Sorta NSFW Monday

There is no limit to the human imagination.

Proof can be found in the marvellous Lego.

Millions of children have grown up with them, building entire worlds out of a few small bricks.  We loved them and cherish them and sometimes choked on them, but with Lego we could build a world which was entirely ours.

Some of us couldn’t bear to part with these special toys from our childhood. Your humble e-scribbler still has a bag of all his 1960s and 1970s era bits and pieces but they haven’t been played with in a while.

Okay.

Maybe since last week.

Ummm.

Anyway…

For your amusement, here are some links to what some of the hornier adult Lego fans get up to in their spare time.

Given that they involve sexual images, we have to put a warning label on them that they may not be suitable for all ages and may not be safe for work.  Given that they are Lego people, they might be safe for some workplaces, hence the “Sorta NSFW”.

There is the Lego Kama sutra, although there are only 12 pictures in that link.  If memory serves, there were a few more positions than that in the book.  Bonus points to anyone who can find a Ferrari in the original illustrations.

Rest easy, literary purists.  Someone else has reproduced additional positions from the  Kama sutra and made a slide show of the result.

There is another collection of 40 pictures of Lego people in various suggestive positions.  We call them “suggestive” since the wee Lego people are not even close to anatomically correct and they are merely positioned close to each other in certain poses that hint at  certain sexual positions. 

With that in mind, the genius behind this  little collection evidently has an obvious fondness for one position.  Given the frequency with which it appears, odds are he or she isn’t getting  much of it.

Note that the one with the elephant and  another with the Batman characters are just warped enough to put some people off their oatmeal.

Those of you of the kinkier persuasion will probably like the rather elaborate one that isn’t depicting intercourse.  Or police officers, for that matter although handcuffs show up.

Now if all that Lego smutification isn’t your cup of tea, there are some other truly inventive and well-done bits of animation on youtube using Lego.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Sorta.

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Sudbury workers on strike

Vale Inco’s unionized employees in Sudbury hit the picket line Monday after 85% rejected the company’s latest contract offer in voting on the weekend.

According to the Globe and Mail:

At issue was Vale's proposal to reduce a bonus tied to the price of nickel.

In addition, workers opposed a plan by the company to exempt new employees from its defined-benefit pension plan, which guarantees employees a reliable and steady income after retirement.

The company is proposing to provide them with a defined-contribution plan, which bases retirement benefits on investment returns.

Employees at the company's Voisey's Bay operations in Labrador voted 99 per cent against the same offer on Wednesday and are set to begin a strike on Aug. 1.

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$300 million for Goose Bay environmental clean-up

The federal government will spend $300 million for environmental clean-up at 5 Wing Goose Bay. The clean-up project will end in 2020.

The clean-up is being touted as an economic boost to the town in addition to the obvious environmental value.

"This significant investment benefits the Wing, contributes to the economic foundation of the community and mitigates risk to human health and the environment," MacKay, who visited the base Sunday, said in a news release.

Liberal member of parliament Todd Russell sees the clean-up as a prelude to shutting the military base. Russell is quoted by the Ottawa Citizen’s David Pugliese:

"When governments clean up they're looking to clear out," he said.

The defence minister’s spokesman, Dan Dugas, denies the claim according to Pugliese:

Dugas said Goose Bay continues to play an important role in the Canadian Forces operations. "We believe in the base," he added.

Dugas noted that around $100 million a year is spent annually operating the base. In addition, $20 million was recently spent on improving runways there.

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Government on shuttle watch?

STS-127 will launch from Cape Canaveral in less than four hours.

The shuttle Endeavour will launch on an inclination of 51.6 degrees taking it over the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose platforms.

Is our offshore oil safe from the possibility shuttle pieces will fall on top of them in some sort of fiery cataclysm?

Don’t laugh.

Only four short years ago, the Premier threw a very public and very ill-informed panic attack over rocket launches heading over the precious oil fields and the prospect one might drop and blow everything up.

It was one of the early dramas in what seems to have become  a drama-filled administration.

Not all have been so preposterous or as laughable.

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Weather Report Update:  They scrubbed the launch due to bad weather.

