Williams offers to subsidize AbitibiBowater

No matter how you slice this, any severance pay going to former AbitibiBowater employees in Newfoundland and Labrador will come out of taxpayers’ pockets.

"Any cheque that is going to be passed over to Abitibi in compensation for the assets that basically have been expropriated through legislation will have to take into consideration severance…”

Williams said it could mean the government cutting a big cheque to AbitibiBowater, and the company uses that money to pay the severance, or the government could deduct the value of the severance payments from the compensation and then send that money directly to the employees.

Two questions:

1.  Why are taxpayers going to be on the hook for something the company would or should have been paying anyway?

2.  If that’s the case, why doesn’t the government just cough up the cash and then sort it out with AB later on, rather than leave the workers hanging?

BTW, the CBC story that extract comes from got its headline all wrong.  There’s no ultimatum involved at all. 

AbitibiBowater chief executive David Paterson is likely rubbing his hands together in glee since now he won’t have to worry about paying out severance to the local workers.  Danny’s gonna pick up the tab for him.

At the same time, the government’s energy monopoly gets the assets at a cut rate with none of the power being earmarked for industry in central Newfoundland.

AB wins.

Nalco wins.

Who loses?

Just think about it for a second.

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Tory-gate hits 30K mark

There’s at least $30,000 of public money for Tory party work in the Ed Byrne statement of facts, according to the official opposition. 

They popped out a news release yesterday that included a table of other PC party spending in the Byrne fraud and bribery conviction case.  The local media haven’t touched this angle of the story at all, oddly enough.

This money isn’t covered by the restitution order, contrary to the claim of former PC Party president – and current deputy Premier – Kathy Dunderdale.  She told the legislature her party was prepared to pay the money back (she meant the 3K from St. Barbe) but decided against it because Byrne had been ordered to pay it back.

Makes you wonder who gave Dunderdale and her colleagues the really bad advice.  Anyone who read the decision by Judge Mark Pike would have known the difference. It’s pretty obvious.

Of course, the Byrne agreed statement only covers a portion of the total.  According to the agreed statement, Byrne received a total of $501,507 in constituency allowance payments with the bulk of it coming in FY 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Byrne only copped to paying back $117,300 which, according to the statement, seems to be what he took for himself. The rest is pretty much a black hole.  The public has no idea where their money went. 

All the Tory party spending  detailed below  isn’t in the restitution order.  No one knows how much more there is since the government and the chief electoral officer  - himself a former president of the Tory Party - are refusing to investigate.

Tory Trevor Taylor, elected in the other by-election in January 2001, called the whole sordid mess in the House dating back to 2000 “dirt and filth”,  a“serious stain on the political face of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

He’s absolutely right, of course.

But then Taylor voted against an investigation into the large chunks of the mess that haven’t been looked at by the police and that will likely keep going unexplored as long as Taylor and his colleagues have their way.

And it’s not like Taylor is unaware of the legal niceties of all this.  Get a load of his comments about the $30K:

The only piece that is within the purview of the Chief Electoral Officer, as far as I know, is the $3,000 that was spent on the St. Barbe campaign in the by-election of 2001. That is the only thing that he has authority to look at. He has no authority to go and look at how some funds may or may not have been sourced from constituency allowance and then utilized to conduct research for the PC Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is where the RNC came in. That is where the courts came in. That is where the Auditor General came in. That is who has responsibility for that. [Emphasis added]

Somebody has been doing their research into reasons why not to go looking, evidently.

At the end of it all, the most apt description of what’s been happening with Tory-gate came, ironically enough from Ross Wiseman.  The guy who got elected as a Liberal and then crossed the floor said this:

I am not supporting this motion because it reeks of cheap politics. It is partisan politics of its worst.

He’s right but not in the way he seems to have intended.  The sordid mess began as partisan politics at its worst, continued as partisan politics at its worst – as the Byrne case now makes plain, stayed the course of cheap partisan politics in June 2006 and now remains exactly where it has been:  in the political gutter.

Wiseman, Taylor and their 34 colleagues ensured that by continuing to oppose an investigation that would root out all the rot, no matter what party it was in.

