinet minister to list all the wonderful things for Labrador his master could have done with federal money. 

Things like the a power line designed to take the hydro-electric power that wasn’t going off to somewhere else in North America down to the island of Newfoundland.  This would somehow benefit Labrador even though there was no provision for any juice to bleed off to light the odd home in Labrador.

Or the Trans Labrador Highway.

Never mind that Hickey, as highways minister once claimed to have a deal with Ottawa on the thing already on his desk only being forced to admit that he really didn’t.

This is the same John Hickey, incidentally,  who sued former Premier Roger Grimes not for what Grimes said but for what Danny Williams said Grimes said. No one knows what became of the lawsuit.

On another part of the front, the mayor of St. John’s, good Provincial Conservative that he is, took time from walking by a Tim Hortons drive-through to insist the Liberals must vote against the budget or risk their political careers.  At the same time, he tells a national radio audience he can’t wait to get his hands on the federal infrastructure cash.

The foolishness isn’t confined to this latest racket the Premier’s Office acknowledges something called purple files it creates to prepare the Premier for media interviews. The most accountable and open government in civilization denies they exist when reporters ask for them under the province’s open records laws.

Then there is Equalization.

Aside from anything else, a surprising number of the crowd filling up comments on news websites or calling the talk shows on the voice of the cabinet minister think it is time to separate from Canada.  Ottawa is not giving us enough handouts, they say, so we should pack up and leave and get no handouts at all. 

The more loopy of the crew have taken to suggesting that Newfoundland should join with Quebec in a separate country.

The host of the night-time version of this psychedelic extravaganza of the airwaves fuels the chat with his preamble to the show the night of the budget vote. This is the same guy who, as editor of a local newspaper – the Independent – mused about separatism, denied he was a separatist when he ran for the New Democrats last time out and now is back banging the drum about a need to rethink the place of Newfoundland and Labrador within Canada.

Such is politics in Newfoundland and Labrador these days.

Such is public policy in Newfoundland and Labrador these past five years.

And a week after declaring that the budget changes would cripple the province’s economy, Danny Williams is praising Ignatieff for something that, in the end, means absolutely nothing. The budget still passed and the money will go – if it ever really would go – and anyone not in a state of altered conscious would wonder what the fuss was about in the first place.

What about the cash? 

Even Danny Williams is nonplussed this Tuesday.  Williams admitted to reporters on Tuesday afternoon that the federal government will only lift the O’Brien 50% option for this year.

This warp in space-time continuum - Newfoundland circa 1959 - once confined to one part of The Federation has spread.

The five members of parliament who panicked when Danny called did not waste time thinking of what they might do. Like say, finding out if what Danny said was right.

And if it turned out he was, come up with a plan of their own.  Maybe work on the caucus and government to see if a deal could be worked.  Maybe even try proposing an amendment that suspended the specific change for one year. That’s something Danny Williams wanted at one and – since it was aimed at once province – likely wouldn’t upset too many applecarts.  It might have passed.

As it turned out, the one year suspension was an option that the feds already tossed out at some point – did any reporter think to ask when the feds told the province this? - and Danny Williams accepted.

But the Liberals couldn’t even take credit for having anything to do with it.

Instead, Michael Ignatieff asks Stephen Harper if he would entertain a change.

Harper says no.

Case closed.

The six MPs get a pass on the whip – just this once, Iggy insisted – because springing a change is no way to run a Federation. Other provinces, affected as seriously or moreso than Newfoundland and Labrador by the Equalization changes, get no such consideration.  While it is no way to run a federation, according to Iggy, it is apparently not enough of no way to cause a change in who is running the place.

No clearer message could they send.

They might have even considered saying they did not want to become party to the excuse that whatever bad budget decisions this current provincial administration makes over the next three years, Danny Williams can say it’s all Harper’s fault even though that wouldn’t be close to true.

They could have left the job of backing Danny against the unions to the provincial labour leaders, the head of the province’s labour party and the former provincial labour party politician now sitting in Ottawa from this province.

And even if the amendment failed, the whole Liberal caucus might have showed it was willing to try something substantive. Something that ultimately didn’t look like they were responding to the sound of a bell coming from the blackberry upside Danny’s head as he drove his Avalanche down the Parkway.