Paul Oram: Minister of Revisionist History

Former business minister Paul Oram did a series of interviews when he was in Atlanta last October to attend a trade mission.

His interview on diversifying the economy is interesting mostly because Oram manages to completely cock-up just about everything.

According to Oram, the cod moratorium took place in the “early to mid-1980s”.

If you think that was a slip of the tongue consider that according to Oram, once the moratorium started,  we then turned to diversifying the economy with mining for things like iron ore and uranium.  Iron ore mining dates back to the 1890s, not the 1980s and as for uranium, there isn’t a functioning uranium in the province at the moment.  There never has been one. There are prospects but no actual mine.

The Lower Churchill will start up within the coming year (i.e. 2009) according to Oram, even though the thing had not even started the environmental review process when he did the interview.  It won’t complete the process until 2010-2011.

When asked about innovation, Oram couldn’t give an example.  Instead, he talked about the difference between his department and the innovation department.

We’ll be generous and say that oram sounded like the minister of revisionist history.

Others might say he was the minister of  the “Don’t know a Damn Thing” department.

Oh.

Incidentally, just count the number of times Oram says “to be honest with you.”

We assume he is being honest.  It’s just that he honestly doesn’t have a clue about recent events in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Well, that didn’t work

A quickie cabinet shuffle – the third in eight months – didn’t produce the media coverage they likely thought it might.

Check the headline.

Of course, it doesn’t help when you have to admit in the post-shuffle scrum that the shuffle postponed a scheduled update in the breast cancer scandal that has dogged the government.

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Who’s laughing now smart arse? update:  There was no secret that Danny Williams, Premier was not enamoured of John Crosbie, former cabinet minister.

No surprise, therefore, that Stephen Harper, arranged to have Crosbie installed as lieutenant governor.

Crosbie may be silenced daily but he still gets his shots in.  Like say reminding everyone assembled for a cabinet swearing in that -  as the Telegram put it -  “Brian Mulroney used to have frequent cabinet shuffles when the former prime minister wanted to deflect criticism from his government.”

Everyone laughed and the incident made news.

Talk about getting payback with the seemingly most innocuous of comments.

It’s not easy being green

Well, at least not under a variety of American state and federal laws in New England especially if you are proposing a hydroelectric project like the Lower Churchill.

Sure, we all think of hydro power as pretty friendly to the environment and a source of energy that is pretty low on carbon emissions.

Heck, in the ruckus over erections in Gros Morne, the provincial government has been pretty quick to talk about how green – as in environmentally friendly  - the Gull Island and Muskrat Falls projects are.

As an aside – in some of the online discussions,  some people have been talking about ripping through the park because it’s a way to sell the power to the United States.  Let’s get this clear:  there is no current proposal to build any transmission lines to the United States through Gros Morne park. 

The line that Danny Williams would drive through a UNESCO World Heritage Site ends just west of St. John’s.  It’s the same line Brian Tobin proposed in 1998.

That’s right. 

It’s a line to bring Lower Churchill power to townies, not Yanks.

And while we are at it, Holyrood will not close either even with the infeed.

The comments coming from some quarters makes plain just how much fundamental ignorance – lack of information, awareness and understanding  – there is out there about major public issues.

But anyway, back to green energy and American markets.

Turns out that American state and federal governments are working to develop new, renewable sources of energy.  They are looking at a system of emission credits and what sorts of projects would qualify for credits. 

If the current trend holds, Big Hydro projects  - just like nuclear plants  - won’t count toward renewable energy credits.  New England states have various rules in place currently that look at qualifying hydro power from plants of less than 100 megawatts.  In some states, even these small hydro projects must not change the water level (i.e. no dams) or otherwise impact the natural environment.

A bill currently in the United States Senate – HR2454 the American Clean Energy and Security Act 2009 – limits hydro that qualifies for certification to incremental power from technological upgrades to existing plants, generation from existing dams built for other purposes and “hydrokinetic generation”, that is power generated by ocean currents, wave action and the like.

So two honking great dams across a river, even a few thousand miles away, isn’t necessarily where the Americans are looking. Missing MOU anyone?

