“Negativity” and “bloggers” part of Palin excuses

Some aspects of Sarah Palin’s resignation excuses will sound familiar to people living t the other book-end of the continent’s northern reaches.

From the unedited transcript of self-described hockey mom Palin’s public remarks:

It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now.

Palin was referring to complaints of ethics violations against her using state ethics laws.  Palin blamed people she described as “political operatives” for her woes.

Sounds a bit like frivolous access to information requests and people with a personal vendetta against government.

Then there are the comments that come from a senior Alaska Republican official:

Asked why Palin was stepping down as opposed to finishing her term (which ends in 2010), the RGA header cited pesky bloggers and activists as the reason. Palin had insisted she didn't want to put Alaskans through two years of a lame-duck governorship.

"I don't think this is buckling to pressure," said Ayers. "I think this is her coming to the realization that the legislature in Alaska and that some bloggers and activists in Alaska are going to do everything they can to stymie her progress. This is a governor who didn't run for the office because she wanted a title. She wanted to make significant change in the state. She realized that that was no longer going to be able to happen, because things had become so partisan there."

Even that sounds just a wee bit familiar – eerily familiar -  although the specific words used by the province’s Leading Hockey Player may be slightly different:

My biggest frustration in coming from several decades in the private sector to public life is trying to maximize my time to be the CEO of Government and run it to the best of my ability with my management team of Cabinet and public servants, and simultaneously deal with the day to day nonsense of counter- spinning negativity. That's politics, but for a pragmatic results oriented leader with a social conscience it can be very counter productive.[Emphasis added.]

Too negative. Too partisan.

Trying to “progress” but always being held back by these nefarious forces.

Makes you wonder.

Things get tough in Alaska, Palin packs it in.

Things get tough in NewfoundlandLabrador…

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Gros Morne international status threatened

Gros Morne national park could lose its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site if NALCOR Energy, the provincial government’s oil, gas and hydro company, succeeds with plans to string a series of high-voltage electric transmission lines through the park.

There are alternatives but NALCOR has dismissed them already as being either costly or technically difficult.
The lines are part of a transmission infeed to bring power from the as yet undeveloped Lower Churchill river to eastern Newfoundland.

The Telegram has that as the front page story on Saturday.

The Gros Morne transmission plan generated opposition from environmental and tourism groups, along with Parks Canada, which must approve the project.

In February, Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador (HNL) chairman Bruce Sparkes first raised the spectre of Gros Morne losing its spot on the United Nations list.

"It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it's been suggested that if you put this corridor down through it, it (may) lose the designation," he says.

"We believe Parks Canada is correct in opposing this."

No one from HNL or Parks Canada would comment for the Telegram.


Deputy premier and natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale was also unavailable for comment.  While Dunderdale was consumed with the fisheries crisis this week, her office couldn’t even deliver a statement by the Telegram’s deadline, as the department had apparently intended.

In February, Bond Papers and others first raised the issue of slinging transmission lines through the park.

The Premier backed the idea:

“When park officials look at what the trade-off happens to be for the benefits we get at the end of day ... I think they will see the benefit,” he said.

One of the trade-offs would presumably be the international designation.  According to the Telegram only two sites have lost the designation.

When the park was established in the 1980s, transmission towers through its pristine natural beauty was described as “the most serious threat” to Gros Morne.

The power lines may not be needed.

A NALCOR official recently told a business group in Gander that adding more wind generation to the island system would not be a good idea until the transmission line is built.  The transmission line would allow surplus power to be exported.

[ NALCOR manager of business development Greg] Jones told The Beacon the province can only produce a limited amount of wind energy because it can cause water to spill from hydro dams if excessive amounts are produced. This roadblock will be eliminated with the introduction of a transmission link in 2016 for the Lower Churchill hydro project.

The infeed is being justified, in part, on the grounds that the island will need additional power sources by as early as 2013. 

However, the environmental assessment documents for the project project only modest growth in residential and industrial demand in the future.  That was before the AbitibiBowater paper plant in Grand falls closed and before Kruger decided to shut down one of its paper machines at Corner Brook on what appears to be a permanent basis.

Jones’ comments suggest that current and future demand on the island can be met with much smaller, less costly alternative generation sources.  Adding wind power now would add to the current surplus, if the full implication of Jones’ comment about water spilling over hydro dams is clear. 

But that also means that added wind power and small hydro developments could continue to displace the Holyrood generating plant and still meet the island’s energy needs.  Holyrood burns oil to generate electricity and has been a subject of ongoing environmental controversy.