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-  Gus Coombs received a payment of approximately $2,000 from Edward Byrne for an expense he incurred while running as a candidate in the 1999 Provincial Election

$2000

Page 10, paragraph 31

-  A cheque was located showing that Gus Coombs receive a cheque for $3,600.

$3600

Page 10, paragraph 32

-  Wayne Clark stated that around that time in 2001, he was assisting in running a byelection campaign for Wally Young in the district of St. Barbe. Wayne Clark stated that, at that time, he did receive a payment for his services and expenses and it would have been for approximately $3,000.

$3000

Page 11, paragraph 35

-  Charles White stated that they billed the PC Party $10,000 and they received two payments in the form of personal cheques from Edward Byrne. One payment was for $4,000 and one payment of $5,000 and they wrote off the remaining $1,000.

$9000

Page 11, paragraph 42

-  Gina Steele had worked as a receptionist in the PC Party Office.

She stated that she had received a personal cheque of $1500 from Edward Byrne around the fall of 2000. She stated that Edward Byrne had given her the cheque because he felt bad about her being let go from her job around September 2000.

$1500

Page 12-13, paragraph 46

-  Vernon Smith stated he did some work for Edward Byrne and the PC Party around December of 1999. Vernon Smith stated he believed he was paid about $4,000 for this work. Vernon Smith was shown a copy of a personal cheque of Edward Byrne dated December 22, 1999, in the amount of $4,025 which was made payable to him. Vernon Smith acknowledged that

He received this cheque and that it was his signature on the back of the cheque.

$4,025

Page 13-14, paragraph 51

-  Noella Hynes acknowledged being given $1,500 by Edward Byrne. Noella Hynes stated that she had been promised a job by Edward Byrne so she quit the job that she had been working at, only to find out that there was no job with the PC Party. She said that Edward Byrne gave her $1,500 to help her out until she got another job.

$1500

Page 14, paragraph 14

-  Derek Connolly stated he did work for Edward Byrne and the PC Party, but he had been paid by Government issued cheques. Derek

Connolly acknowledged he did receive a personal cheque from Edward Byrne for $1,200, but could not remember for what purpose.

$1200

Page 14, paragraph 61

-  Supporting documents attached to a claim was an invoice in the amount of $3,944.21 from Canadian Helicopters. The invoice was dated January 10, 2001, and the flight date was January 3, 2001.

(this trip would have been for organizing by-elections on the Northern Peninsula)

$3,944.21

Page  17, paragraph 73

Total: $29,769.21

Disquieting similarities

Via labradore, a disquieting trend among certain people leaving comments on various websites over time.

1.  During the Cameron Inquiry when the Premier raised a stink about the way Madam Justice Margaret Cameron was conducting the inquiry:

“another waste of our tax money.”

2.  From 2007, when a question was raised about giving extra cash to the New Democrats even though they’d lost one of their two seats in the legislature:

“Waste of tax dollars.”

3.  On Tory-gate:

“… an investigation will be a complete waste of money!”

The same refrain has been used constantly, like from April 22 and the longer string of comments from the question of the day over at voice of the cabinet minister.

labradore didn’t get ‘em all yet, though.

4.  How about a federal Tory talking point about the Mulroney-Schreiber affair?  Across the country, the faithful deployed their talking points to newspaper letters pages and online comments in droves all with the same refrain:

“waste of money”

5.  Does anyone remember the Tory Talking Point when the whole House of Assembly scandal first broke open and some of us called for a public inquiry into the whole mess?

Well, there was a line that started right at the beginning, namely that Danny Williams was responsible for rooting out the bad stuff.

It was there on Day Two.  That was the day the rest of us found out about it.  Day One was actually the date on which Ed Byrne told the Premier the Auditor General was poking into Byrne’s allowances.

That same theme was also there when they announced the appointment of what became the Green Commission:

In light of recent findings of the Auditor General into the finances of the House of Assembly, Premier Danny Williams today announced that his government will build upon the successful reforms already implemented since forming government.

And that theme continues right down to the latest revelations about public money funnelled illegally and improperly to pay for Tory party operations between 2000 and 2003. Try Trevor Taylor from the debate on a motion to appoint an investigation into the sordid mess. 