Not surprisingly, some states are looking to find a local economic spin-off from new energy sources.  Rhode Island recently adopted a bill mandating the state electricity distribution company to enter into long term power purchase agreements for upwards of 90 megawatts of power from new renewable sources locate din Rhode Island.  They are looking at a $1.5 billion wind farm project  - among other things - to help meet that requirement.

This doesn’t mean that the New England markets are closed to hydro power from Canada but it does mean that proponents of the Lower Churchill are not looking at easy pickings.  

If states and the US federal government are getting stickier about local renewable projects, there’s a very good chance they’ll get stickier about imports as well. 

That’s the thing about American democracy:  people get to participate.  If an environmental lobby builds up against a project like the Lower Churchill, the thing could have a rough ride.  Imagine what might happen if environmentally conscious consumers managed to figure out that the same people promoting this hydro megaproject are the same people who turn up on CNN promoting some old-fashioned seal bashing.

There’s anothing thing too:  look closely at some of this legislation, like say the Rhode Island bill, and you can see limits on the length of the purchase agreements with a maximum of 15 years.  That’s also an issue to think about given that a project the size of the Lower Churchill would likely be financed over a period twice or three times that.

Are states going to be willing to sign PPAs over such a long period?

Would bondholders be prepared to offer up cash with the prospect that markets could go soft half way through the bond life? How about American lenders who are already hurting through the recession and who may still be leery of investing large sums even after the recession ends?

Any way you want to look at it, the Lower Churchill project is still a very long time from starting.

There are currently no power purchase agreements of any kind with any customer. No PPAs means financing will be much tougher on a project that was estimated to cost at least six to nine billion dollars when talk about the project was revived in 2005-2006. Imagine what it will cost in two years time.

The environmental review process won’t finish until 2011 and that alone puts the project two full years behind the schedule mapped out in 2006.  Hydro Quebec is already well on its way to having power to market from new projects by the time NALCOR is looking to start construction of the Lower Churchill. They’ll have a goodly chunk of their new projects done by the time Muskrat and Gull Island turbines start turning, even if the current 2018 timeline for first power could be met.

On top of that there are serious questions that still exist within the Innu community about the draft land claims agreement between the provincial government and the Innu.  Bear in mind that the federal government should be in there as well, but so far hasn’t offered any comment on the darkness that has befallen the New Dawn.

And all of that is without considering the potential for even a teensy bit of public backlash over environmental issues.

It really isn’t easy being green, is it?

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The Great NL Gasoline Price Fixing Scheme: Summer 2009 edition

Gasoline prices in Newfoundland and Labrador are set by the provincial government.

While gasoline prices across North America have been dropping recently, the government’s price fixing mechanism hasn’t kept pace.

To give an idea of the consequences, take a look at this chart.  It shows the average Canadian price per litre (blue) and the average price in Newfoundland (red).

Look closely at that blue line which has been on a steady downward trend since June 20.  The average stands at $1.01 per litre on July 9, down from  $1.06 at peak.

In Newfoundland, the number has pretty much been a steady average above the current average $1.12 per litre since June 20. There were even a couple of upticks in the Newfoundland number during the period.  The current average prices is less than two cents down from the peak.

If none of the previous arguments against government-controlled prices worked, then surely this chart should cause you to sit up and wonder why gas in this province is 11 cents per litre above the Canadian average. 

There’s obviously something wrong.

Seriously wrong.

There have been two big winners from gas price regulation in Newfoundland and Labrador and neither of them is the average consumer.

Gasoline retailers have been gifted with steady and predictable profit margins. They buy at market prices and sell at the government price.  As you can see from the charts below, that can be pretty sweet.

The provincial government also wins.  Its taxes are buried in the price and when the price stays high based on the vagaries of some contrived formula, its tax haul stays nice and fat.

Not surprisingly, there aren’t any politicians calling for the elimination of gas price fixing by the provincial government. In fact, one of the guys who pushed hardest for this scheme – St. John’s mayor Dennis O’Keefe – has been conspicuously silent about the whole issue.

And it’s not like this is a new phenomenon.