While the plant is currently operating at a severely reduced capacity, due to low demand in the summer months, the infeed proposal would require the plant to operate its three generators year-round in order to stabilise the power transmission from Labrador.

The government’s 2007 energy plan committed to replacing Holyrood with other forms of generation.  Also in 2007, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale highlighted replacing Holyrood as one of the reasons for building the infeed.

In Dunderdale’s scenario selling Lower Churchill power to consumers in eastern Newfoundland  was one way the government planned to under-write the cost of the multi-billion dollar Lower Churchill project. 

No other power purchase agreements have been identified.  A memorandum of understanding with Rhode Island on a block of 200 megawatts appears to have gone no where since it was signed in 2007.

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BLTN Update:   CBC is running the story as well, on Monday.  The most interesting feature of this online story are the comments from a raft of pseudonyms - most of whom apparently like the idea of slinging power lines and steel girders through a park where right now the tallest power line is on a wooden poll. 

Nature schmature.

Happy second term, President Obama

Sarah Palin is considered by most to be a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

This should make Republicans in the United States decidedly uneasy. 

Palin’s departure/resignation comments are, in places,  vague and in other places confused.  Notice they are not confusing;  it should be clear to anyone listening that Palin was blabbering incoherent nonsense.  She switches with apparent easy between referring to herself in the singular to referring to herself in the plural, for example. She talks of the need to do some thing – never clearly stated -  in politics from outside politics, as if that was possible.   

Palin proved to be an appalling choice as vice-president, worse than the spelling champion chosen by Bush I.  She is, as John Cleese has described her, a good actor.  A good parrot.  She learns lines and repeats them.  She does not think.

Cleese should know:  he’s worked with an intelligent, funny Palin and a dead parrot in the same sketch.

When Palin had handlers during the presidential campaign she looked better.  She looked better because she had campaign professionals feeding her lines and dressing.  Palin may have complained but it worked.

In Alaska on Friday, Palin on her own, without handlers, massagers and healers, was closer to what American would get in Palin the presidential candidate.

If Sarah Palin – parodied by a comedian who merely copied the politician  without changing a thing -  is a presidential hopeful because she appeals strongly to the party’s voter base, Republicans might wish to do some serious repairs to the foundation of their party.

When they look beyond Palin, they should get ever more concerned.

Her rival is Mitt Romney, another insubstantial lump of plastic.  Both Romney and Palin are on the campaign trail already. The recent election is barely eight months over and already 2012 candidates are working the stump.

That alone should tell much about the prospective candidates.

Sarah Palin’s departure from gubernatoral politic is brilliant, according to Mary Matalin.  Clearly, Matalin is willing to take one for the team, in this case a hit to her credibility.  She is always on message and  always on point which is more than could be said of Palin.

Matalin and her fellow strategists are too sharp not to know the party is in big trouble.  Once the holiday weekend  - and a few heads – starts to clear.  Maybe Matalin and her colleagues should take a look at where their party is going.

For the heights of political success to Sarah Palin, Greatest Hope in a mere two decades.

That should send chills up anyone’s spine.

Oh.

And by the way.

Obama’s second term is guaranteed.  Congrats Mr. President.

And the way things are looking, Biden’s got a serious shot at 2016.  Back to back to back Democrat presidents.

Everyone can thank the likes of Sarah Palin.

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Northern Trident ’09 - Port Visit- St. John’s

Two Royal Australian Navy frigates – HMAS Sydney and HMAS Ballarat – will be in St. John’s on Monday July 6 for a port call.

The ships are on a round-the-world voyage called Operation Northern Trident 2009.

HMAS Sydney (FFG 03) is one of six ships built for the Royal Australian Navy based on the American Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. Adelaide, the name-ship for the Australian navy, and Canberra have been decommissioned.

HMAS Ballarat (FFH 155) is one of 10 ANZAC-class frigates and was initially designed to patrol Australia’s exclusive economic zone. The ships began entering service in 1996 and are based on a modified German design. Ballarat was commissioned in 2004.

Each ship carries a variety of weapons, including SH-70 Seahawk helicopters.

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R.I. M.O.U. M.I.A.

A memorandum of understanding between the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the State of Rhode Island in mid-2007 appears to have vanished.

The MOU committed the parties to a two-phase process that was touted as part of a potential sale of 200 megawatts of power to the small state after 2015. 