Taylor voted against looking into what he described as “filth” but not before he went back to the Tory Talking Point Number One:

none of this would have uncovered and laid bare before the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, had it not been for the election of 2003 when Premier Williams and this government were installed in this place as the government.

But what was Talking Point Number Two, the one used to deal with calls for a public inquiry?

Take a guess.

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In which Pooh worries about H1N1 Influenza A

Warren the K: anti-tobacco lobbyist

Effective March 1, 2009, Warren Kinsella is a registered lobbyist with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as part of a nation-wide effect to spark up some kind of law suit against Big Tobacco.

Here’s an extract from file number CL-272-216:

Particulars:
Launch legal proceedings to recover financial damages to the Ministry of  Health caused by the harmful effects of tobacco products. Assist the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as part of a national coalition pursuing co-ordinate civil legal actions to recover financial damages to respective health-care systems caused by the harmful effects of tobacco products.

Registration Number:
CL-272-216

Lobby Activity Date:
2009-03-02

Status:
Approved

Effective Date:
2009-03-01

Amended Date:
2009-03-02

Approval Date:
2009-03-03

Kinsella’s registered in other province’s effective the same day on what appears to be the same project.

Two observations:

1.  The provincial government launched a tobacco lawsuit almost a decade ago. The thing has lived in some sort of limbo for legal briefs ever since. Odds are against it suddenly restarting now matter how passionate everyone is about the project.

2.  Good idea as this might be, you can tell who has real political juice and who doesn’t in this province by looking at the registry.  Friends of the party in power – for example,  the people with the ability to pull tens of millions out of the public coffers – never have to register as lobbyists. 

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Total shocker: Abitibi pensioners version

AbitibiBowater is in bankruptcy protection.

The company has stopped topping up unfunded employee pensions on the good-faith basis they’ve been operating on when they had money. As a result some people are getting less money and some are getting none at all.

And you know it is not like someone did not see this coming.

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Fitz can give him some pointers

Former Connie/Tory member of parliament Bill Casey is Nova Scotia’s new ambassador to Hy’s.

Maybe our own Man in a Blue Line Cab can give him some pointers what with that whole embassy thing having proven to be so monumentally effective for Newfoundland and Labrador.

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The House of Assembly, condensed

1.  bit courtesy of Courtesy of nottawa.

For the record, the grandstanding was not supplied by the Premier.

He is apparently still on some sort of vacation – yet again – and couldn’t be in the legislature.

2.  Meanwhile, people in the province yesterday learned that – contrary to comments by his supporters – the Premier does collect his salary in full. 

The admission came from finance minister Jerome Kennedy during questioning on the budget estimates:

Mr. Chairman, first, again, I think the Leader of the Opposition knows better in terms of the Premier’s salary. It is my understanding that Finance told him he had to take the salary in order to donate it to charity, which is essentially what he does. To leave any other impression, I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, is not fair. The Premier’s salary is provided to, I think it is the Williams Family Foundation, which then distributes it to charity. The Premier of this Province does not receive one cent to himself for the benefit of what he does. Unlike the rest of us, or at least unlike me, I use my salary to live.

And by “not one cent of benefit”, presumably the finance minister does not include in that estimate accumulating pension entitlements and taking the tax breaks on the donations which go – it must be pointed out – to the family charity run by his wife, daughter and family friend.

Notice, as well, the construction of Kennedy’s sentence which clearly leaves the impression the goal of the exercise was to make the donation, not avoid taking a salary.

He apparently never heard of a “dollar-a-year” man.

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Speed kills

…a political career.

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Phake photos add up to more tourism travails

As you can see at Geoff Meeker’s blog and at labradore, the provincial tourism departments advertising campaigns are marred by what amounts to fake photography.

That is, the company behind the campaign has taken a couple of shots and then through a series of deletions and additions created something that actually doesn’t exist all in aid of getting people to come here to experience something which is, according to one advert, as far from Disneyland as you can get.

Uh huh.

Now that might actually be true since the evidently invented, fanciful and ultimately fake stuff you experience at Disneyland or Disney World actually exists at the theme park.

The stuff in the pictures does not.