Over the past four years not only have prices been substantially above the Canadian average, there are too many occasions where the local prices have bucked the downward trend.  And on some of the upward trends the local price jumps have been disproportionately highly compared to the national average.

Just for good measure, let’s look at the trending over six years.

 

More of the same.

The only astonishing thing in this has been the dead silence from consumers, let alone from the various self-appointed consumer advocates out there, one of whom has managed to find himself a sweet job leading a Great Sittee.

If you didn’t think there was a reason to scrap the government-dictated gasoline price scheme in this province, surely the events this week and this evidence should make you sit up and take notice of what is a fairly obvious problem.

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Oil drops 18 % in a week

Prices for front month crude have dropped more than 18% in the past week.

The markets appear to be reacting to news of continued economic uncertainty in the United States and continued gluts in gasoline supplies. Stockpiles of gasoline in the US have grown by 1.9 million barrels last week as Americans curb their driving. 

“The recession is far from over,” said analyst Stephen Schork. “Perhaps the run-up in prices was a bit overstated.”

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Strike looming at Sudbury and Voisey’s Bay

Unionized workers at Voisey’s Bay voted on the weekend to reject a contract offer by the employer Vale.

A vote at Vale’s Sudbury operation is also expected to reject the contract, according to the Globe and Mail.

Workers could strike as of August 1.

Related:  Vale chief executive Roger Agnelli has described Vale’s Sudbury operation as unsustainable at current cost levels.

 

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Chew the wafer

The Prime Minister is in a bit of a political hard spot with questions over what he did with the  Eucharistic host at the recent funeral for Romeo LeBlanc.

Some say he didn’t eat it, as one is supposed to do, but rather slipped it into his pocket.

His office insists he did the appropriate thing.

Oh yeah.

There’s video, of course.

But it’s basically a piece of junk that shows absolutely nothing other than the PM accepting the communion wafer like everyone else.  If you pay attention to the text slides inserted at the front and the back of the clip, though, you might be fooled into thinking something else happened.

If there’s a question, then perhaps we should look to his staff who may have simply forgotten to make sure that every protocol point was covered.

Frankly, given the occasion – the funeral of a fine and respected gentleman – people should be willing to ignore this even if every accusation were true.  The controversy doesn’t damage Stephen Harper so much as it tarnishes the memory of the late governor general.

So let’s just turn the page on that one, shall we?

And if you want to watch a video that will unsettle some Roman Catholics out there,  just sit back, relax and enjoy a little vintage Tom Lehrer, complete with the introduction to set the stage and Tom’s momentary lapse of memory for his own lyrics:

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Of mice and antelope through the looking glass

In this summer of political problems across the province, of meltdowns and power lines, some old posts at Bond Papers take on a renewed relevance.

In November 2006, your humble e-scribbler brought out the idea of mice and antelope as a metaphor for the political problem of focusing on side issues  - trivial issues - rather than keeping eyes on the big prize.

A couple of years into the administration, its tendency to get distracted was plainly obvious.

Now a couple of years into its second term and the tendency has become the main operating method.

Around these parts, we’d say the mouse hunting is one of the big reasons why projects tend to hang around - unresolved - for years or why legislation is passed and then left to the sidelines or why major capital works projects are announced and then seem to take forever before a shovel is even waved above a sod let alone pushed into it.

The thing is that as time goes by, any government that tends to get distracted by mice will wind up having more things not accomplished than it has accomplished.  The magnitude of what it gets done, even if they are big things like offshore oil projects or a massive hydro project,  starts to look puny compared to the mountain of others things that hang around seemingly gathering dust.

That Lewis Carroll notion  - think “un-birthdays” - is one we’ve gone to before.  There is un-communication, for example.  Now it seems to be appropriate to start talking of the current administration’s un-accomplishments.

The Fan Club, at this juncture, is no doubt rushing about shouting something about shooting or lopping off heads, but in doing so they miss the point entirely, as usual.

People typically want their government to succeed.  They like it when schools are built, roads are paved, and jobs are created.  They like it when the party that wins an election actually does all the good things they promised;  sustainable development acts, improvements to open records laws, a New Approach that involves listening to people and giving them substantial input into how they are governed.

