Bursting bubbles everywhere

last year the provincial government budget for 2008 forecast the provincial economy would shrink by 2.2%. Even with the economic down-turn, the economy seems poised to grow by that much.

But that was last year.

And the provincial government number was a forecast.

In 2009, the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador will shrink.  There are no bubbles to protect any economy from the recession.

The Conference Board of Canada puts the drop at 2.6% and for good reason:

Despite a positive outlook for consumer spending and construction, Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy will decline in 2009 by 2.6 per cent, the worst performance of all the provinces. Oil production continues to fall off at mature sites and the closure of the newsprint mill in Grand Falls will hurt manufacturing output.

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Darwin Awards Runners Up: Things that go boom in the night

Police answered an unusual call this week in North River, Conception Bay. Someone wanted the police to dispose of a  naval five inch shell that people had been keeping as some sort of souvenir.

The thing reportedly dates back to the early part of the 20th century and, if the media report is right, was pilfered from an old Royal Naval Reserve training ship in St. John’s.

Ah the stories one comes across like this. 

In the mid-1990s there were a couple of reports in the space of a week of old hand grenades (Mills bombs) turning up in the Maritimes.  If memory serves, one was found on a mantle piece where it had rested undisturbed for decades until someone noticed it while cleaning out the house.  In the other incident, someone coming out to change the flag on a government building found the thing sitting there like an abandoned baby.

An old friend who served with the local constabulary relayed another story years ago of responding to a call to a home in what was then a less developed part of the city.  It was quite near an old Canadian army depot, though.  Somewhere along the line, the old codger who’d owned the place had managed to find a few treasures and stored them in his shed.  Included among the goodies was – as it turned out – a stash of 25 pounder artillery shells, less the bagged charges of gunpowder used to shoot them out of the cannon.

Still, though, the stuff was mighty dangerous.  Had they gone off, they would have left a mighty great hole where the shed and house had been, not to mention what would have become of the people.

It’s one thing to be a farmer in France and Belgium where this stuff comes up out of the Earth almost a century after it was first used.  or say to be a farmer in Afghanistan where the unexploded bombs and booby traps from recent conflicts still claim lives.

We are talking a whole other matter, though, when you have people who think that bombs, shells, grenades and other things intended to kill and maim might actually be worthwhile things to have around so there won’t be a lull in the conversation when the lads come round for a swalley.

At least someone had the good sense to call in the experts and have the thing disposed of properly.

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Romaine clears environmental review

The Romaine hydro project in Quebec cleared the joint federal-provincial environmental review panel on Friday.

In making its decision, the panel noted that it worked within the legal boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador:

Par ailleurs, elle a évalué les effets environnementaux du projet selon le tracé de 1927 du Conseil
privé et ne se prononce aucunement sur la validité de cette frontière entre le Québec et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador.

Quel shock for the League of Professional Victims.

For those whose French isn’t that good here’s a rough (not literal) translation:

In addition, it evaluated the environmental effects of the project according to the boundary set in 1927 by the Privy Council and does not come to a conclusion at all about the validity of this border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It comes to no conclusion since it had no grounds on which to question the whole issue. So much for the twaddle pushed by the League that somehow this decision would see the federal government endorse a border change. Apparently only one private individual appeared before the committee to recommend that the border be erased altogether.

There is extensive discussion of the environmental issues, including the potential impact on migratory caribou herds. The panel recommends that the Quebec ministries involved develop a plan with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to protect the caribou.

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Former judge dies; played role in uncovering details of major political scandal

Retired judge Lloyd Soper passed away in St. John’s on Friday, aged 89.  Soper had a distinguished career on the bench where he earned a reputation for his diligent, thoroughness and high standards.

For those who recall, Judge Soper served as commissioner for an inquiry into a political scandal that swirled around a fire at Elizabeth Towers in the late 1970s.

Soper may be best known for examining how confidential police reports wound up in the hands of news media.  He had no trouble weighing the evidence and making a firm decision in a report that ran a mere 47 pages.  The scandal, especially the events of the weekend of 23 September 1978  proved to be a turning point in many political and journalistic careers in the province.