So at least in that bit they told the truth, just not in the way most people would take the meaning if they didn’t know the little photoshop of horrors involved.

To give you some sense of the manipulation involved both blog posts include both unedited shots and the doctored outcomes. 

It’s worth taking the time to look at both just to see not only how much doctoring has been done but how much the sights didn’t need the creativity of the Picassos of pixilation.

This is just the latest in a string of problems in the tourism ministry over the past few years.  The province’s energy corporation plans to drive a string of gawdawful high voltage electricity towers right through a UNESCO World heritage site.  Never mind that one of the tourism television ads this year highlights Gros Morne as a destination known for its unspoiled natural beauty, as you’ll see in Meeker’s post.

Nope, seems the geniuses at NALCO think the rest of us just need to be “educated” on why their solution  - 43 metre high towers right along key sight lines - is the only one that’s right. 

Then there was last summer’s little round of bullshit  - as we noted not once, not twice but thrice - with the billboard along the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto.

And all of that comes against the backdrop of an advertising campaign that is costing about double what it did four years ago but which isn’t seeing comparable growth in the actual numbers of  real tourists. 

In fact, the only real growth to speak of has been in locals who stay home in the summer.  They are doing that not because of watching tourism spots on CTV Newsnet every 15 bloody minutes but because it’s cheaper to stay home than travel what with the dollar at less than par.

Now that lack of results is not so much an issue with the advertiser as it is with the department headed up by a minister who is, for the most part, one of those resident visitors to the capital city region his department likes to talk about.

You see, the minister hits the taxpayers with the bills for his visits to the office in St. John’s rather than buy or rent a home here out of his own expenses like the rest of us would have to do.  He’s not alone either; almost half the cabinet nails the taxpayers for the cost of travel back and forth between their offices in St. John’s and their homes in various parts of the province.

To get back to the point:  the problem is that the current administration’s whole master plan for tourism has been to simply throw money into advertising.  That’s their phantasmagorical never-seen-before-in-the-history-of-human-civilization strategy, and despite the evidence that sheer volumes of dollars don’t work, they are determined to carry on with all the ingenuity of Douglas Haig.

When it comes to authentic tourism events, the minister – like his entire cabinet seatmates – don’t seem to know anything beyond trying to get the feds to pony up.  The sorts of people who come to Newfoundland and Labrador  go to places to see something different and real, something that actually is as far from Disneyland as you can imagine.

Too bad our whole tourism promotion is built around fakery.

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Tory-gate: the opinion columns version

From the Saturday Telegram, Russell Wangersky’s column:

In fact,  [chief electoral officer Paul] Reynolds defends the spending by saying that even if the under-the-table cash were added to the declared funding, "neither the PC candidate nor the party would have exceeded the legislated expenditure limits for the electoral district in that byelection."

That's not the point.

The point is how did $3,000 in spending end up off the books, and could there be other off-book spending in the province's elections?

Could there be?  A look at the information already in the public domain suggests  there was.

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Two charged with 73 election finance violations

Hang on, there.

Don’t get excited.

It isn’t Tory-gate. 

The mayor of Vaughan, Ontario and her husband have been charged with election expense violations following an investigation:

Vaughan Mayor Linda Jackson and her husband, Mario Campese, have been formally charged with violations of election finance rules in the run-up to her narrow 2006 victory against former mayor Michael Di Biase.

Jackson was served with 68 charges at her home yesterday afternoon by a representative of independent prosecutor Timothy Wilkin, who was hired by Vaughan City Council to determine whether such charges should be laid under the Municipal Elections Act.

Her husband, who served as her campaign manager, also faces five charges, including accepting illegal cash contributions.

How sad could it be when a small city in Ontario has higher election finance ethics standards than the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Freedom from Information: another missing report by Bill Marshall

Coincidence of coincidences.

Your humble e-scribbler mentions Bill Marshall in jest in a post that connects back to the whole Ed Byrne Tory-gate spending scandal.

As it turns out, on the very same day that Danny Williams decided to tell the world about the auditor general’s investigation of Ed Byrne back in June 2006  justice minister Tom Marshall released government’s response to the Lamer commission report into wrongful convictions.  Williams had known of the AG investigation since the middle of the day before he made it public, apparently, but that’s another story.