Pointing out the shortcomings is a reminder that there are antelope over there aplenty waiting to be slain.

It’s a call to the Fan Club and its idol to stop getting distracted by the mouse scurrying by.

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Gros Morne erections trump the unforgettable natural environment

Natural ecosystems were worth protecting in 2007 – the election year – because they define us as a people.

In 2009, yeah, maybe not so much.

The 2007 Progressive Conservative election platform:

“Among our greatest sources of pride is our clean and beautiful natural environment. It defines us. It makes living here wonderful. It makes visiting here unforgettable. Our natural ecosystems are worth protecting for future generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.”

Also from the 2007 Tory election platform:

…enforce the provisions of the Sustainable Development Act regarding the responsible and sustainable development of our natural environment, ensuring that our resource development decisions address the full range of environmental, social and economic values and that workers, environmentalists, industry, communities, aboriginal peoples and others have a say in how our resources are managed. [Note:  You actually have to have a sustainable development act that’s in force in order to enforce it.]

From 2009, the plan for massive steel erections in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as CBC describes it in their online story:

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams says he is willing to risk losing Gros Morne National Park's UNESCO world heritage status if the cost of preserving it is too high

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An equity stake in the province’s natural heritage

A cynic, Oscar Wilde once wrote, is a fellow who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

There is no word, apparently for someone who knows neither the price of stringing hydro lines around Gros Morne National Park nor the value of leaving the park free of the steel girders and humming wires.

In his first media scrum since returning from a weeklong junket to Europe,  Premier Danny Williams said that he was prepared to risk the World Heritage designation for Gros Morne because the cost of the alternative might be $100 million. 

“Might be” since the thing had not been properly costed, according to the Premier:

"We can't just start carving out those kinds of dollars … without even have a proper costing. It's wrong to oversimplify it, but if it meant putting it into health care as opposed to putting it into UNESCO, I would put it into health care, he said.

The value of Gros Morne, untrammelled by NALCOR Energy’s plan to build a giant power line from Labrador to the northeast Avalon, should be obvious to all those who appreciate the national park’s natural beauty.

It’s value  - sans girders - to the provincial tourism department should be equally obvious to everyone who has watched a television ad or looked through a tourism marketing brochure.

But in the meantime, that’s a pretty startling admission:  that after four years and as the project barrels along, the proponents don’t know what it would cost to find another route a few miles to the east of the one they have in mind.

It smacks of scrambling rather than a careful weighing of all options, each properly studied and costed.

Then again, that’s what you’d get if you just abandoned the process you started and decided to go down an entirely different road from the one first proposed. You wind up looking at plans made 25 or 30 years ago, ones that involve slinging lines along a stretch of ground that – when the plans were hatched – weren’t inside a national park.  The national park didn’t exist then.

But the whole thing gets a wee bit bizarre – there’s that all-too-familiar-word again –when you consider that the Premier seems to think $100 million is too much money to talk about:

"It's not as simple as that, but we do have to strike that balance. It's not a small amount of money. It is a significant amount of money."

This is a guy who supposedly is used to dealing with grand schemes that cost in the billions.  The one he wants to push through the park is estimated at upwards of $10 billion.  Even the low-end estimates, which few would believe, put the total cost at somewhere between six and eight billion.  The infeed line alone, the one through the park, is likely to cost a couple of billion.

$100 million against $2.0 billion.

What is that? 

5%?

That’s like half an offshore equity stake’s worth of only a fraction of the whole project.

Surely to Heavens, when put in those terms, Danny Williams can figure out that shifting the steel girders outside the park isn’t really much of anything to do.

He can think of it as his equity stake in the natural heritage of our province.  A piece of the action that he can pass on to future generations.

Shifting the power lines outside Gros Morne might not conjure up the big buck announcements the Premier seems to thrive on, but by recognising the simple value of unadulterated nature, Danny Williams could show that he actually knows both the price of something and the value of something far greater.

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One Trick Pony Update:  Apparently, as much as Danny Williams likes to talk about the importance of going it alone, the whole Gros Morne thing seems to be a bit of a dodge to try and force some money out of Uncle Ottawa to fund the whole Lower Churchill scheme:

"If the federal government is interested in an alternate route because of the importance of the UNESCO designation, because of the importance obviously of Gros Morne as a federal park, then I would expect the feds to participate with us in rerouting that cost," Williams said Tuesday.