The first phase – to last six months  - was to consist of a “mutual assessment of the merits of long-term sale and purchase agreement, as well as the development of an action plan to address any technical, regulatory and statutory requirements of the transaction.”

That was due at the end of 2007 but aside from a vague comment from natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale in May 2008, there’s no word on whether or not the assessment was ever concluded and what happened to the power purchase agreement talks.

The second phase was to consist of negotiation of a power-purchase agreement and hinged on the successful completion of the first phase.

The power would come from the Lower Churchill River development.

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VOCM website = GCRI

VOCM’s new website is turning into a bit of a disaster.

A new feature that lists the most popular news stories also allows for old stories that are long since out-dated to appear next to other stories that continue a story as it plays out.

The one that stands out right now is the story of a man who died on Tuesday after hitting a parked truck on the Outer Ring Road a week ago today.

We already noted that the website featured a story yesterday that had the guy still alive, two days after he succumbed to his injuries.

Things aren’t any better on Friday. 

This is a screen capture of the site at about quarter past eight on Friday, July 3.  As you can see, one story which reports the guy is dead is listed as the second most “popular” story.  Farther down there is still the story that he’s in critical condition.

Someone looking for the latest news – something VO used to be famous for – is now confronted with stories from different dates that give different aspects of the same story.  If you didn’t check the dates or if, as yesterday showed, the older story is “more popular”, then you’ll be getting out-dated information.  Badly outdated information.

And while we’re at it, how in the name of merciful heavens can anyone justify having a “most popular” post space on a news site?  It works on a blog because it simply shows what people are most interested in.

A news site where it’s greatest hits can include some gruesome, grizzly stories should not be promoting those stories based on any notion popularity.  A simple hit counter associated with each story, as CBC online does, allows the reader to gauge how many people have been reading it.  That’s useful.  In the CBC case, they track the number of comments and the number of people who have “recommended” a story.

The VO website redesign is garish enough.  There are some good features but it is, for the most part, pretty ugly.  What’s even uglier is this “most popular” news story feature.

VO had a well-deserved reputation for getting stories fast and delivering the raw details concisely.  It’s news room had and has some sharp, professional people in it.  They might be relatively young in some cases but they worked hard at getting it right.

Correction.

It’s not ugly.

It’s gruesome. 

Crass.

On top of that it is rude and insulting both to VO’s audience and to its newsroom staff.

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New Dawn still M.I.A

Announced with great fanfare last September, a land claims agreement-in-principle between the Innu of Labrador and the provincial government is apparently on life support.

The New Dawn agreement seems to have turned into the Matshishkapeu Accord after all.

The deal was supposed to go to a vote back in January but according to media reports the deal was postponed indefinitely.

Turned out there were unspecified “outstanding issues”.  Those issues have led to further discussions but it isn’t clear what the hold-up is or when, if ever, the deal may reach the stage where it can head to a vote.

Innu deputy chief Peter Penashue said last week that he hoped the deal will go to a vote in the fall.  He had hoped it would be concluded by now.

The deal was in trouble from the start, however and the same concerns within the Innu community are still be heard almost a year later.  The deal has a number of  other potential problems beyond local concerns over which Innu companies will benefit from the deal.

Whatever happened there’s no sign the deal is really back on track, despite Penashue’s optimism.

Settling a land claims deal with the Innu is crucial to development of the Lower Churchill.

In its annual report for 2008, the province’s energy corporation trumpeted the agreement as a major achievement in efforts to develop the Gull Island and Muskrat falls power complexes.  There’s no mention of the hang-up even though the report was released months after the vote was cancelled.

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Alive or dead?

According to an online VOCM story dated June 30 but still running at 5:00 PM, July 2:

A friend of the bicyclist critically injured in an accident with a parked truck Friday on the Outer Ring Road is appealing to the public.  The 48 year-old man collided with a parked truck near the interchange at Portugal Cove Road late kast [sic] week. Bill, speaking on VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms, says the man is not able to communicate the details of the accident. He's hoping that someone may have seen the accident and will call the police.

The headline says: “Cyclist Remains Critical”.

According to a CBC story posted on line July 2:

Cyclist Mike Dinn, 48, died Tuesday afternoon [June 30 for those without a calendar handy] of injuries he sustained after striking a large truck parked on the shoulder of the Outer Ring Road last Friday.

So which is it?

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Equity

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been hearing a lot about equity these past few years.

They’ve been hearing about it just recently from the fellow who likes to call himself the Leader of the Province. 

