Waiting for the news release…

when Newfoundland and Labrador’s population drops by one half of one percent would be like waiting for government to lower gas prices by half a cent.

Not gonna happen.

But government will raise prices by a little more than a quarter of a cent. Such is the sensitivity of the government gas pricing fixing scheme when the prices aren’t in the consumer interest.

And cabinet ministers will issue news releases when the population estimates go up by a comparably small amount.  Last summer, then-finance minister Tom Marshall issued a news release heralding a growth in population of a mere 171 people.

Thus far, not a peep on an estimated population drop of  264.

That could be because the growth in population – triggered as it was by the recession – could now turn once more in population decline as the western world comes out of a recession.

And while the current administration likes to claim credit for things they didn’t do – oil revenues and  increased population for two examples – they seldom like to take responsibility for stuff they do.

Funny that, iddn’t it?

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Lemme get this straight…

The guy who liked to recycle expense claims (in one case three times) and who serves in an administration renowned for recycling announcements (in some cases as many as eight times) is criticising another politician for supposedly recycling announcements.

Oh yeah and to make it even funnier, this same guy campaigned not once but twice for the guys he now criticises and he’d-a-been out there a third and fourth time if his boss hadn’t told him he couldn’t.

Can you say “credibility gap”,  boys and girls?

Maybe he’d have been waving around a signed contract for the feds to help pave the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Speaking of HMV, where exactly is that lawsuit against Roger Grimes, John Hickey?  If memory serves, Hickey was suing Grimes for something Danny Williams actually said.

Now there’s a brilliant law suit for you.

By the by,  who is stunneder in that case:  the guy who gave the advice to sue or the guy who took it and wound up paying the bill out of his own pocket?

Tough call.

Oh yes, and this latest release recycling news release is itself recycled.

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Random thoughts - squirrels

“Squirrels are the Devil’s oven mitts.”

That quote turns up in The Book of General Ignorance a marvelous collection of trivia, facts and myth busting that goes nicely with The Origins of the Specious.

It’s attributed to Miss Piggy  but there’s no sign of it anywhere on the Internet, even on Muppet fora.

Doesn’t matter who said;  it’s hysterically funny especially for those of us who find the critters a lot less cute and cuddly than they seem.

Not all squirrels are Miss Suzy, you see.

Changing the frame, at last

Premier Danny Williams may well have lived up to an election promise and brought the auditor general in to look at the books, but until then, not one single "honourable member" involved at the centre of the slimefest thought of taking a principled stand on the issue.

We’ve talked about frames before and that quote from the Saturday Telegram editorial shows just exactly how effective some frames can be in skewing the discussion of a topic.

That idea – that Danny Williams made an election promise and sent the auditor general to the House of Assembly – is one that the governing party and its supporters have pushed since the moment the Premier revealed the existence of the auditor general’s investigation.

It has survived despite countless column inches of news coverage and minutes of electronic reporting.  It has survived despite an extensive investigation by the province’s Chief Justice that shows the full detail of things.

But try and find one single sentence in the entire report by Chief Justice Derek Green that confirms anything even close to the claim that “Danny Williams…  brought the auditor general in to look at the books…”.

You won’t find such a sentence, though, because it never happened.

The second half of that editorial quote is also wrong.

Not one but three members of the House of Assembly “thought of taking a principled stand on the issue” of ethics and accountability in the House of Assembly.

In fact, the three – Danny Williams, Harvey Hodder and Ed Byrne – felt so strongly about the need for stricter financial controls that they held a news conference in order to unveil nearly two dozen commitments designed to address public distrust of politicians.

In the event, the three only got around to implementing about half their commitments, though,  and the ones related to the House of Assembly allowances only came about because there was no way to avoid them. 

The Telly editorial isn’t just satisfied to repeat the official frame;  the writer takes the time to add a myth or two of his or her own.   Take, for example, the view of the role played by the provincial government’s cheque-writer, otherwise known as the comptroller general:

The comptroller-general's office, which issued the cheques, unable to question any of them, no matter how peculiar.

That simply isn’t true, of course. One of the enduring mysteries of this entire affair is how the chief cheque-writer could issue cheques far in excess of maximum amounts that were well known to officials and yet at no point did he or his staff apparently raise any concerns. As Chief Justice Green notes in his third chapter:

During this era, the Comptroller General had full access to all financial documentation in respect of the disbursement of public funds from the accounts of the legislature. Internal audit and compliance staff of the Comptroller General could review transactions of the House of Assembly and test for compliance with policies. In short, while the House and the IEC were understood to have the authority to make management and policy decisions, independent of Treasury Board or Cabinet, various elements of this overall financial control framework of government were deemed to apply to the House of Assembly.

Far from being unable to pose questions, the comptroller general had both the knowledge and the legal ability to ask questions about the chronic overspending.  He didn’t.  Nor did the auditor general raise any questions either even though he and his staff  had access to the same information available to the comptroller general. 