The cost of developing an alternate route could be as much as $100 million, Williams said, but he added that was a preliminary estimate.

"If in fact we can get support from the federal government and if in fact we can justify another route, then that's something I would prefer to do ... but I can't turn around and say today without proper costing that that's something I would definitely do," he said.

"It's a significant amount of money."

Of course, the project has never been a go-it-alone affair.  Williams has been trying to find federal backing for his grand design from the beginning.

9 Wing Gander to get new buildings

The Department of National Defence will spend $42.5 million on three new buildings at 9 Wing Gander.

One building will give a new home to 91 Construction Engineer Flight, a reserve unit.

Two other buildings will bring together 9 Wing support units from different facilities at the Gander airport.

Work is expected to start in 2011 on the home for 91 CEF.  Work on the other buildings is not expected to begin until 2015.

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NALCOR may be exempted from offshore royalty payments

If the provincial government acts on a provision of the Hebron fiscal agreement, the government’s own energy corporation could wind up paying nothing to the provincial treasury in royalties.

That would set it apart from any other offshore interest holder,  including the federal government’s Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (CHHC).

Under sections 8.4 of the Hebron fiscal agreement, the Hebron partners agree that the provincial government can “make amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act”…, “make amendments to the Royalty Regulations” or “make an agreement pursuant to section 33 of Petroleum and Natural Gas Act…to adjust, vary or suspend OilCo’s liability for the payment of royalties on oil produced from the Lands”  that would be different from the arrangements with the other project partners.

That provision  - which could see the province’s own oil company pay nothing at all in royalties - might also violate the agreement that is the basis for the province’s offshore wealth.

Under section 41 of  the 1985 Atlantic Accord memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and St. John’s,  “Crown corporations and agencies involved in oil and gas resource activities in the offshore area shall be subject to all taxes, royalties and levies.”

That section was intended to put any Crown corporation operating offshore, federal or provincial,  on the same footing as a private sector corporation.

That section applies to CHHC and should also cover NALCOR Energy.

The provision of the agreement appears to take advantage of hasty 2001 amendments to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act which gave the provincial government the ability to make an agreement on royalties that differed from the generic royalty regime.

Although the changes to the province’s fundamental oil and gas law were substantive, the entire set of amendments passed through the House of Assembly in a single evening with only three speakers.

Energy minister Lloyd Matthews described the changes as “administrative.”  He did not give any detailed discussion of any amendment, and simply glossed over the section on royalty agreements – the new section 33 – as if it was nothing more than a change of numbering.

John Ottenheimer, the opposition energy critic at the time and now the chair of NALCOR Energy’s board of directors,  spoke on the bill but made absolutely no reference to the details of the changes concerning royalties and variance to royalty arrangements.

That’s surprising given that the opposition leader at the time had already begun to speak publicly against give-away resource deals. Section 33 set the legal stage for just such a give away.

Jack Harris also spoke on the bill, spending considerable time criticising the existing royalty regimes.  He made no reference to the substantive changes the bill made to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act.  That’s surprising since section 33 gives the government the right to sign a royalty deal which wasn’t even as lucrative as the existing regimes which he was criticizing. 

Then opposition leader Danny Williams made no comment at all on the bill during debate.

There’s no way of knowing at this point if a similar provision exists in the deal on Hibernia South. Details of the fiscal agreement on that project have not been made public.

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CHHC pays off for provincial government

Even without owning it, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will likely earn more from the federal government’s 8.5% share in Hibernia than it will from its own 10% stake in Hibernia South.

That’s because the Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (CHHC) pays royalties to the provincial government like any offshore interest holder and with Hibernia in payout, the royalty jumps this year from 5% to the current 30%.

CHHC’s stake covers an 8.5% interest in the remaining oil in Hibernia, including Hibernia South.  The total remaining oil could be as much as  1.2 billion barrels which would work out to the equivalent of about 100 million barrels for CHHC.