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Islands

1.  The latest writings on the mess that is Iceland:  Winston Smith links to the New Yorker article, while here’s a link to a  feature in Vanity Fair. 

2.  nottawa gives us a couple of links to the story of an island in the North Atlantic that feels isolated from its mother.

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Stephen Harper’s bitch

“Williams bough[t] it hook line and sinker. He threw his considerable political machine behind the Federal Conservatives.”

Extract from a entry in the journal of the main local traitor brander

Smack in the middle of a post about the supposed accuracy of Senator George Baker’s comments on separation comes this comment from the blog author.

According to this blog that need not be named, in 2005, Danny Williams supported Stephen Harper based on the “it” in that quote, namely the promise to remove all non-renewable resources from the Equalization calculation. Then Harper reneged and the rest is history.  Among the League of Professional Victims, this episode has become yet another one of the grievances – more fantasy, fiction and invention than reality – that fuels their daily angst.

That was the point of the post which claims that baker is “telling it like it is.” 

Now it’s not like the political problems with this Equalization fiddle weren’t fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the issues.  Or for that matter for anyone surrounded by a bunch of expert policy people all of whom were familiar with the whole thing. 

And it’s not like a majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted for Harper in 2005 despite the workings of the “considerable political machine.”  They saw through the whole thing from the beginning, apparently.

But despite all that, this fellow who usually says the Premier is always right contends that Danny Williams – super-lawyer, wonder negotiator, walker on water, bender of spoons - was duped.

Fooled.

Taken for a ride.

Played for a patsy.

He was a sucker.

He was outsmarted, outwitted, bamboozled, hoodwinked.

By Stephen Harper.

Of all people.

Yes, according to the province’s chief quisling hunter and boffo rally organizer, Danny Williams was Stephen Harper’s bitch.

Okay.

If Stephen Harper could con Danny Williams, who else has done it?

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Connie silliness

"I think (the comments) are very concerning. (You've) got a member of the Liberal caucus calling on the creation of a 'Bloc Newfoundland'," Kory Teneycke, Harper's spokesperson, said Wednesday.

Can anyone out there spot the two grammatical problems in the comments by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson?

Young Mr. Teneycke misuses two words, if that is of help.

“Concerning” means “regarding” or “with respect to”.  Thus Mr. Teneycke says that comments by Senator George Baker are ones that he “thinks are very with respect to.”

Does that make any sense?

Of course, it doesn’t.

“Concerning” is one of those words which has acquired an entirely new meaning through the misuse of a growing number of people. Irregardless, some of you might say; we all know what he meant. You may have even observed that Mr. Teneycke made his comments with such force that we know he was convicted of them.

Common misuse does not change the fact the word is being used incorrectly.  We simply do not know what he meant since the person responsible for conveying to the rest of us what the Prime Minister thinks is evidently unfamiliar with the language he was speaking.

We can make this observation with some conviction since Mr. Teneycke then claims that the Senator was “calling on” the creation a separatist political party. 

“To call on” means to pay a visit to or to appeal to someone for something. Is he saying that Senator baker paid the idea a visit?  Did the idea offer the Senator some refreshments?

You see the inherent silliness in the words, as used.

There’s more than a bit of silliness in the Conservative indignation over Senator Baker’s musings on separatism, of course.  They spent a couple of years cuddling up to their old friends now in the Bloc Quebecois in an effort to secure the majority government  that has thus far eluded them. They should hardly find it bothersome that Senator Baker said he would encourage the formation of a separatist party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

If anything is of public concern in Mr. Teneyke’s comments, however, it is that this gentleman is so evidently unskilled in the language and yet remains as the person responsible for speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister.

If this is any sign of the incompetence in the administration the Prime Minister leads, perhaps the only person being called on here ought to be the Governor General so that she might issue the appropriate writs.

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The other option

"How long do you take it? The time is up and if they keep doing this for another three years what other option would there be?" [Senator George] Baker said.

