Nova Scotia goes orange

They did it the old-fashioned way, working district by district and over a number of years to build up the party and its infrastructure.

“I've believed right from the beginning that we had to move the party into a mainstream position where we were in touch with the everyday lives of ordinary people,” he [NDP leader Darrell Dexter] said before the start of this campaign.

“I think people have begun to realize that the values that the New Democratic Party stand for are the values of the people of the province and it's just a matter of how we go about presenting them.”

There’s a lesson in there for some people.

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Eerie similarities

Stephen Harper:

A defiant Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended his embattled natural resources minister on Tuesday, dismissing the opposition's call for him to fire Lisa Raitt over controversial comments caught on tape as "cheap politics”.

Someone who is not Stephen Harper:

“This is a significant issue with tremendous impact on many families and women in this province. To try to play politics with it, I guess, speaks to the credibility of the members who are raising it in that fashion. It speaks to the depths they will reach to try to play cheap politics in this province," said
Wiseman.

Someone else who isn’t Stephen Harper:

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

Well, it isn’t really a similarity except that politicians who are in a tough spot, who may be trying to defend the indefensible, usually have nothing better to do than accuse someone of playing “cheap” politics with an issue.

If they don’t say that they accuse their political opponents of “political games” or “political opportunism” even though in the course of the scrum cum rant, the politician admitted they’d been sitting on information for the better part of the last year. [Hint: Check the scrum video for the bit about when government knew about the computer search for the word “breast”. Further hint: it wasn’t April 2009]

Condescension is the least effective form of political argument.

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What are the odds…

That a mid-20 something has the experience and maturity to serve as the media aide to a cabinet minister in any jurisdiction in Canada?

Pretty slim, as it turns out.

What are the odds that cabinet ministers anywhere in the country will start hiring based on something other than the current  - obviously insufficient - requirements?

Pretty slim.

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Nova Scotia Election checklist

The seats to watch, via labradore, with rationale.

Commentary that beats the shite out of most of the stuff coming from the people who get paid to make commentary like this.

Yes, Don, that includes you.

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The Raitt Tapes story

Via the Chronicle Herald, now that the injunction application has failed:

“They’re terrified of the issues,” said Ms. Raitt.

“You know what? Good. Because when we win on this [Chalk River and medical isotopes] , we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue.”

“No,” says Ms. MacDonnell. “The moral and ethical stuff around it are just clear.”

“It’s really clear,” says Ms. Raitt. “Oh. Leona. I’m so disappointed.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” says Ms. MacDonnell. “They’re just so .... I wonder if it’s her staff trying to shield her from it or whether she is just terrified.”

“I think her staff is trying to shield her,” says Ms. Raitt. “Oh, God. She’s such a capable woman, but it’s hard for her to come out of a co-operative government into this rough-and-tumble. She had a question in the House yesterday, or two days ago, that planked. I really hope she never gets anything hot.”

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NL crude production forecast: 2009-2025

From the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, projected total annual oil production offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.  The CAPP report provides estimates of daily production which have been extended for this chart by multiplying by 365.


The downward production trend is unmistakeable.  The increase in 2017 represents the increase from Hebron and Hibernia South.  The two year delay in signing the development deal postponed the extra production which would have replaced dwindling production from other fields.

To give a sense of the implication of this chart, total royalty revenue in 2016 would be US$400 million.  If we assume a 20% premium for an 80 cent Canadian dollar, that works out to Cdn$480.  Compare that to the estimated $1.265 billion in Budget 2009.

Any added revenue that may come from the Hebron royalty regime would not arrive until sometime after 2020.  Even then, added revenue from the so-called super royalty only comes in any month when the average price for West Texas Intermediate crude is above US$50 per barrel.

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Bluenose Dippers in front: Angus Reid

A poll by Angus Reid for CTV shows the Nova Scotia New Democrats with 47% support heading into Tuesday’s general election, ahead of the Liberals at 26%, the progressive Conservatives at 23% and the Greens at 3%.