He mentioned it a few times within the past couple of weeks when he announced another offshore oil deal.  He was talking about equity as in shares in a business, as in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador running a small oil company.

Listening to fisheries minister Tom Hedderson last week on CBC Radio’s Fisheries Broadcast, people in the fishing industry likely had another meaning of equity in mind.

Hedderson told listeners that the provincial government was prepared to help out the thousands of  people  - the “workers” - affected by the crisis in that industry. They’d help, at some undefined point in the future, maybe,  with some way of bridging people onto employment insurance.  The provincial government would find a way to stamp them up, but only if necessary and at this point while things were bad, the point of necessity didn’t appear to be there just yet.  Well, certainly, to paraphrase Hedderson, no one had come to government with the documentation to show them conclusively of the necessity at this point. 

And what’s more, anything else for the industry, well that would be a subsidy and subsidies were not the way to go, according to Hedderson.

The Premier said much the same thing last week, via another medium.

No subsidies. 

No “investments”.

Only make-work and then EI.

If necessary.

That’s where the other meaning of equity likely came in for a host of people.  The “equity” they were thinking of was equity meaning fairness,  equity meaning to treat like things alike.

The Telegram editorial on Thursday talks about some of the things people across the province have noticed.

The paper workers [at Corner brook Pulp and paper] got a full-court ministerial press: the moment the 130 layoffs were announced, not only Premier Danny Williams, but Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale, Human Resources Minister Susan Sullivan and Justice Minister Tom Marshall were all on the plane to meet with the workers' union that very afternoon. Heck, the news release had the names of a record-breaking five separate media staffers to contact on the bottom.

Not so with fisheries workers. When fisheries workers occupied a government building in St. John's on Monday, Williams was in Europe on what is arguably a mission with only limited possibilities for demonstrable success. (Williams is talking to European Union officials about the already-done-deal of the EU seal ban, and about Canada-EU trade negotiations, where the EU has already said they deal with national governments, not individual regional ones.)

Fisheries Minister Tom Hedderson was in Houston, and the only minister available to meet with the group was Kathy Dunderdale - but she'd only meet with the group if they agreed first to leave the building.

That's a very different response for workers in a very similar circumstance.

The Telegram calls it a double standard.

That would be treating likes things differently.

They are right.

That’s not equity.

It is in the inequity of its own policies - the real or perceived lack of fairness - that the provincial government finds the root of its current political problems with the fishery.

And offering to stamp people up, in place of “investments”, and only maybe, at some undefined point in the future, if necessary?

Some might call that iniquity.

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Former LG Roberts named to Order of Canada

Her Excellency the Governor General yesterday announced the appointment of former lieutenant governor and former cabinet minister Edward Roberts to the Order of Canada.

Roberts is cited for his contributions in both capacities.

Roberts should also be credited with suggesting the creation of the newest addition to the caribou memorial at Bowring Park. After attending the 90th anniversary commemoration of Beaumont Hamel, Roberts wrote to the provincial government recommending the government fund the duplication of plaques listing the names of soldiers and sailors killed in action but without any known grave.

In official news releases issued in 2007 and again in 2009, the provincial government made no mention of Roberts’ role, although he was given a quote in the 2007 one.

Some who attended the formal unveiling ceremony noted that the mayor of St. John’s and others also ignored Roberts, preferring to tug their forelocks and give credit for the project to a certain absent first minister.

Now that’s tacky, boys.

Really tacky.

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Congrats Al Franken!

After a lengthy election campaign and a seemingly endless court battle, Al Franken is new senator from Minnesota.

In this short clip from the Connecticut Forum encounter between Al Franken and Ann Coulter, Franken delivers a killer punch line.  Politics is serious business but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun along the way. The United States Senate will never be the same.

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Commemoration Day, 2009

An old post that still resonates: Commemoration Day 2006

Fishing for sympathy without any bait

You can tell a government is up a political creek without a canoe let alone a paddle.

They issue windy news releases rattling off supposed accomplishments and how much money has been being spent on a given subject, in this case fisheries issues.

They’re just fishing for public sympathy but they don’t have any bait.

What happened yesterday doesn’t mean a row of beans to the thousands affected today by the current downturn in markets for all seafood products. It sure doesn’t deal with the problems being faced by the people in the shrimp industry. Those are the people, incidentally, currently shacked up in the fisheries department headquarters in St. John’s.

The pile of words – including the lengthy backgrounder – doesn’t do much to persuade anyone the provincial government policy is tickety-boo. That’s largely because there are a host of things in the release which are pretty much meaningless or which run against what is already known in public.