The other option, Senator Baker would be for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to reject the sort of nonsense represented by your comments.

Nonsense, fantasy, falsehood and fabrication have been the order of the political day in Newfoundland and Labrador for too long .

it’s time for some maturity to return to local political life.

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Big Brother is already watching

And he’s pretty curious to find out who Winston Smith is.

Who cares?

He – or she – writes interesting stuff.

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The ABC campaign by Fernando

Take a good look at this billboard.

It cost $56,000.

That includes over $38,000 for the board itself, another $16,000 for “planning” and another $1,130 for “services.

The money went to a company called Promoworks, Inc, which as some people have discovered is registered to the owner of Target Marketing.

You may recall Target as the agency of record for provincial government advertising. They also did the triffid logo thingy the provincial government now uses.

Promoworks is an interesting company. You won’t find it online. You won’t find it listed in the telephone book.

The only director of the company is Noel O’Dea, the guy behind Target Marketing. In fact, the mailing address for the company is the street address for Target.  Unlike the corporate registry entry for target, Promoworks has a different mailing address.  It’s a law firm – O’Dea Earle - which, among other things, is home to the Premier’s brother Tommy. 

Now there’s nothing unusual in any of that.

What’s odd is that the bills flowed through Promoworks when, by any reasonable deduction, the work was done by Target. It’s not unusual for an advertising agency to do political work like this, even an agency like Target whose client list includes Air Canada Jazz, McCains, A & P, Irving and other major brands. And it’s not like some simple sleuthing didn’t figure it out.

Yet for some reason the bills went through a legally registered company but one without any public face at all.

Odd.

The campaign bills themselves seem a bit odd too, odd if one considers they were supposed to be advertising for a national campaign.

A single billboard in downtown Toronto cost almost half the total budget for the project, if you consider only the actual line item in the financial statement for the billboard. People who know don’t measure advertising by the amount of media coverage it garnered.  They measure it by the impact it had on consumers and by all informed accounts, this sucker didn’t have any impact on consumers outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even allowing for some media coverage of the billboard, the total impact of that money would be negligible in the total amount of advertising, news work and other communications coming from the political campaigns themselves. It had about as much effect as a pebble tossed in the Atlantic in the middle of a hurricane.

It’s almost like this whole thing was supposed to look good even if it didn’t do anything substantive beyond generate billings, a campaign by Fernando if you will.

There are some niggling details that don’t add up here either.

Like the $244.50 for registering the domain “anythingbutconservative.ca”. It went to internic.ca, incidentally, not something called “intonic.ca”.  Registering the domain doesn’t give you content and there’s no bill for the website design in there anywhere, apparently. None of the amounts or labels match up to that.

Like splitting the contract between two advertising companies when Target/Promoworks could easily have handled the whole thing.

Like figuring out what “advertising services” constitutes that wasn’t captured in the rest of the bill or why a billboard required $16,000 in “planning.” 

Like what the heck is an Inbox Factory, anyways? That one still defies the searchers.

Rest assured though, they are still searching, even if all they turn up are more questions.

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Cuts, reductions, layoffs

1.  Vale Inco will be cutting jobs from its Canadian operations, including an unspecified number in Newfoundland and Labrador.

2.  Kruger, Inc will be reducing production at Corner Brook by 15,000 tonnes in 2009.  One of the mill’s machines will be idled for eight weeks.

3.  Iron Ore Company of Canada announced it has ceased work on refurbishing at pelletizing plant at Sept Iles.

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So what’s the delay on Cameron?

A technical problem prevented the Cameron Inquiry from delivering its report to the provincial government as promised on 28 February.

Okay.

That happens.

Government’s original plan was to release the thing publicly two days later, allowing time off for Sunday for the rest of us.

Again, fair enough. Compared to some reports which languish in government hands as “drafts” for the better part of a year or more, this is actually pretty good.

So how come government delayed the report release indefinitely once the technical glitch showed up?