Anyway…

June 21, 2006.

Gee.

And right there in the middle of the release is an announcement that former cabinet minister and retired supreme court judge Bill Marshall would be running a review of the Crown prosecutor’s office, as Antonio Lamer recommended:

Establishing an independent review of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is one of the recommendations Minister [Tom] Marshall [no relation to Bill] said government will implement immediately.  Commissioner Lamer recommends that an independent review be called to ensure that steps have been taken or will be taken to eliminate the "Crown culture" that contributed to the wrongful conviction of Gregory Parsons, and was also evident in the prosecution of Randy Druken. 

"This is an important recommendation on which government must act immediately and we are pleased that retired Court of Appeal Justice, William Marshall, will immediately head up the review," said Minister Marshall. "The review will be very thorough, independent and at arms length; it will examine resources, training, morale and the systemic issues identified in the report." [bold and italics added]

Immediately head up the review but not immediately finish the thing, as it turns out.

Just  a few weeks shy of three years after Bill Marshall immediately headed up the review into Lamer’s recommendation 18, there’s no apparent sign the work of the government’s favourite Grand Inquisitor is anywhere near done. [the link in the picture is dead]
 
Perhaps the former Supreme Court Justice and Tory cabinet minister has been too busy with another review, this one of inland fisheries. 

The second one was a sort of star chamber, since the whole thing was never announced. 
Indeed, government has never revealed either the scope of inland fisheries probe or when Marshall started work on it.  Opposition House leader Kelvin Parsons asked a question in the House about an access to information request that wanted to find out some basic stuff about the judge’s inquest – like how much it had cost so far – but the minister answered with a mere two sentences:

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the review being undertaken by retired Judge William Marshall, I believe the review is not completed to this point. Obviously, the information could not be disclosed until we have the results of the review.

That, dear friends, is all we know of that one.

So now we have it:

Two investigations.

Same guy, running both.

Zero results.

Unknown costs.

And it’s not like Bill Marshall isn’t popular when it comes to the current administration. 

Way back in October 2003, the guy who started campaigning for the premier’s job in the now infamous St. Barbe by-election appointed Bill Marshall as sort of a watchdog:

Bill Marshall, a recently retired Appeal Court judge and former PC cabinet minister, will act as the liaison between Williams and departing premier Roger Grimes. 

Liberals warned against new contracts 

Williams says the outgoing Liberal government should not make any plans for spending announcements. 

"I don't expect them to do that, "he says. "That would be irresponsible for an outgoing government that, no longer has a mandate to take those kind of actions. So, I'm trusting that Mr. Grimes and his government will do the honourable thing, and I expect them to do that."

The whole thing was just another of the nasty, mean-spirited, petty, small-minded, miserable  little insinuations about others that Danny Williams likes to make, as we have come to learn.

As it also turns out, the guy who started his latest political life as the Premier’s watchdog has, in his retirement, become a sort of Tory Torquemada – if you will plant your tongue firmly in cheek – ready, nay eager, to take on any investigation, inquiry or inquisition that needs to be done.

Too bad he apparently can’t finish them.

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Tory-gate: former electoral officer supports spending probe

Paul Reynolds’ predecessor knows that to do.

Former chief electoral officer Chuck Furey says that he’d have appointed a retired judge to investigate the St. Barbe by-election.

Furey, a former Liberal cabinet minister, now lives in Dominica.  Furey was Danny Williams’ pick for the chief electoral officer three years ago.  At the time of Furey’s appointment, Williams’ new release described the OCEO job like this:

The Chief Electoral Officer operates under the Elections Act 1991 and is responsible for exercising general direction and supervision over the administrative conduct of elections and enforcing fairness, impartiality and compliance with the act.

Williams handed the job to former Tory party president Paul Reynolds when Furey resigned. The news release at the time Williams announced Reynolds as his choice  described the office’s responsibilities with exactly the same words.

The release didn’t include Reynolds’ extensive pedigree with the province’s Tory party in the release.

For reasons that should be obvious, Furey’s comments virtually guarantee there won’t be an investigation into campaign finance irregularities in at least one by-election held since 2000.