Take, for instance, this line from a fisheries minister who reputedly had to cut his vacation short to pump this out:

In the midst of a difficult year, the fishing industry is resorting to suggestions of quick fixes such as subsidies which do not deal with long-term structural issues and would violate international trade agreements.

International trade agreements were no never mind back in December when the provincial government had its eye on some really lucrative hydro assets belonging to Fortis, Enel and Abitibi that it wanted for itself.

The government has tried this line before and it still rings like a ripe watermelon tossed off the Confederation Building. If one release didn’t persuade everyone, a second one isn’t likely to do much better.

Then there’s the bit right after that:

The most significant marketing challenge facing the shrimp sector is access to markets and prohibitive seafood tariffs. Today, the Honourable Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, is in Europe addressing these issues. He is also addressing the proposed European Union ban on Canadian seal products.

Now if people in the province didn’t know the federal government and every other province in the country was working on a free trade deal with the Europeans this claim and the Premier’s sudden junket might have some impact.

However, earlier this year the Premier said he wasn’t going to participate in the trade talks - where there was a high-powered chance to deal with crucial issues like the shrimp tariffs - because he didn’t trust Stephen Harper to look after the province’s interest. By not participating in the trade talks, the Premier’s solution was to leave Stephen Harper to look after the province’s interest.

Bizarre, we know, but that was his logic at the time.

Now the Premier is trying to play a little catch-up but he is in a pretty weak position. . Before heading off on this quickie trip, the Premier said - in so many words - one of his goals was to make Europeans aware of Newfoundland and Labrador. if you have to start by making people aware, you really have an uphill fight.

One of his other goals was to bring up the seal hunt. Now you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a high school graduate to know that bringing up the seal hunt with a bunch of people who just voted to ban it from their shores is not very likely to make them amenable to cutting a deal on shrimp tariffs or much else.

And when they already know you like to call people names – like say “hypocrites”- they really aren’t likely to want to do more than politely listen before quickly getting down to things that matter. Like say trade talks with a G8 country and all the people from it who showed up for the meetings a few months ago.

The next great accomplishment in the release is also a plum choice:

As well, the province has implemented a Fish Price Setting Panel to resolve price disputes such as the one that is occurring now. There is a mechanism in place for the harvesters to appeal the price to the panel if they are dissatisfied with the current decision. They also have the option of re-entering negotiations with seafood processors.

That would be the same pricing system that has worked so successfully in resolving the current shrimp problem. Basically, the panel hasn’t been able to find a price everyone can live with and that’s after umpteen kicks at the proverbial catfish. So far the provincial fish minister’s only effort on this aspect of the current problem has been to blame the fishermen and the processors for failing to sort out a price. Hint: that’s what the panel is supposed to do.

That makes two smacks in your own head in one paragraph. You can see a pattern developing here. There is actually a third smack: part of the overall problem in fisheries management is this whole price-fixing approach in the first place, but that’s a whole other issue.

But wait.

It gets better.

Surely invoking the memory of fish policy made by a guy in a funny hat will persuade people that this is a government that has done much for the fishery.

"In 2006, we offered to purchase the marketing arm of Fishery Products International Limited for approximately $100 million. We later offered up to $5.4 million for a provincial seafood marketing council…”.

For starters, mentioning the FPI fiasco is a bit like going to Stephenville and telling them about the $15 million subsidy you offered to keep the mill open but the company didn’t accept. Your intentions don’t mean much if the offer wasn’t accepted and really doesn’t matter since the mill closed despite an unequivocal promise that the mill wouldn’t close on the Premier’s watch.

But the real sticky bit of this story is that FPI’s marketing arm only came available after what seemed like a long, protracted attack by the provincial government on that company. The Premier liked to take pot-shots at the company directors and if that wasn’t good enough, the Guy in the Funny Hat threatened a prosecution for supposed illegal processing. The whole prosecution seems to have taken an inordinate number of trips to the cabinet table – one would be too many - if some of the court documents in the case are any indication.

In the end, changes to the FPI Act actually made it easier to break up what had once been a very successful integrated fishing company with international markets.

This release is so successful at this point that its authors then try a little blame shifting, this time to the people involved in the fishing industry:

In the meantime, the industry continues to lobby the Provincial Government for additional seafood processing licences, despite their repeated calls for rationalization of the industry and despite the adverse effects that this would hold for plant workers.