It seems a pretty easy thing to release the report as soon as it is received.  Government might not be ready to give all the answers right away but then again they wouldn’t have been able to do much other than figure out their starting position if they’d gotten it on Saturday.  If the health minister is now dealing with something else, then at least tell everyone what is going on.

So why the extra hang-up?

It’s not like the Premier was originally planning to scrum on it anyways.

Get it out there and let’s start dealing with the report and all its details.

Hang on while we get in one last torque update: Delaying the announcement of a report into problems at Eastern Health and then announcing a new chief executive officer for the organization looks a bit like the sorts of issues management stunnedness that got everyone into the mess in the first place.

Is CRA still polling?  Could explain a lot.

And then it’s on, again Update:  The report will be released a day after it was supposed, given that it was received a day after it was supposed to be handed in.

And that couldn’t have been said before five minutes to three on Monday afternoon?

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Who got ABC cash?

The blood feud between Danny Williams and Stephen Harper may have netted Danny Williams something for the $81,000 his ABC campaign reportedly spent, but there’s no way of knowing at this point who really got all that cash.

Based on information contained  on the Elections Canada website, the companies listed as receiving disbursements from Williams’ ABC campaign don’t appear to exist.

On September 1, the Provincial Conservatives paid a company listed as “intonic.ca” $244 for something labelled as “website.”

intonic.ca gets a 404 page in response if you try to find its website using the logical domain.  An Internet search likewise netted zip-olla for a company called “intonic” let alone one that did anything related to web sites.

Another company – listed as The Inbox Factory – received over $24,000 for something called “TV/Newspaper”.

Try and find a company called Inbox Factory through a simple Internet search. A company that can co-ordinate national print and television advertising would likely be established enough to have garnered even a mention on the Internet.

Inbox Factory?

Nada.

Promoworks is a little different.

There is a Canadian company called Promoworks Inc.  It does custom geegaws for companies in the Vancouver area. There’s a similarly named company in Maryland that does the same sort of thing.

But a company that does  - apparently – media planning, superboard design and the media buy to go with it?

Not a sign.

More than $56,000 spent by ABC went to “Promoworks Inc.”.

Try and find any trace of that company on line.

This one is going to take some digging, evidently.

Yep.

None of this should come as a surprise though.  The Family Feud got off to a bad start, not realising they even had to register as a third party player and report their expenses.  Not realising that is until someone pointed it out to them.

Maybe people could ask John Babb, the registered agent for the Feud. He’s the guy who said:

“This is the election that could make and break relations between Newfoundland and Canada forever.”

There might be a bunch of good reasons to ask Babb a few questions about that whole campaign starting with that statement he made right at the start.

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The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

Or maybe not, according to the Russians.

David Pugliese has a neat blog entry on the whole flap of the past 24 hours coming out of the defence ministers odd comments about an interception of unspecified Russian aircraft by Canadian and American interceptors somewhere north of the continent.

Initial reports suggested the plane – which became two planes at some point – were Tu-95 BEARs.  File footage and still photos of BEARs turned up in all sorts of Canadian media.

The National Post ran a photograph of an Su-24 FENCER for a while in its online coverage.

The Russians said the aircraft were TU-160 BLACKJACKs and that the Canadians and Americans had been notified of the flight in advance. The Post is now running a picture of both Tupolev aircraft.

All of this raises a few questions:

1.  What’s the fuss?  The flights have been going on for a year and a half. It’s a far cry from the height of the Cold War.

2.  Did anyone see that?  Odd that NORAD hasn’t released any photos of the intercept mission.  That would clear up right away any of the obvious discrepancies in the story about how many aircraft were involved and what type they were.  For those whose knickers are in a twist over the security implications of the alleged intercept, the confusion in identifying the type should cause concern. 

Not only are the aircraft different visually, but they also look different on radar and have significantly different flying characteristics.  If Canadian operators can’t tell the difference between the two then we may have a much bigger issue if some sort of Cold War breaks out again between the Russians and the rest of us.

3.  And where are those icebreakers again, Peter?  The federal Conservatives were pushing Arctic sovereignty.  They had all sorts of promises about bases and new icebreakers. Nothing has materialised on this supposedly significant file.