The online poll, conducted June 1 and 2, reports a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The new poll, which is considerably more comprehensive in its detail than recent efforts by Halifax-based Corporate research Associates shows Nova Scotians looking for change. 

The poll also tracks apparent vote switching, with the New Democrats holding on to their 2006 votes and adding chunks from both other major parties.  The Angus Reid/CTV poll also carried enough detail to look at the geographic distribution of votes, something that would be important for trying to predict seat counts:

In contrast, the NDP appears to have gained broad-based support both regionally and politically. The party holds the upper hand in most regions except rural Cape Breton (where the Tories lead) and the Annapolis Valley (where the Liberals are ahead). While holding on to 83 per cent of their vote from the last election—the highest vote retention of any contending party—the NDP is drawing about a third of voters (31%) who backed the Liberals in 2006 and a quarter (26%) of respondents who supported the Tories. NDP voters are also more likely to vote than supporters of the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, suggesting that even a low turnout will not slow Dexter’s momentum.

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Speech disappeared

For some unknown reason a speech delivered by Premier Danny Williams at an April 2008 Public Policy Forum testimonial has been removed from the organization’s website.  Williams was co-chair for the event. 

While the news release and the event notice remain, the speech has been disappeared. Speeches from the 2009 event are posted.

For those who’ve been following, that’s the speech in which Williams uttered the immortal phrase “counter-spinning negativity” to describe the stuff that keeps him up at night.

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Gas facility joints list of energy projects in NL on hold

CBC news is reporting on Friday that Newfoundland LNG has shelved plans for a natural gas transhipment facility at Grassy Point, Newfoundland pending improvements in world natural gas and capital markets.

There’s no other reporting of the decision nor does the company have anything on its website about the project since it received environmental approval last August.

Construction had been expected to start this summer, according to CBC.

The company was confident the project would start construction in early 2007 however there were reasons to doubt project’s future 2008, as Bondpapers noted in April, August and October.

This is the cancellation of the third major project for northern Placentia Bay.  A proposal to build a second refinery collapsed in 2008 and earlier this year, owners of the Come by Chance oil refinery announced that expansion plans for that facility were on hold indefinitely.

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Job losses in NL no paradise

The number of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians out of work in May 2009 compared to the same month last year is equivalent to almost the entire population of the Town of Paradise.

Some 12,000 fewer Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were collecting paycheques in May 2009 compared to May 2008, according to figures released Friday by Statistics Canada. Detailed tables show the losses and gains by economic sector.

Seasonally unadjusted figures show the changes by region, with central and the west coast of Newfoundland having the largest drops.  All regions recorded a decline in employment according to Statistics Canada.

In March, the provincial finance department projected only a modest decline in employment  - a mere 1.o percent - in 2009 compared to 2008.  The provincial finance department uses Statistics Canada figures in making its estimates.

Paradise is billed as the fastest growing municipality in the province.  According to the 2006 census, the town had a population of 12, 589.

Newfoundland and Labrador also posted the largest year over year percentage change in employment, with a drop of 5.3%.

Table:  Percent change in employment, May 2009 compared to May 2008,  seasonally adjusted, May (Source: Statistics Canada)

Newfoundland and Labrador	-5.3
Ontario	-3.3
Prince Edward Island	-3.0
British Columbia	-2.6
Alberta	-0.7
Quebec	-0.4
New Brunswick	+0.6
Manitoba	+0.6
Nova Scotia	+0.8
Saskatchewan	+2.6

 

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Update note (2129):  added links to detailed tables.

Bell 206 crash – photo interpretation

At approximately 2030 hrs local time, a Bell 206 belonging to Quinlan Brothers fish company crashed about 15 minutes east of Conne River on the south coast of Newfoundland.

The helicopter was apparently returning from a cabin in the Bay du Nord wilderness area when it crashed.  Three people remain in hospital in St. John’s.  They are reported to be in serious but stable condition.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police released a photograph late Friday of the scene.   

The Quinlan helicopter is in the foreground.  In the background is a Bell 206 belonging to Canadian Helicopters International.