Leave aside for a second the poorly constructed sentence that makes it hard to tell what it is that “this” refers to. Would issuing more processing licenses be bad for plant workers? Would rationalisation adversely affect the workers?

Let’s just note that, firstly, the provincial government alone has the jurisdiction over fish plant licensing. If they want more plants, they can license all they want. If they want fewer plants – rationalisation is the way to go, by the by – then the provincial government can create the circumstances to make this happen. They can set up the system to rationalise the number of plants and since fish plants are entirely provincial, they can put aside some oil money to pay for the “workforce reduction program.”

Secondly, it doesn’t matter a jot or a tittle what something called “the industry” wants since “the industry’ doesn’t exist as a monolith. Processors know there are too many plants. Workers know in their hearts there are too many as well. Some interests may be of a different view but – to be quite frank - the responsible rests with the licensing jurisdiction - i.e. the provincial government - to exercise its judgment.

And just to go back to the FPI thing: at a time when everyone seemed to understand that consolidation was needed to ensure for strong processors that could compete globally, the provincial government evidently thought the best thing to do was smash up the largest company and distribute its bits among a bunch of smaller operators. Even mentioning rationalisation just opens up a can of political worms for the provincial government, none of which are crawling willingly onto any hooks.

The rest of the release doesn’t get any better. At one point, the provincial government tries to claim that the industry is licensed “primarily” by the federal government. That’s despite the fact that the processing sector is entirely provincial and has the largest number of workers in it.

Go figure.

They even bring up the much talked about, much delayed and now much more costly aquaculture veterinary centre as an example of the commitment the provincial government has to the fishery. This release is a desperate effort if they have to put that chestnut out there.

The current crisis in the fishery is a real political test for an administration that has been remarkably free of such tests over the past five years. The administration hasn’t been handling it adeptly. Having the Premier and the fish minister leave town just as things were really heating up certainly didn’t help.

If this release is the best the provincial government can do in an effort to catch a political break, the fishery may well be in more trouble than it appears.

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Still goose-able after all these years

So voice of the cabinet minister reworked its website.

Lots of changes, but the thing looks like a supermarket tabloid on acid.  In the dictionary, next to the word garish, there is now “See VOCM website”.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the question of the day.  This has become rather notorious in local political and news circles as not merely unscientific but also as a poll which someone connected to the current administration actively gooses as need be.

The way to do it has been explained publicly.  It would be a simple fix if VOCM wanted to stop churning out crap.

No way did it get fixed; the poll is still goose-able to the point of absurdity.

And VOCM still reports the rigged poll results as if they were real, let alone news.

No wonder they get called voice of the cabinet minister.

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Voice of the cabinet minister make-over

Over at the redesigned voice of the cabinet minister website, there is now audio with just about every short news clip.  In some cases there’s a bit of video.

In the story on a news release from opposition leader Yvonne Jones, the audio clip is from Dave ‘Sentence Fragments” Denine, the intergovernmental affairs minister. 

Denine got scooped by the opposition, but never let it be said that VO didn’t make sure the CM got his own words on a story.

But that just raises another bunch of questions.

Denine’ s the guy who should have been talking about the fact the federal Conservatives aren’t delivering on their 2005 promise.  After all, that’s the government talking point to try and deflect attention from the fact that most of them bought the Connie bullshit umpteen times after 2005.

For an opposition party, reminding Denine and the rest of that fact would be the logical starting point. 

They could drag in John Hickey, the minister for Labrador Affairs who campaigned a couple of times on the bogus battalion alongside his federal Connie cousins.

And if all else failed, they’d could  now tee off on Denine and Hickey for failing utterly to hold the federal Connies feet to the fire, to use that horrid phrase.

Instead, Jones goes after Stephen Harper as if she was a federal politician.

All is not lost in the local opposition world.

Jones now has the chance to go headlong at the local crowd. Denine – obviously knowing nothing at all about the military  - refers to a bunch of buildings constructed decades ago for the air force as “first-class” infrastructure for the army.  He then tells VOCM that he’ll be going back and have a chat with the federales to see where Goose Bay fits in.

Hint:  it doesn’t.

Jones could be pinging political hit after political hit against the skulls of two incompetent cabinet ministers for building up false hopes in the people of Goose Bay when they should have known  - and should now know – much better.

Shame on Dave and John, should be her line.

Shame on Steve is just too easy, too obvious and totally meaningless locally.

People around these parts  - especially Bond Papers readers - already knew not to trust the federal Connies on the bullshit battalions. 