Even worse, these guys  - Peter and his boss - can’t seem to sort out replacing a few replenishment vessels for the navy, a task that’s been in train for a while and which is much much higher up the order of priorities given that it affects naval operations along the east and west coast.  These guys are dealing daily with sovereignty issues much more pressing than the odd flight by the Russians.

What may have looked like some kind of virtuous media spin performance to some actually winds up being a giant national embarrassment no matter how you look at it.

Farce – as the Russians called it – doesn’t begin to describe it.

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No Lower Churchill in Nova Scotia Green Plan

Two things to note from the release of Nova Scotia’s green plan for energy conservation:

1.  Talk is cheap, again:  They actually have a plan, unlike Newfoundland and Labrador.

One was promised in 2005 but so far – and in keeping with the inability of this administration to do anything in a timely way – no details haven’t emerged that actually create meaningful targets for anything.

2.  Contrary to the sentence in the Chronicle-Herald’s coverage, there is no reference to the Lower Churchill in the plan itself.

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Use power profits for region: Pike

Former Abitibi public relations executive Roger Pike is suggesting the provincial government create a fund using the money generated by the hydroelectric assets seized by government in December. There’s a front page story accompanying Pike’s opinion piece in the Friday Telegram.

The money would be used to promote further economic development in central Newfoundland.  Pike believes the annual revenues generated by the assets could be as much as $35 million annually. After borrowing and other costs are considered, the net profit would be $15 million.

Pike also suggests that the provincial government will be entering a partnership with other operators at Star Lake and in a project on the Exploits even though the expropriation bill in December seized all assets and cancelled all rights held by any companies involved.

With Nalcor Energy now taking 50 per cent ownership positions (through expropriation) in Star Lake and the Exploits River Hydro Partnership (previously held by Abitibi) the profit from these two projects would be an enduring benefit to the province, and under the existing agreements the province would be the sole owner of these projects in 2022-2033 respectively, thus doubling their benefit.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts directly associated with the manufacturing of newsprint should be set aside to now provide the economic stimulus for our region.

Merely setting aside the energy from the 54 megawatts to attract a big industrial customer is not wise for one principal reason. An incentive based on energy alone is simply too restrictive in scope. Remember, AbitibiBowater had an energy subsidy but left.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts must be contained in a vehicle that stimulates our region. From what I understand, the energy produced by the 54 megawatts should be worth at least 7.5 cents per kilowatt/hour (KWH) to the island electrical system. At 7.5 cents, the annual revenues would amount to approximately $35 million. This is a fair chunk of change (a conservative estimate) being generated out of our small community.

The Telegram story rightly notes the controversy in central Newfoundland over the power assets and government’s plans. Bond Papers readers are already familiar with that.

One sign of the mounting public concern is a new website – municipalmatters.ca – that gives an online forum for people in central Newfoundland to discuss economic and other issues affecting the region.

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Freedom from information: the federal case

The federal information commissioner released his report card today on the performance of federal departments under the access to information law.

Six of 10 departments sampled failed to meet the minimum standard. The commissioner identifies reasons for these failings, mostly having to do with staff and resources.

Some of the issues faced by applicants will be familiar to anyone who has tried to use the access laws in Newfoundland and Labrador to garner information held by the provincial government.

While the federal problem appears to be one of resources, what is happening locally is an entire culture that is oriented toward preventing disclosure.

Officials do not merely seek to ensure that records that ought not to be released under the law (mandatory and discretionary exemptions) are withheld.

Instead, they seek to avoid releasing any information which government does not wish to release for reasons that go well beyond the ones provided in legislation.

It started in 2003-2004 with the Premier's insistence that government would not release public opinion polls.  The law was explicit on the subject: polls could not be withheld.  He ignored the law and only finally relented under considerable public pressure.

In subsequent examples, officials have simply invented ways of frustrating applicants and preventing disclosure.  Informal means of accessing information don't exist.  They have simply been abolished. One can only access information by filing out a form and paying money up front.