For reasons that should be even more obvious, Furey’s advice is sound.  In a situation where there is a question of irregularities – especially a question of irregularities involving the party the chief electoral officer is tied to – the most sensible thing to do is call in an independent person and have them sort through the mess.

Anything else – anything else  - gives the controversy legs.

Refusing to investigate, especially using a preposterous series of excuses, just looks suspicious.

After all,  if things really were as innocuous, limited and uneventful as Reynolds claims, then why not have some impartial investigator have a look?

Just don’t look to get Witch-hunt Willie Marshall on the case.  He’s already busy with a sooper- sekrit investigation that he apparently hasn’t finished yet and the government refuses to talk about.

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AbitibiBowater launches NAFTA challenge

The following was released today by AbitibiBowater (paragraphing changed for legibility):

US$
ABWTQ (OTC)
ABH (TSX)

MONTREAL, April 23 /CNW Telbec/ - AbitibiBowater today filed a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") with regards to the expropriation of its assets and rights in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is the Company's position that the passing of Bill 75, which expropriates the Company's provincial assets and contractual rights to natural resources, by the provincial government was arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal. AbitibiBowater is seeking in excess of CDN$300 million in direct compensation for the fair market value of the expropriated rights and assets, plus additional costs and further relief as the Arbitral Tribunal may deem just and appropriate.

In early December 2008, AbitibiBowater announced various capacity-reduction measures, including the permanent closure of its Grand Falls mill, as a result of the economic downturn and decline in product demand. In retaliation, the province hastily passed Bill 75, without any attempt to consult with the Company and without holding any public hearings.

The Company has asserted in the Notice of Intent that Bill 75 unquestionably breaches Canada's NAFTA obligations on a number of grounds, including among others:

- Basis of Expropriation: NAFTA explicitly details the grounds under which government expropriation can occur. The criteria for expropriation are not met in Bill 75.

- Fair Compensation: AbitibiBowater is entitled to immediate, full and fair compensation. Bill 75 does not ensure payment for the fair market value of the expropriated rights and assets.

- Denial of Justice: Bill 75 purports to strip AbitibiBowater of any rights to access the courts, which is independently a violation of NAFTA.

- Discrimination: AbitibiBowater should be afforded the same rights and privileges as all other domestic and foreign investors. Bill 75 is retaliatory in nature and discriminates against the Company.

"AbitibiBowater has been operating in Newfoundland and Labrador for more than a century, contributing significantly to the region's economic, social and sustainable development," stated David J. Paterson, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"The nationalization of our assets was unexpected and an unnecessary course of action. It came despite our proactive outreach to form a joint working group to address and resolve all issues related to our rights and assets in the province. The Company remains open to seeking a collaborative resolution with the federal and provincial governments."

The expropriation relates to a broad range of AbitibiBowater's rights in Newfoundland and Labrador, including land rights, timber rights, water use rights and various other related rights and business partnerships, and these rights can be traced back in part to grants by the provincial government and its predecessors, as well as to other third-party transactions. In addition to the substantial sums it expended to acquire these rights, the Company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the province over the last century, ranging from capital investments in mill operations to road projects that have helped build rural Newfoundland.

Since the Company is incorporated in the state of Delaware and carries out business activities in the United States, the expropriation of rights and assets represents a breach of Canada's obligations to a U.S. investor under Chapter Eleven of NAFTA.

The Company has filed this notice as part of the dispute resolution mechanism available under NAFTA and will submit the claim to arbitration in three months, pursuant to the relevant NAFTA provisions, should this matter not be resolved by that date.

"It is our obligation to defend the interests of our shareholders and ensure we receive compensation for the fair market value of the expropriated assets, plus additional damages. With this notice, we have taken the first step in pursuing legal actions," added David Paterson.