All Denine does in his voice clip is pretend the promise is real.

Just wait until the ABC Leader gets back.

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Burn your boats!

Over at labradore there has been some delight in poking at an opinion piece that turned up in the weekend Telegram and over at NL Press.

That’s the one that started out with the really creepy metaphor over the whole Danny/Randy thing:

On its face, this question reminds me of the pushy, unappreciative parent who says, "Fine, you got 90% on the test. What happened to the other 10%?"

As we noted before, Randy Simms is apparently the province’s – or Danny Williams’ – demanding father.

Ordinary political discourse is now reduced to someone’s psychological demons if that metaphor is to be believed. 

Then there is the logical implication:  if Randy is everyone’s Dad, then we might also wonder who Jeff Rose-Martland would have as the June Cleaver in this lost episode of Leave it to Beaver penned by Rod Serling.

Perhaps, if the classics are more you speed, you might be considering the prospect that, with a bit more thought, Rose-Martland  could have gifted the writers of the annual Review sketch comedy shows with a local version of Oedipus for next year. 

Anyway…

The latest labradore post on the subject shows only a tiny example of how this defence of the Premier’s testiness is actually an example of the very pessimism, negativity and crap the Premier was supposedly ranting about.

The negativity part is easy:  that would be the first line in which Jeff Rose-Martland accuses Randy Simms of making his comments out of spite.

Anyone who actually heard Simm’s lead-in that fateful day  - Rose-Martland certainly didn’t - or anyone who knows Simms would appreciate that such an imputation is not only being negative, it’s being pretty bloody vicious. Simms doesn’t have a spiteful, malevolent bone in his body.

The pessimism permeates the opinion piece.  It really comes to the fore when the writer likens the fishery to a bog. One presumes he meant quagmire and not a colloquialism for toilet;  that isn’t a safe presumption though, given the whole things slips to the Freudian fairly early on.

The crap part is actually the line which labradore reprints:

Premier Williams looks forwards to a prosperous future where Newfoundland is a successful industrial society, free from the vagaries of nature, and is working to accomplish that.

Now before going any farther let us note the sentence is constructed as if Mr. Rose-Martland is speaking authoritatively on behalf of the Premier or has some firm knowledge of the Leader of The Province’s policies.

The vision held by the Premier, we are told, is of a Newfoundland (but not  Labrador, apparently) society that is not only prosperous but industrial and, as a result ,not affected by nature’s caprice.

Let us begin by establishing that the whole statement is crap, as in nonsense.  Danny Williams and his crew may not have devoted sufficient attention to anything but the oil industry in the eyes of many but at no point has anyone from the administration, Williams included, suggested consigning the rest of the economy to the bog.

But look at the phrase:

…Newfoundland is a successful industrial society, free from the vagaries of nature…

There’s something about those words which is familiar.

Really familiar.

Wait a minute.

Not exactly those words, but something really close.

Hmmm.

That’s basically the Smallwood industrialization policy in the 1950s and 1960s:  everything from rubber boots to eyeglasses and ladies gloves, all as a wage-based alternative to the pre-Confederation fishery. Now to be fair, the policy embraced industrialization in the fishery as well but people don’t necessarily remember that, though.  They just remember what they think Smallwood said and the phrase that captures the idea: 

Burn your boats.

Rose-Martland’s understanding of recent history is clearly as off-base as his metaphors.  The current state of the fishery is not the result of the vicissitudes of fortune, the cruel hand of nature that sometimes delivers bounty and at other times starvation.

Rather, the local fishery in its current form is suffering from the combined impacts of at least two forms of human folly. 

The first is over-fishing perpetrated by the locals with as much zeal as the foreigners.  They decimated the cod-stocks, purely and simply.  Lest someone get a tad upset at that suggestion, let some enterprising person put the question bluntly to people like Gus Etchegary and not relent until he gives a straight answer on the fishing practices at FPI when he was there.

The other folly has been successive federal and provincial policies that have sought to keep the fishery organized as a social welfare program rather than let it develop as a sustainable industry.

Successive governments in both Ottawa and St. John’s have preferred, it would seem, to be engineers of a societal soul - with all its Stalinesque implications -  rather than allow the fishery to develop in such a way that the people engaged in it could earn a decent living by their own labour.  There have been impediments to progress, resistance to change that has come, as much as anywhere else, from politicians themselves. 

Those who seek change in the fishery and in other sectors of the local economy are not the people caricatured by Rose-Martland.  One can say caricature since his piece is built, for the most part on sheer invention.