In the picture at left (click on the photo to get the cbc.ca/nl story), it’s hard to see some of the detail.  The fuselage is intact, but the tail boom immediately aft of the fuselage is broken off  and one blade of the main rotor is apparently gone.  The helicopter reportedly struck a tree but it isn’t clear at this time from media reports if that caused the crash or was an incident that occurred while the aircraft came down due to another emergency.

The Telegram enlarged the main portion of the photograph.  Some of the detail is easier to see in that one.  We’ve added some coloured marks to help distinguish things a bit.

The red arrow points to the main rotor blade which is hanging by what appears to be a portion of the fibreglass material from which it is made. 

The yellow arrow points to the tail boom which sits pointed away from the fuselage, starboard side up.  You can make it out in between the top of the fuselage and the intact portion of the rotor blade. 

There’s no sign of the tail rotor at all but given the angle of this picture the thing could be intact but hidden by either the main fuselage or the tail boom.

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What drives current oil prices?

Some people will tell you that resurging growth in the Chinese economy is pushing oil prices up and will sustain high oil prices into the future.

That’s an interesting notion given the demand statistics.  take a look at daily consumption figures from nationmaster.com.  The figures here jive with a commentary by CBC Radio’s business consultant during an interview with On the Go’s ted Blade’s Thursday afternoon.

Now admittedly they are from 2007 but they show that American daily oil consumption is about thee times that of China.  Those figures have changed relatively over the past couple of years since both the American and the Chinese economies have taken a hit and the hits are connected.

There’s still an oil glut on the world markets, by the way, despite cuts in production at OPEC.

So why are oil prices high?

It seems that prices are relatively high for the same reason that helped drive oil to historic highs last year.  A weak American dollar coupled with questions about the American economic recovery are pushing speculators into the oil markets again. 

At some point, though, the markets will correct, just as they did last year. High oil prices will delay the American recovery and likely exacerbate the demand versus supply imbalance. In a world of tight money, the world can only sustain that situation for so long. 

At that point, just as in the mid-1980s, expect a second downward drop in oil prices after the initial steep slide.

Closer to home, that likely means any hopes of oil powering the provincial budget out of deficit might be a bit premature at best.  At worst, a dramatic drop in oil prices – like say to about half where it is now – or a delayed American recovery will only increase the deficit problem in the years ahead. 

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Rio dumps Chinese, partners with BHP

Rio Tinto announced Friday that it is no longer pursuing its deal with Chinese industrial concern Chinalco. 

Instead, the company will launch a joint venture with BHP Billiton on iron ore assets the companies share in Australia.

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Anger, personified

The raw scrum video, via cbc.ca/nl of the response by Premier Danny Williams to an ongoing story at Eastern Health.  There’s also the full cbc.ca/nl online story on the ongoing controversy.  If that doesn’t work, try another link here:   http://tiny.cc/TEJTJ.

CBC news obtained documents through the province’s access to information laws that shed more detail on the release of information in early April related to the ongoing breast cancer testing issue.

Officials  - especially communications vice-president Jennifer Guy - at Eastern health,  New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael, all on the receiving end of the Premier’s anger including an accusation of  political opportunism on the part of the NDP leader. 

This is radically different from anything ever fired at people like Stephen Harper.  There’s none of the characteristic hyperbole, for instance.  You can feel the anger coming clearly through the audio portion. Eastern health chief executive Louise Jones held a newser later in the day;  that isn’t available online yet.

Williams recently criticised the province’s access laws for bogging down government officials with “frivolous” requests and used that an excuse for failing to deliver whistleblower protection legislation in the first session after the 2007 general election as Williams promised.

In a scrum with reporters last Friday, Williams also claimed there was not much experience globally with whistleblower protection laws

He also accused an unnamed witness at the Cameron inquiry into the breast cancer scandal of being motivated at least in part by a personal vendetta. Williams said someone “came on pretty strongly” and decided “to have a crack at government after they did not get their own way’ on employment for a relative with government.