Media should take note that copies of the Notice of Intent under Chapter Eleven of NAFTA are available upon request. The following paragraphs may be of interest:

NAFTA Provisions Breached: Paragraphs 6-7
Underlying Facts: Paragraphs 8-11
About AbitibiBowater: Paragraphs 12-17
AbitibiBowater's History and Rights in the Province: Paragraphs 18-29
Additional Investments: Paragraphs 30-33
The Hydro Assets: Paragraphs 34-41
The Grand Falls Mill Closure Plan: Paragraphs 42-51
The Province's Ultimatum: Paragraphs 52-54
The Province's "Justifications": Paragraphs 55-58
Expropriation: Paragraphs 59-67
Denial of Justice: Paragraphs 68-69
Lack of Compensation: Paragraphs 70-71
NAFTA Violations: Paragraphs 72-86
Relief Sought: Paragraph 87

AbitibiBowater produces a wide range of newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products. It is the eighth largest publicly traded pulp and paper manufacturer in the world.

AbitibiBowater owns or operates 23 pulp and paper facilities and 30 wood products facilities located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea.

Marketing its products in more than 90 countries, the Company is also among the world's largest recyclers of old newspapers and magazines, and has third-party certified 100% of its managed woodlands to sustainable forest management standards. AbitibiBowater's shares trade over-the-counter on the Pink Sheets under the stock symbol ABWTQ.

For further information: Investors: Duane Owens, Vice President, Finance, (864) 282-9488; Media and Others: Seth Kursman, Vice President, Communications and Government Affairs, (514) 394-2398, seth.kursman@abitibibowater.com

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Tory-gate shocker: Williams backs hand-picked chief electoral officer

What else would we expect the Premier to do but back the guy he picked for the job?

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Tory-gate: Making wrong a right

1. labradore does the usual fine job of documenting the Progressive Conservative Party’s reliance on paid campaign staff.  Note especially the relatively heavy amounts spent in certain districts in certain elections.

Paying staff isn’t the problem.

Paying them with stolen money would be.

Paying them with money improperly obtained (but not stolen) would be especially if that money – as in the St. Barbe case – was never reported publicly as required by law.

No one can claim there were no rules this time out.

2.  The curious nature of former PC party president – and current chief electoral officer – Paul Reynold’s reliance on false information to justify his refusal to investigate the (alleged) election spending wrongdoing.

We know, as an incontrovertible matter of fact, that the election finance reports filed by the Progressive Conservatives for the 2001 by-election are wrong.  Contrary to the Elections Act, 1991, they do not include all party spending on the by-election.

That’s been established in the agreed statement of facts coming out of the recent conviction of former party leader Ed Byrne’s recent conviction for fraud and corruption.

It’s implicit in his curious statement, linked above.

Why they don’t is a matter to be determined.

Then Reynold’s relies on documents he knows to be wrong to justify doing nothing:

The reports filed on behalf of the PC candidate in the 2001 by-election and by the party indicated election expenses totaling $17,362. Even including the amount of $3,000 identified in the statement of facts released with respect to the Ed Byrne criminal proceedings, neither the PC candidate nor the party would have exceeded the legislated expenditure limits for the electoral district in that by-election.

That might be true if we knew that the $3,000 was all the illegal spending involved.

But we don’t.

and we don’t know because Reynolds is refusing to do his job.

In the Byrne case,  we only have a partial accounting of the Byrne case.  We only know where about roughly where $173,000 went when in fact Byrne received the better part of a half million in the years between 2001, 2002, 2003.  Coincidentally, those are the years leading up to the 2003 general election.  There were also a few by-elections in there as well, including the one in St. Barbe which the Provincial Conservatives campaigned so hard to win.

They fought so hard that their new leader – acclaimed the day after the by-election vote – used it as an example of the turning tide of Tory fortunes.  heck, the new leader even spent pretty much all the campaign driving around in his Winnebago campaigning for the party.

But that is digression.

We know how much money went astray in the Byrne case.

We don’t know where it went.

We don’t because the chief electoral officer is using any excuse at his disposal to avoid investigating his old political party.

He said we didn’t need an investigation because they guy that won, won a second time so things must be okay.

Now he’s telling us that documents that he knows are wrong can actually be right, as long as it means he doesn’t have to investigate his old friends.

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Offshore board invites public comment on Hebron project environmental document

Form the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board:

The public is invited to comment on the draft comprehensive study scoping document for the Hebron Development Project being proposed by ExxonMobil Canada Properties on behalf of its co-venturers, Chevron Canada, Petro-Canada, StatoilHydro and Nalcor.