NALCOR Energy – the provincial government’s energy corporation  - owns a 10% interest in Hibernia South.  That works out to about 17 million barrels in the approximately 170 million barrels of the extension project in which NALCOR holds an interest.

Assuming an average price $50 per barrel, the NALCOR interest in Hibernia South would generate $850 million in gross revenue over the life of that project, less royalties that might be paid to the provincial government, as well as development and operating costs. The royalty on $850 million would be $255 million, assuming only 30% royalty.

But, using the same price,  the royalty paid by CHHC to the provincial government on the federal stake remaining in Hibernia – including Hibernia South  - would work out to roughly $1.53 billion.  That royalty comes with no deductions.

That’s not a bad return considering the provincial government took virtually no financial risk in Hibernia by acquiring an operating interest.

Between 2000  - the first year royalty payments were made - and 2008, CHHC paid the provincial government a total of $104.8 million according to figures released to Bond Papers by the federal finance department.

Table:  CHHC Hibernia Royalty

Year	Royalty Amount
2008	22,536,000
2007	15,576,000
2006	17,902,000
2005	20,582,000
2004	11,308,000
2003	6,254,000
2002	4,436,000
2001	2,205,000
2000	4,040,000
Total	$104,839,000

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Province’s political puff posture goes “Poof!”

Sure, the Premier claimed the provincial government wasn’t participating in the trade talks with the European Union, but Geoff Meeker discovered that over the past 18 months the provincial government has been working with the talks team.

Provincial government officials have been attending regular meetings and they have a seat at the table alongside the other provinces.

Meeker rightly wonders what all the bluster was about earlier this year. Turns out that there may be even more of a dysfunction or disconnect within the provincial government than first appeared.

We might also wonder therefore why the Premier suddenly headed off to Europe last week claiming he was working on the trade talks.

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Agricultural land freeze action MIA

The provincial government announced a  review of the agricultural land freeze in the metropolitan St. John’s area  in early 2007.

The commission didn’t hold hearings until 2008, but it managed to submit a report in June 2008.

The provincial government released the report in September 2008.

Of the 1,450 acres recommended for deletion from the ADA, 1,061 acres (75 per cent) are within the boundaries of the Town of Portugal Cove-St. Philips. The report also recommends the deletion of 120 acres from the protected area in the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove area and 170 acres within the Town of Torbay.

The majority of this land base being recommended for removal from the zone has severe limitations and is unsuitable for agriculture. The review did not recommend any changes in the Goulds or Kilbride area, the main agricultural area in the St. John’s Urban Region.

At the time, the news release said the government was reviewing the recommendations.

A year after the provincial government received the report, there’s no word on what – if anything – came of the recommendations.

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Kremlinology 3: Gros Morne version

The provincial government’s  tourism folks love Gros Morne with all its beautiful views and its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The provincial government’s energy folks want to sling 40-odd metre tall hydro towers through the park because it would be cheaper than going around the park.

So when the Telegram goes to the tourism department looking for a media line on a project that has – presumably – been endorsed by cabinet and therefore all of government, the tourism people suggest that reporter go speak to someone else.

Like the natural resources minister, she who oversees the line slingers.

Now it’s not like the comment was about something outside the tourism department’s mandate.  They should have a line on it ready to sling in the event someone asks them about the power line slinging.

But they didn’t.

They instead pointed to the other bunch.

And that’s a bit odd.

It suggests that somewhere in the tourism department there is at least one e-mail, at least one memo perhaps pretty high up the departmental food chain that considers the liner slinging to be “the most serious threat” to any tourism campaign featuring the pristine natural beauty of the province.

There might even be a document of some kind that says that, having looked at the “trade-offs”, the tourism people don’t like the idea of high voltage direct current electricity wire zapping bugs all down through the park.

Because, the surest way to put an end to any news story about the threat to Gros Morne  from the potentially unnecessary infeed from the Lower Churchill – if that even gets built – is to have the tourism people state publicly that having Gros Morne festooned with steel girders and power lines  is just a lot of fuss about nothing at all.

But they didn’t do that.

The tourism people passed the buck to someone else.

Very curious.

-srbp-