11 June 2009

“Old money” from Williams cabinet called “stimulus”

Danny Williams may not like it when federal cabinet ministers recycle announcements, but of  the 52 specific projects listed in the provincial government “economic stimulus” update news release issued on Thursday, almost half - 21 projects - were already announced, some as long ago as 2005. 

Some of the recycled old news slipped out earlier but the announcement on Thursday made the whole thing plain.

The Corner Brook long-term care facility project listed among the stimulus projects has been underway since March 2005. The Corner Brook court house, health facilities in Lewisporte and Labrador west  and renovations to the James Paton hospital in Gander date back to March 2006.

Many of those in the “old news” category were announced in 2007 in the Summer of Love spending commitment frenzy leading up to the last provincial general election. 

One project - the St. Alban’s aquaculture veterinary facility  - was announced in 2007 with a commitment the place would open in 2009.  Instead, the project has just been tendered.

There’s more to it than just the inclusion of old announcements that predate the ‘stimulus’ news conference pulled together as part of the February poll-goosing frenzy; some of the projects seem to include contributions of federal money as if the whole thing was provincial government spending.

The Torbay and CBS by-pass roads, for example, were announced in 2007 and 2008 respectively.  They’re cost-shared 50/50 with the federal government but the provincial news release shows the total cost without indicating it is only ponying up half the total. 

And while the Premier may sneer when his federal cousins announce announcements previously announced, that didn’t stop his own team from discussing projects, some of which have been included in as many as seven separate government news releases.

They are:

College of the North Atlantic campus, Labrador West:

Francophone school, HVGB:

Port Hope Simpson school:

L’Anse au Loup:

Labrador West hospital:

Here’s the list of the 21 Old Announcements from the “stimulus” update:

-srbp-

 

 

 

 

posted by Edward Hollett at 19:45
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Polling bullshit from mayor

If Doc O’Keefe, the mayor of a Great Sittee, actually has a poll that shows him with numbers he is very comfortable with, then he’d release the whole thing.

The fact he won’t release the poll to local media suggests the numbers are a lot less rosy than O’Keefe is claiming.

That would also explain why the deputy mayor  - Ron Ellsworth - is getting his team ready for a run at the Barking-Lounger job made famous by Andy Wells and now occupied by the less-than-impressive O’Keefe.

Show us the numbers, Doc and maybe we’ll believe you.  Otherwise, that clocking noise we hear is probably your knees knocking together.

Or maybe the clock ticking out on your time as head of the Great Sittee.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 08:11
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Eerie coincidence 2

An economic stimulus package update and an update on an economic stimulus package.

Both will claim to have worked.

In one case, the update was part of a deal to stay in government.

In the other case, a government that has reluctantly provided any updates on anything, that loathes public access to government information and is stalling whistleblower protection legislation suddenly volunteers an update.

And the government pollster is already done his work for the quarter.

What’s up with that?

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 07:53
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10 June 2009

Meanwhile in a phone booth in St. John's...‏

there’s a fundraiser for Siobhan Coady, member of parliament for St. John’s South- Mount Pearl.

coadydean Well, actually the thing isn’t being held in a phone booth but it is being held at SuperDean’s house.

Hundred bucks a plate.

Guest: Justin Trudeau.

Invite only.

Wonder who’s on the guest list?

We can cross Roger Grimes and any of his friends off, most likely.

Maybe there’ll be some new faces, the ones that make some of us consider doing another round of Two Degrees of Separation.

-srbp-

Fart-in-Church Update: And then in ye olde inbox appears an e-mail from an official party source with the invite to the SuperDean/Justin event. Perhaps your humble e-scribbler is supposed to be on the invite list.

While Siobhan is certainly worthy of support and Trudeau is a sure-fire draw, the venue leaves so much to be desired that it pretty much cancels out the positives.

Maybe someone in the media or one of the attendees should ask the host if he shares his old buddy's jaundiced view of Confederation and the Liberal Party.

After all, this is part of the philosophy of Dannyism and Dannyism is something that SuperDean apparently thinks we need to keep going for a couple of decades more:

The way that our people and our region have been treated by one arrogant federal Liberal government after another is disgusting. The legacy that the late Prime Minister Trudeau and Jean Chrétien will leave in Atlantic Canada is one of dependence on Mother Ottawa, which has been orchestrated for political motives for the sole purpose of maintaining power.
Yep. There is a Great Liberal Conspiracy afoot to oppress the people of Atlantic Canada solely for the benefit of Les Rouges.

Not only that but the Great Liberal Conspiracy was perpetrated by none other than Justin's father, he being "the late Prime Minister Trudeau".

Such sentiment would surely go over like a fart in church among Liberals or even a fair-minded non-partisan with some passable knowledge of the facts of the matter.
posted by Edward Hollett at 14:19
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09 June 2009

Shuffle-up-a-gus

How often are there cabinet changes and shifts in the senior bureaucracy?

While there is no text-book solution to that question, aside from elections, resignations and political meltdowns, there usually aren’t a lot of shakeups in a team government.

The reasons are pretty simple.  Cabinet ministers and senior officials (deputy ministers and assistant deputies)  are expected to get to know their departments and the people in them, to form good working relationships and then get on with the business of running their respective shows.  cabinet will send down some instructions.  Departments are expected to come up with new ideas.

In order to do that, people have to spend time working together.  They need time to learn the issues and figure out what happens when you pull the lever over there in the corner.

All of that applies equally to both the political side of departmental management (the cabinet minister) and the public servants (deputy ministers and assistant deputies). 

In the eight years between 1996 and October 2003, successive Liberal premiers changed their cabinets (major and minor changes) 11 times. 

In the five and a half years since the fall 2003 election, the current administration has made changes to cabinet 12 times. The bulk of that shifting came in the first term, with at least two changes in assignments involving some ministers roughly every six months.

Over on the public service side, the relative numbers are even more dramatic.

Liberals:  24 appointments over eight years.

Progressive Conservatives:  37 in five and a half years or so.

Now some of these announcements were onesies and twosies, that is one appointment at a time.  In other cases, like the one made today, the changes have involved seven or eight people in different departments. 

Two of the appointments made Tuesday were for people filling jobs in an acting capacity while the person normally in the job is one some form of leave.  In some instances, there have been times when the top two positions in one department have both been acting simultaneously.  That hasn’t happened a lot but it has happened.

While changes at the cabinet level have been relatively infrequent since 2007, the same can;’t be said on the executive side.  Eight changes in 2005, but 11 in 2007, five in 2008 and four already in 2009. 

Beyond the frequency, your humble e-scribbler hasn’t finished a detailed assessment yet to see who has been moving and if there are any departments that have been the focus of the changes.

Still…

the numbers are striking.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 21:55
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 21:27
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 21:22
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 08:10
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 07:55
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08 June 2009

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.”

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 20:36
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07 June 2009

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.

Nl oil 2009-2025
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.
revenue oil
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.

-srbp-
posted by Edward Hollett at 21:28
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05 June 2009

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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 22:00
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 21:46
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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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 21:10
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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
 
-srbp-
Update note (2129):  added links to detailed tables.
posted by Edward Hollett at 20:52
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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.

nl-helicopter-crash-cbcThe 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.

206 - conne river - marked

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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 19:27
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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. 

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 00:08
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04 June 2009

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.

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 23:29
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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."

 

-srbp-

posted by Edward Hollett at 22:53
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03 June 2009

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.
NS party
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.”

-srbp-
posted by Edward Hollett at 23:38
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