The Hebron Project will include activities associated with installation, drilling and production, maintenance, and decommissioning of a concrete gravity-based structure (GBS) at the Hebron Field, northeast Grand Banks. The Hebron Project will also involve construction activities at two locations, the Hebron Field and the Bull Arm marine facilities in Bull Arm, Trinity Bay. Construction activities are scheduled to commence in 2012, with petroleum production to begin in 2016 or 2017.

Pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEA Act), the Hebron Project is subject to a Comprehensive Study level of assessment. Pursuant to Section 21(1) of the CEA Act, the C-NLOPB, on behalf of the responsible authorities for the federal environmental assessment of the project (C-NLOPB, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Transport Canada, Environment Canada and Industry Canada), is inviting the public to comment on the proposed scope of the project. The scoping document defines the plan for the environmental assessment and outlines the extent of the project and the elements to be assessed.

The Board will accept written public comments on the scoping document until noon on Friday, May 22, 2009.

The Project Description and Scoping Document are available on the Board’s website, www.cnlopb.nl.ca or by e-mailing ead@cnlopb.nl.ca.

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Media Contact:

Sean Kelly, APR (709) 778-1418 (office) (709) 689-0713 (cell) skelly@cnlopb.nl.ca

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Tory-gate: the PC party election spending scandal

1.  The Chief Electoral Officer’s statement on why he is refusing to investigate.

Note that CEO Paul Reynolds apparently only spoke with unnamed Progressive Conservative Party officials after he told CBC’s David Cochrane that he would not be investigating the matter as he felt the by-election had been conducted properly:

They [unnamed party officials] indicated that they became aware of this issue when the statement of facts relating to the Ed Byrne Constituency Allowance fraud case was brought forward by a CBC reporter, this being the same time that my office was made aware of the situation.

2.  The legal argument against Reynolds:

306. (1) No person other than the chief financial officer of a registered party or candidate shall authorize election expenses for that party or candidate and no election expenses shall be incurred except by a chief financial officer or a person designated in writing by a chief financial officer for that purpose.

So if Mr. Reynolds' assertion is correct, why are there no charges, and why is there no investigation?

3.  The logical argument against Reynolds:

Given the severity of the potential breach of justice, the lack of initial evidence does not constitute a prima facie case against a full investigation into whether stolen money was indeed used to fund a provincial election campaign.

Reynolds' statement contains 4 attempts of negative proof, otherwise known as argumentum ad ignorantiam. For a pithy explanation, see Fallacy Files: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html

The case against this type of argumentation is simple: a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence.

4.  Three years after the House of Assembly spending scandal story broke, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador still do not know the answers to simple questions:

• Who knew?
• What did they know?
• When did they know it?
• Where did the money go?

It’s not like someone didn’t suggest this at the outset:

Make no mistake: AG Noseworthy's inquiries and the police investigation will not root out the answers to all the questions raised by this scandal which itself is without precedent in the province for over 80 years.

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Word from the bunker: Reynolds issues red herring statement

Chief electoral officer Paul Reynolds – under fire over the Progressive Conservative Party election spending scandal - issued a written statement late Tuesday attempting to justify his inaction in the case.

In the statement, Reynolds now claims he conducted a cursory review prior to concluding nothing further needed to be done. The statement contains a series of non sequiturs - colloquially known as red herrings - that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Reynolds, a former president of the Progressive Conservative Party and a district PC party official at the time of his appointment, apparently spoke only to unidentified representatives of the PC party. There is no indication of when he spoke with the unnamed individuals.

The statement bears a time stamp of 4:55 PM, but as of 6:53 PM, the statement was not available on the provincial government website.

More to follow, once the statement is available online.

D'oh Update: Reynolds pulled a real Homer moment with this statement, as will become plain in the days ahead. Let's just start out with issuing the statement at the end of the day. In light of the recent boner play at Eastern Health, this one is sure to earn the scorn of local reporters.

For those who are looking for some evening entertainment, the ever-reliable labradore has posted a copy of the release which - as of almost 9:30 PM Newfoundland time is still not available at the government website.

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