Political opportunism by opposition leaders is not an unusual phenomenon in Newfoundland in Labrador, by the way:

“We told them it was only print-sharing and that there was no threat but, regardless of that, they did take the action they did,” he said.

“What happened wasn’t a breach. Their staff, we believe, knew it wasn’t a breach.”

The action referred to there by a police officer was a public accusation a Liberal political staffer had attempted to hack into the opposition Progressive Conservative computer system.

The story broke in early February 2002:

"The premier's office knew right away that this had happened and, in my opinion, they've acknowledged that a political staffer has interfered with our (computer) system," Conservative Leader Danny Williams said Friday.

"That's very serious stuff."

The language from then opposition leader Williams was strong and, as it seems people in his office knew at the time their version of the story was nothing that would warrant the over-the-top language their boss used:

"Here we have a political staffer trying to break into our computers," Mr. Williams added. "It's very disconcerting to us. There's strategic information in our offices."  [“Liberal tried to hack our computers, Tories say: Newfoundland probe”, National Post Richard Foot, Saturday, February 9, 2002]

or from a Telegram story headlined “Tories sweep offices for bugs”:

"An attempt at access is just as serious as access - no different than attempted robbery is as serious as robbery itself," said Williams, who is a lawyer.

"From our perspective, we're treating it as a very, very serious matter."

 

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NS election: undecideds dominate

Forget what you’ve seen reported.

Take a look at the Corporate Research Associates quarterly poll results since early 2008, adjust them to take out the “percentage of decideds” skew and it’s pretty clear that no political party in Nova Scotia is lighting anyone on fire.

There’s what you get and it really isn’t pretty.

With the exception of the poll taken in the first two weeks of May 2009, “undecided” more Nova Scotians are undecided than are opting for any one of the three major political parties.
 
The New Democrats may wind up on top in next week’s vote, but that’s just the way the electoral system works.  It sure won’t be because there is any massive excitement among Nova Scotians for an orange option.  Blue and Red are in worse shape.

Leadership certainly isn’t a factor.  Sure, CRA asks which leader Nova Scotians prefer and sure the NDP guy comes out on top.

But when asked to rank the issues, leadership comes out as the big issue for a mere five percent of respondents in the poll done in the second half of May.

According to that poll, the top issues are health care funding (37%) and dealing with economic concerns (33%).  The next most frequently mentioned issue  - education funding – comes in at a mere 11%.

That’s interesting because the NDP are pushing Darrel Dexter above all in what has become a fairly typical “Big Giant Head” type of campaign.  But  - stealing an approach from the federal Conservatives - the Nova Scotia New Democrats are making seven key commitments.  The top two are the economy and health care.  Stephen Harper only needed five commitments, incidentally.

Ditto the Liberals, at least as far as making the party leader the centrepiece.  That’s a weird choice given that the guy doesn’t poll all that well in comparison to others and – if CRA is correct – the leader ain’t the vote driver. The Nova Scotia Grits also have seven ideas at the heart of their plan, the second and third of which are health care and the economy.

The Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives are in trouble.  Google the party and the information that comes back claims the party is led by some guy named Hamm. If the party website can’t get any more up-to-date, then there are issues here that help explain the Tory’s consistently crappy polling and why they are likely to be headed for the opposition benches for a while.

The Progressive Conservatives play down their leader a bit – hint:  it ain’t Hamm -  which is understandable if the polling is right. The party platform has five core areas and the top one is the economy. The second one is also the economy, expressed as “rural development”.  The third and forth are about crime and “defending” Nova Scotia while the fifth is another traditional Nova Scotia economic engine:  the political pork feast of roads and infrastructure.

If you look at all three parties, neither of them is really hammering away at health issues or the economy, at least as far as their news releases are concerned. 

For an outsider watching the election from afar, media coverage wouldn’t suggest the election is a hot topic.  Take a gander at the Chronicle Herald website and find any highlight of election coverage. Try and find it.  CBC has the standard [Insert the name of the jurisdiction here] Votes [Insert Year Here] but the web space is nothing to write home about. those are just two.  The actual on-air coverage from the electronics, plus Connie TV’s Steve Murphy or Global might be different.