Or was it the Queensway?

Meanwhile, the Liberals ought to know – every single one of them in Ottawa – that this is not a one shot deal. 

Williams will be back.

He knows what he can do to the federal Liberals and Ignatieff’s promise that this permission is a one-off won’t mean a thing. 

A guy who tells a gaggle of national and local reporters that he has been building up a war chest for when the “feds” come after “us” again, is not a guy who is going away any time soon. 

In a year’s time, Sarek might be the fed Williams is at war with. 

He’ll be back sooner than you think.

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Breaking: Iggy owned by DW

Michael Ignatieff will try and save face in today’s budget vote by claiming he is asking Liberal members of parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador to vote against the budget.

This comes after a dinner at Stornoway last night and five of the six stating categorically they’d be voting against the budget anyway.

Such a transparent media line won’t hold for 30 seconds among the sharks in the national press gallery.

Prediction:  Iggy will be gone within a year.

Question:  Would Stephane be willing to come back?

How about if we said please?

 

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Wagging the dog

Evidently it’s far better to pound at Equalization than take some action against American protectionism on behalf of a provincial economy that is more than just a wee bit dependent on exports to the United States.

Heck, maybe the Premier could give Obama some more pointers on how to run an economy.

“You know what I like the most is Barack Obama is listening to what we're doing here,” Mr. Williams said during question period to roars of applause from his Conservative caucus.

“That's a great compliment to this province because I have a lot of respect for that person.”

Just don’t mention any expropriations.

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It is better to give than receive…

but when you both can give and receive, it’s even nicer.

$10,000 for the group, and a couple of hundred for the candidate of the party in power during the election that same year.

If nothing else, it just looks bad.

We need election finance reform.

 

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Equalization “best of” times, the worst of times

As your humble e-scribbler writes this latest Equalization post,  Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms is telling some reporter at CBC that – quelle surprise – he will be siding with Danny Williams on whatever it is Danny wants on Equalization this time.

Scott’s got a history of playing follow-someone-else’s leader on the basis of bogus information.  He did it in the first round of the Equalization Follies and he’s apparently bent on keeping at it despite the previous experiences.

Simms joins a group of politicians from Newfoundland and Labrador who belong to the same club or who – inexplicably  - have been stampeded into creating problems in their own political backyard, robbing them of whatever influence they did have and setting themselves up for yet more of the same old pattern of hysteria and blackmail.

Politicians who refer to the e-mails and phone calls to justify their decision should note that the whole thing was orchestrated.  If they’ve been alive in this province at all over the past five years, they should know how things work. Sounds like they are just hunting around for convenient excuses.

If a Provincial Conservative member of the legislature is on the phone it is usually because someone in the Premier’s Office directed or approved the call.  They don’t have the luxury of voting against the wishes of their leader, at least not if they want to keep their seats, let alone get into cabinet.

Ditto e-mails.  You get one from “at gov.nl.ca” and you know it’s been approved from the top.

And all those calls from listeners to talk shows at the voice of the cabinet minister are pretty much from people who have faithfully followed whatever position the current administration is pushing irrespective of the fact it contradicts the position taken a year ago.

Or yesterday.

Is there an issue on Equalization this time?

Not really.

It all has to do with the words, some of them on agreements signed by the provincial government over time.

The 2005 transfer deal, for example, states in part that if another province gets a better deal than this one on Equalization and offsets, then the provincial government here gets it too. 

That’s the reason why the previous round of discussions by which Nova Scotia can toggle back and forth between the different Equalization options also applies to Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s that ability to pick the “best of” that sits at the heart of the current round of nonsense.  Danny Williams is a little miffed  - or so he claims – that there is only a choice between two options instead of three. A better-of choice, instead of a best-of.

But then that new Nova Scotia thing cuts in and the whole problem vanishes. Odds are that the budget implementation deal, and that’s the bill that matters,  will apply the best-of provisions to both Atlantic oil and gas provinces. They have before.

This thing isn’t about and never was about screwing over Danny Williams, as much as he might like to think so.  It was about dealing with Ontario receiving Equalization and not bankrupting the federal piggy bank Williams lusts after in the process. 

Now if you really want to get a sense of how much a problem this Equalization thing isn’t, bear in mind that under the Equalization program there have always been provisions that shield a province against catastrophic drops in Equalization from year to year.