The people about whom Simms spoke are those who are seeking to get beyond the current day, where government hand-outs make up the balance of a very meagre total income.

If Rose-Martland was actually paying attention to any current discussions,  he’d realize the only people hopelessly mired in the past when it comes to the fishery are the very people he claims are looking steadfastly to some supposedly idyllic future. 

The people talking about changes are the people in the industry:  processors, harvesters and plant workers alike.  The only people talking about stamping up the fishery workers, but only if necessary, to tide them over until maybe next year are the Premier and his fish minister. Both are currently out of the province.  One is on vacation.  The other is heading off to foreign lands as proof of how much he cares.  Well, that’s a paraphrase of the way his deputy put it.

The politicians and others trying to respond intelligently and thoughtfully to current economic problems should be troubled by the sort of endorsement that one finds in Rose-Martland’s piece for the current administration. 

Not only does his argument display an appalling  ignorance of the subjects about which he writes, it misrepresents the current government’s policy in the process.  There are enough people who believe that Danny measures the future in only barrels and megawatts, not in quintals and cords.  Rose-Martland doesn’t help matters with his self-confident assertions about what Danny wants, even if his assertions aren’t supported by evidence. 

The real political problems for the current administration come from the fact that - put aside all the money supposedly spent in the past five years -  the current provincial government has shown it has absolutely no idea about what to do with the fishery. 

Their policies have been a combination of status quo and  still more of the same, interspersed with a one-day gab fest that produced nothing meaningful and the break-up of Fishery Products International.  There may be people within the administration with new and good ideas, but thus far they do not seem to have impressed their colleagues  of the need for action. 

Even without any evident ties to the Tories, Rose-Martland the most ardent of Fans of the leader of The Province, the first Townie Premier in 80 years, will surely be taken as representing the way the townies are thinking about things out beyond the woods and the wilds.

The political problem is not that there are no ideas on how to bring about substantive change in the fishery, how to make it competitive and sustainable both for the stocks and for the people who depend on them.

The political problem is that the politicians seem unable or willing to bring about change.   If the fishery is a quagmire, it is a political one and only political leadership will avoid a disaster.

No good can come of just hoping the whole thing will pass away. Nor can any good come from what amounts to a work of fan fiction.  The Premier would be right to reject such a genuine mountain of pessimism, negativity and crap just as surely as he assailed Randy Simms for an imagined one.

-srbp-

“The Call” – yet another one

Via Geoff Meeker, yet another story of a Call from Hisself:

The premier’s “disappointed” calls are not limited to media. Over the weekend, I spoke with a private citizen who, some time ago, wrote a letter of complaint to Danny. He, too, received an angry call from the premier. I’ll have more on that in my next entry.

-srbp-

Hands up who is surprised.

The new battalion of soldiers promised to Goose Bay by the always-desperate federal Conservatives way back in 2005 does not exist.

The Connies promised it several times after that.

But it does not exist.

It never has existed.

In a recent letter to the provincial government, National Defence Minister Peter Mckay [sic] confirmed that the federal government will not be making any investments into their rapid response battalion or additional troop deployment at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Goose Bay, says Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones.

The June 3rd letter is written to Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dave Denine and states, “Goose Bay was never considered as an option for the territorial battalion group” and “…the army currently has no planned investment in Goose Bay”. This is in direct contrast with the 2006 election commitment of Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he stated that a new rapid reaction army battalion of approximately 650 personnel would be established at CFB Goose Bay and that these plans would result in a significant increase in employment in the Goose Bay area.

Hands up anyone out there who is surprised by this?

See there.

That fellow in the back of the room there needs to be reading Bond Papers.

Regular readers had the scoop four years ago and  hopefully  didn’t fall for yet another ludicrous political promise  - unlike some provincial Conservatives - in any of the federal elections since.

-srbp-

Manitoba tops for oil/gas investment in Canada

A Fraser Institute survey of 577 senior executives in the oil and gas industry shows Manitoba as the preferred Canadian jurisdiction for oil and gas investment.

The survey ranked 143 jurisdictions across the globe:

Manitoba is No. 21 on the list of 143 regions, while Saskatchewan has fallen from the 10th spot (out of 81 regions represented) in 2008 to 38th in 2009. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia was No. 54, Ontario was 60, Quebec 68, British Columbia 71, Newfoundland and Labrador 82 and Alberta 92.

 

-srbp-

Food for thought: the politics of jocks versus nerds