Something suggests, though, that the election isn’t turning anybody’s crank in a big way.

That, rather than the idea the New Democrats will be the government, might turn out to be the story next week:  “Nova Scotia had an election and they swapped one minority government for another;  see you again in a year or so.”

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NS election: Undecideds double in two weeks

The number of undecided voters in the Nova Scotia general election doubled in the second half of May compared to first half, according to two polls from Halifax-based Corporate Research Associates.

In a poll taken in early May only 17% of respondents were undecided or weren’t planning to vote.  In the second poll, 33% of respondents were undecided. 

The second poll covered a larger sample (834) than the first poll (627). The first poll was conducted from May 7 to May 16.  The second poll as conducted between May 18 and May 30.  CRA reports the margin of error for both polls as 3.9% for the first poll and 3.4% for the second, 19 times out of 20.

Support for the front running New Democrats dropped from 30.7% to 29.5%.  Liberal support dropped from 25.7% to 18.8% and Progressive Conservative support dropped from 23.2% to 17.4%.

Interpretation of the poll in conventional media relies on dealing only with decided voters. Thus, CBC concludes that “support for the NDP has risen sharply to 44 per cent from 37 per cent” while ignoring the change in undecideds.

There is no indication that Corporate Research Associates probes undecideds in the two polls, completed as part of CRA’s quarterly omnibus polling in Atlantic  Canada.

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Adios, Lisa

Not only did federal natural resources minister Lisa Raitt or one or her staff leave a three inch thick binder of confidential briefing notes at a CTV office, they didn’t try and get it back.

If that isn’t cause for dismissal, then there isn’t much left that is.

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Lessons not learned, Part II: health department may have breached privacy law

Unless they’ve got written consent for the disclosure, the province’s health department violated several sections of the province’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

A report by independent consultants on the location of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device includes the home address and telephone number of one of the consultants as well as complete curricula vitae of the three consultants.

The original news release directed interested people to contact the department’s communications director for a copy of the report. The release issued Tuesday contained a link to the complete report, with the attached CVs.

The report was received on February 28 and released on June 2, in violation of a supposed government policy requiring reports to be released within 30 days of being received. 

Under section 30 of the Act, government must refuse to disclose personal information unless there is written consent. A similar provision is contained in section 39.

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Sectional Update:  The ever eagle-eyed among you noticed that since this document wasn’t released under the access to information bit of the legislation, section 30 doesn’t apply.

Correct.

Section 39 does and that confusion is purely mine in the way the post was quickly written.

The act covers requests for information PLUS privacy protection.  The privacy part containing s. 39 covers what government may do with personal information.  One of the things is not release it without permission.

It all comes out to the same thing.

s.39 of the ATIPPA applies in this case.  Without permission, they weren’t suppose to publish personal information.

Lessons not learned

“They should be shot over there.”

So said Premier Danny Williams when the public reacted angrily to a news release from Eastern Health late on a Friday afternoon that buried the kernel of hard news in the middle of the release.

Turns out senior government officials knew about the whole thing in advance, had a hand in drafting the release and that cabinet ordered the disclosure immediately, despite the objections of officials at Eastern Health.

The documents, released under the province’s open records laws, are available on the cbc.ca/nl website. Interestingly, they appear to have been processed electronically.  This is contrary to standard government practice in some departments which seem to favour using only hard copies as a way of maximising the cost to the applicant.

When asked in the legislature on April 5 (the first sitting day after the Friday news release) when he and officials of his department first learned, health minister Ross Wiseman initially ducked the question, talking instead about research done previously to identify all patients involved in breast cancer testing.