If that wasn’t enough, since 1994 Newfoundland and Labrador has had the ability to chose an Equalization option retro-actively to always ensure that it gets the one which gives the most cash. In a month’s time – March 1 to be precise – the provincial finance minister can pick which Equalization option delivers the most cash for the year that is almost over.  And then next year, he gets to chose again based on actual experience for the year that is already past.

That too makes this whole thing a bit premature if not downright silly.

Then there’s oil prices.

News stories this weekend refer to oil prices being close to the province’s projected US$40 a barrel from the December budget update.  The only problem is that the price they give isn’t for the local oil.  The local oil has been trading considerably above US$40 and with the 25% premium for a weak Canadian dollar, the provincial treasury is getting more cash from oil than it forecast.

If those prices just hold where they are, finance minister Jerome Kennedy will have more real cash from this year to carry over to next year and he will definitely have more cash than he will let on in his April budget.  By next March, there likely won’t be an issue at all involving a mere $400 million on a budget of over $6.0 billion and an economy that churns out $25 billion in goods and services annually.

By then it will be time for yet another Equalization fooferah and people will be playing what is rapidly becoming the replacement for the March Madness of the seal hunt.

But what of members of parliament from this province?

Well, some of them will wind up having the worst of political times, yet again.  If they think this is bad, just wait for the games that are coming from the same quarter and based on the same completely false set of premises.

Those guys will be having the best of the same federal politicians yet again.

And none of those games are in the best interests of the people any of them were elected to serve.

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Shocker: Provincial Tory pol threatens federal MPs over budget

Provincial Conservative Doc O’Keefe  - the mayor of St. John’s - says that Liberal members of parliament from this province are putting their political careers on the line if they don’t vote against the federal budget on Tuesday.

"I mean this is a serious, serious blow to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador and for any MP from any party to even think about not voting with the population of Newfoundland and Labrador is just unthinkable — aside from the fact it would be political suicide."

In a CBC Radio New story running as well, Provincial Conservative deputy mayor – Ron Ellsworth – expresses confidence that one MP – Siobhan Coady – would vote the way the Premier wants. That was never in doubt, as Coady made clear on voice of the cabinet minister’s Open Line Friday morning. 

Of course, which Danny Williams’ position the federal members of parliament are supposed to support is anyone’s guess.

O’Keefe is running with the first version, coming from the late Tuesday night scrum.  That’s the serious-blow-to-economy, must-vote-against version.

CBC’s online story uses the Premier’s second position, uttered a day later, calling for a one year moratorium on the changes to the Equalization formula.

None of them noticed the Premier’s position from Friday.  He told an audience of construction industry officials that the Equalization changes didn’t matter  - at least as far as that mortal blow to the economy thing was concerned - since the provincial government already planned to spend $700 million on public works in the upcoming budget as a means of stimulating the economy.

HMV Update:  On the one hand anti-drive through crusader and notorious municipal policy flip-flopper Doc O’Keefe wants the budget defeated.  On the other hand he told CBC Radio’s The Current this morning that things in The Great City are wonderful for 2009.  O’Keefe’s also got his hand out for the federal infrastructure money in the budget.  O’Keefe said he’d like to see the money right away, something of course that wouldn’t happen if the budget is defeated and the country faces another federal elections within six months of the last one.

Meanwhile, Premier Danny Williams is morphing the message yet again in the Globe and Mail:

"They [federal Conservatives]  have to start wondering about how quickly they have to dump Harper," said Mr. Williams, who has been no friend of the Prime Minister in the past, although he said he asked him three months ago for a meeting to discuss federal-provincial relations.

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Province takes shares for cash

The provincial government took shares rather than provide loans with eight of the companies identified by the provincial innovation department last year has having received cash under its commercialization program.

One of the share purchases – for Virtual Marine Technologies – was subsequently converted to a repayable loan.  VMT  received $450,000 of the half million it was originally supposed to received.

According to notes in the audited financial statements, "[t]he Province purchased 5,000 Class A common shares at a cost of $500,000. Of this total, $450,000 had been advanced as at 31 March 2008, with the balance held back pending delivery of certain financial information which remains outstanding. Subsequent to 31 March 2008, the equity investment was converted to a conditionally repayable loan. The 5,000 common shares were then cancelled and returned to the company."