Even then, there is no guarantee of getting information even if the applicant knows the information exists and asks for it specifically. The Telegram’s request for purple files are a case in point.  The department simply determined they will not provide the records and claims that there are no records they will release on the request.  There are no “responsive records”, as they put it using that notion found no where in the province’s access laws.

It's pure contrivance, pure fiction.

The intent of the officials is unmistakable, however.  They simply do not wish to comply with the law as passed by the legislature.

In some instances the excuses are laughable.  Officials provide a computer print-out of the requested information yet deny that the information is stored electronically.

Departments are able to act outside the law since they do so with the consent - implicit or explicit as the case may be - of the politicians in charge. This seems patently obvious but it bears pointing out: if the people in charge did not sanction the approach to access requests being taken, they would change it.

Take, for example, a request for information on an administrative review that was never publicly announced.  The minister responsible uses an invented excuse to deny access:  the information cannot be released because the review is not completed. One would be naive to draw any conclusion but than that the politicians have something there they do not wish the public to see.

In Ottawa the freedom from information problem requires money to fix.  In Newfoundland and Labrador, any changes to the freedom from information problem will require something much more difficult to bring about:  a change in some people’s attitudes.

When that might occur is anyone’s guess.

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“The most serious threat to Gros Morne”

A report prepared as part of the 1987 application process to declare Gros Morne a World Heritage site labelled proposed transmission lines through the park for the Lower Churchill project as “the most serious threat to Gros Morne”.

The report said an environmental assessment determined the proposed route would affect the park’s caribou populations and plant life along the transmission line.  The summary report, prepared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, was submitted to the panel reviewing applications under the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage program. It also concluded the development wasn’t very likely but that the potential impacts needed to be clarified.

The NALCO proposal in 2009 does note potential impact on caribou in and around Gros Morne but indicates the company will continue to practice measures to mitigate the impacts even though the impacts are not precisely known.  There is no apparent reference to the earlier environmental assessment of the project in the 2009 proposal although it  includes a reference in the bibliography to the UNESCO website.

Gros Morne was selected as a World Heritage site for its relatively pristine environment, special geology and overall physical beauty.

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So where is the sustainable development act?

We asked the question already but in light of the Gros Morne fiasco, one must wonder what happened to a piece of legislation we were told in 2003 was supposed to help deal with federal provincial co-ordination on environmental issues.

Like the whole Lower Churchill project, not just slinging hydro lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

From the 2003 Provincial Conservative policy manual, no longer available on the party website:

A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

The Sustainable Development Act will be the legislative framework for a Strategic Environmental Management Plan, which will have the long-term goal of achieving environmental and economic sustainability and a high quality of life for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The Plan will incorporate management systems that:

• Integrate environmental considerations into all government decision-making processes.
• Involve all sectors of the Province in identifying common values and working towards a shared vision of a sustainable and prosperous future.
• Utilize a variety of experts to ensure that management decisions are guided by reliable information.
• Provide a framework to coordinate activities across federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions, and cooperation among various government departments and agencies.
• Create a stable and predictable regulatory environment that will benefit all interests.
• Promote the use of environmentally-friendly technology to meet the objective of sustainable, responsible resource development.
• Promote private sector investment in recycling, heritage conservation, eco-tourism and other business opportunities in the environment sector.
• Make use of environmental resources to create new wealth and generate employment in rural areas of the Province. [Bolding added]

Promised 2003.

Passed 2007.

Still not in force, 2009 and no sign of it showing up soon.

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Gros Morne controversy hits the Globe

Only a couple of weeks ago the tinfoil hat brigade was crowing because one of their cherished delusions made it to the Globe.

Then the Premier explained there was no problem with the Labrador border.

So then the whole thing became the Globe’s fault for trying to invent controversy.

Now the Premier is back in the Globe again, this time as the supporter of that idea to sling 43 metre high towers through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This one has turned out to be a big political problem domestically and it will soon turn into an international controversy.

That sort of stuff is always good for raising capital and generally creating the image of place where you’d like to do business.

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