On the second and third questions, Wiseman finally relented, but claimed he had only learned of the matter on April 2, presumably at cabinet:

Yes, I was aware that they were going to be doing that release. The conversation that my office had with Eastern Health was midday on Thursday (April 2, the day cabinet met) , and the understanding and direction was pretty clear: that this information needed to get out immediately. The fact that they were late on Friday afternoon releasing it, I had no control over, Mr. Speaker. That was their call, their decision to release it. I received the notice of the release just moments before it was out. I was out of the Province on government business, meeting with my colleagues in Halifax and with other health regions.

Mr. Speaker, that was their call, but I would agree with the member opposite that getting a release out late Friday afternoon and not having anyone available from the organization to comment on it is not something that I would agree with either.

Wiseman is only referring here to the cabinet directive to release the information, not when his officials first learned of the issue.  The documents obtained by CBC place that time earlier that week. An e-mail from health deputy minister Don Keats shows the minister looking for a briefing on the subject on March 31.

Wiseman’s answers in the House on April 5 also leave the impression that government had no involvement in the matter:

I want to tell the member opposite and the members of the House, Eastern Health write their own press releases. They release their own communiqués. I was aware of the information that they had.  I was aware on Thursday that they were going to be releasing it. My understand was they were going to be releasing it quickly. I then went out of the Province on business, only to find that I got a copy of the release at the same time it was being released to the public.

That also wasn’t strictly accurate since, according to the released documents, cabinet had directed the release immediately without waiting until patients had been contacted directly.

By the following day of questions in the House of Assembly, April 6, Wiseman was acknowledging he had learned of the issue on April 1.

Speaking with reporters on April 5, the Premier condemned Eastern Health for releasing the information in the way they did including not disclosing the information to patients first. That’s the same scrum in which he uttered the infamous comment that “they” should be shot over there.

Justice Margaret Cameron, in a report released last month, found that Eastern Health had erred by not telling the whole truth of what it knew, Williams said. The premier slammed the authority for sending out information late on a Friday and then not making anyone available to talk about it immediately. He said patients deserve full and transparent disclosure.

"This is about people's lives … They have a right to be told," Williams said. "They have a right to be told in a proper manner. There has to be proper disclosure; there has to be someone there to answer questions. It's not something you do at the tail end of a Friday afternoon."

The documents on the cbc.ca/nl website do not appear to represent all the documents related to incident.  Missing are documents or any notes referring to having the issue placed on the cabinet agenda and what, if any communications there would have been between the department and Executive Council, the government’s central co-ordinating agency.

Some of the documents were written days after the event and around the same time Eastern Health’s vice president of communications engaged in a rather bizarre bit of public spinning about the location of information in the news release.  She wasn’t the only one spinning the story.

Coincidentally the week before the Premier said that people should be shot over the incident, courts in Ontario upheld the ruling that such language constituted uttering a threat.

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Williams invents excuse for stalling whistleblower law

In a scrum with reporters last week, Premier Danny Williams said he has instructed government officials to gather evidence on experience with whistleblower legislation because there  is “not much precedent” around the world for whistleblower legislation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States Congress enacted the false claims act of 1863 to protect the public from unscrupulous manufacturers who substituted sawdust for gunpowder in Union Army contracts during the Civil War. The legislation,  updated in 1986, allowed citizens to file claims against manufacturers and awarded the citizens – effectively whistleblowers – a portion of any subsequent award.

There are 18 other American federal statutes that contain whistleblower protection.

A 2002 statute, enacted in the wake of Enron, extended protection to private sector employees who blow the whistle on wrongdoing.

The US federal government has had a whistleblower statute to protect federal employees since 1989. The earliest such law for federal employees was enacted in 1912.

Most American states have protection for employees who disclose unethical or illegal acts by employers.

The United Kingdom has had whistleblower protection since 1998.

Various Australian states and the Australian Capital territory have whistleblower legislation.  The earliest dates from 1988.

The Government of Canada has had a whistleblower protection law since 2005 and in 2006, Manitoba passed a public interest disclosure statute.

Williams promised whistleblower legislation during the last general election, in 2007, saying:

The very first session of the House that we have, that's something we'll have a look at. As a matter of fact, there'd be no reason why we wouldn't get it on.

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