According to a Telegram report in 2008, only three of the 10 cash injections was ever announced publicly. One – cash for MedicLink  - was announced in the House of Assembly while two others were featured in government news releases.

According to the audited public accounts for 2007, the provincial government took shares in:

• Jackman Brand Marketing ($125,000 for 1250 Class B shares),
• Pixecur Technologies a.k.a. DataSentinel ($400,000 for 4,000 preferred shares)
• Dockside Appetizers ($31,000 for 310 common shares)
• Mediclink ($352,000 for 3517 Class A shares),
• NewLab ($500,000 for 5,000 Class A shares),
• Northern Radar ($375,000 for 3479 Class A shares),
• Virtual Marine Technologies ($450,000 for 5,000 Class A shares), in addition to the $500,000 in shares in
• SAC Manufacturing.

With the exception of SAC,  all companies remain going concerns. NewLab merged with Newfound Genomics in 2008.The government did not take shares in a company manufacturing a pet restraint system for cars.

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Taxpayer cash in mysterious company unrecoverable

The provincial government will have to write off  upwards of $675,000 in taxpayers money sunk into a mysterious company in 2006 according to notes in the government’s audited financial statements for 2007.

In January 2008, Bond Papers first told you about $500,000 of taxpayer’s money given to a company called SAC Manufacturing and over the weeks after that the Telegram’s Rob Antle dug deeper.

The province’s innovation department released more details on the commercialization program to the Telegram once the SAC fiasco broke in the news.  SAC received the largest grant possible even though, as the innovation minister acknowledged at the time, the company reportedly had “cash flow issues.”

There’s was no news release about the money at all and when questioned on it later, then-innovation minister Trevor Taylor could not explain why his department didn’t issue a news release on the investment.

Antle reported the company received a provincial government loan of $175,000.  In December 2006, the company received a half million under the provincial government’s commercialization program.  Four months later the company had closed its Paradise, NL offices and relocated to Alberta.  By September 2007, the company had ceased operating.

There was no notation on the company’s failure in last year’s audited financial statements even though they were finished around the time the company went under and released to the public six months after it ceased operation.

There’s been no mention of the investment in either the 2007 or 2008 auditor general’s report.

SAC Manufacturing supposedly had developed a natural gas compressor but no other details have ever been made public.

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Saturday leftovers

1.  Lana Payne, head of the province’s labour federation, writes a Saturday column in the Telegram accusing Iggy and Harper of playing the politics of fear and accusing Iggy of “caving” on the federal budget.

Caving would be the head of the province’s labour federation who  joins the Premier in the latest Equalization dog and pony show without so much as batting an eyelid, let alone asking the Premier what he planned to do to public sector employees given the record huge deficit he has anyways.

Like maybe he’d stomp on collective bargaining again and re-write laws to strip unions of rights.

She apparently was nonplussed by that labour unions nonsense but gi-normously concerned about whatever it was Danny was talking about.  He was angry, that’s good enough for Lana.

And playing crass budget politics?

That would be the entire lot of them, Payne included.

2.  Pam Frampton on government unaccountability and the whole ongoing university fiasco. It’s worth the read form a number of reasons, not the least of which is proof that the current administration knows only one way to deal with the problem of being in a political hole:  keep digging.

Pam nails it in one place:

In a Dec. 12, 2006 news release announcing the appointment of Jeanette Lundrigan and others to the board of regents for a three-year term that would have ended Oct. 27 this year, Burke wrote: “It is important we have a team that has the skills, dedication and enthusiasm to lead the university in the coming years.”

Removed from post

But on Jan. 15, 2009, Lundrigan was summarily replaced by Kathleen Roul.

In announcing Roul’s appointment, Burke wrote: “I am pleased we have a team in place that has the skills, dedication and enthusiasm to lead the university in the coming years. …”

Perhaps Burke is right, that renewal is sometimes necessary.

Incidentally, further to the freedom from information story, the Telly went looking for some briefing notes on the NAFTA implications of the Abitibi expropriation.  None exist, comes back the answer from the freedom from information co-ordinator.  Minister was briefed in many ways but no documentary record exists of any of it.  The story isn’t online, unfortunately.

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