Both offices – the CG and the AG – produced annual reports on government spending and dutifully reported the overages.  Neither said so much as “boo”.  For 2004 and 2005, for example, both the AG and the CG issued the Public Accounts that showed the House accounts for members’ allowances out of whack by roughly a  million each year.  They never once noted that the budget presented the previous spring had claimed that the accounts were exactly on budget

The Telegram editorial illustrates the extent to which the frame applied to the House of Assembly scandal persists despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.  In other words, three years after the people of the province learned of the scandal and after a series of reports and court cases, there is still a marked preference in public comment for fiction over faction, for myth over reality. 

Until commentators reject the frame applied to the scandal three years ago, it will remain a political life unexamined.

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Hydro Quebec intervenes on Lower Churchill

Hydro Quebec has taken a shot at the Lower Churchill project as part of the environmental review, saying the environmental documents do not contain the amount and the quality of information normally required within the framework of the environmental evaluation of major hydroelectric projects, according to le soleil.

The HQ submission said that unless deficiencies are corrected, the project shouldn’t be approved.  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has until September to respond to the HQ submission, as part of the environmental review process for the project.

One of the issues highlighted by HQ was water resource management between the Churchill falls power plant and the Lower Churchill. 

That may be a valid objection and could be the reason why the provincial government made changes to the Electrical Power Control Act two years ago but still hasn’t implemented them.  Under the changes, two energy producers on the same river would have to come to an agreement to ensure both projects worked to the maximum.  In the absence of an agreement the province’s public utilities board could impose one.

But, the revisions are in limbo.  Incidentally, the only part of the province the section applies to would be the Churchill River.  It would have applied to any developments on the island but any potential issues there were eliminated when the provincial government wiped out most private sector electricity generation on the island with its December expropriation.

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Paying not to produce electricity

A drop in electricity demand in North America will see Hydro Quebec paying some of its suppliers not to produce electricity in the next year, according to le devoir.

Selon les documents déposés devant la Régie par la société d'État, ses surplus d'approvisionnements s'établissent à 11,3 TWh pour l'année prochaine. Le chiffre inclut les volumes d'énergie différés par le passé. De ce volume important, Hydro-Québec souhaite désormais soustraire les 4,3 TWh de la centrale de Bécancour. «Notre contrat avec TCE nous permet de payer pour la non-livraison d'électricité», a commenté Guy l'Italien, porte-parole d'Hydro-Québec. «Cette option nous coûte, dans le contexte actuel, moins cher que si nous décidions de prendre possession de l'électricité pour la revendre sur le marché.» La Société n'a pas été en mesure hier d'indiquer si des clauses similaires étaient présentes dans ses contrats d'approvisionnement avec d'autres de ses fournisseurs.

HQ is looking to shutter a natural gas generator operated by TransCanada Energy and pay the company $250 million under the terms of the contract between the two companies.

In the near term, HQ may also wind up with a significant surplus of generating capacity as it looks to bring the La Romaine and other projects on stream.  HQ will go ahead with the megaprojects since it has the capital and will look to recover its costs over a very long time span.

A drop in energy demand and competition from other electricity generators will likely also lessen the chances the provincial government’s cherished Lower Churchill project will find favourable capital arrangements.  The $6.0 to $9.0 billion project remains chronically about two to three years behind schedule in its most recent iteration. 

The project also doesn’t have a single customer to date outside consumers on the island portion of province.  They would be – in effect – forced to subsidise the massive project by virtue of having an infeed line strung to the Avalon peninsula even though demand on the island could be met through other less costly means.   Other than that, there are no signed power purchase agreements.

Interestingly, as demand has lessened, interest in the project has increased, particularly within the Maritime provinces.  Federal cabinet minister Peter Mackay and Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently toured the proposed dam sites by helicopter.

Of course, weakening demand and a proponent jammed up for cash and pushed along by its own hyper-torqued rhetoric might create a much better circumstance for energy buyers looking to strike a favourable long term deal.  That’s very similar to the situation that led Brinco to sign a disastrous deal with Hydro Quebec in 1969, with the backing of the provincial government.

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h/t to Claude Boucher.

An unhealthy trend

In a province with a notoriously underdeveloped private sector,  the news of a manufacturing venture in Argentia should be bringing a lot more voices of concern than it likely will.

That’s because the metal fabrication facility will be a joint venture of JV Driver, D.F. Barnes Group and the provincial government. 

Out of a total estimated cost of $10 million, the provincial government is tossing in $4.0 million. And of that amount fully half is going to purchase specialized equipment for welding pressure vessels as well as training employees.

In other words, the provincial government is taking on the capital costs and the human resource costs for two private sector companies of the start-up venture. 

Now it’s not like these sorts of government-backed ventures have a spectacular history of success in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that history spans a half century and more.  Typically, the ventures that need such massive transfusions of public money are marginal at best or  - even worse - unthinkable without it. 

Places that have a market demand and industrial sectors where there is demand usually can attract sufficient private sector investment to make a go of things without government involvement to the tune of 40% of project cost and with government absorbing the cost of training and capital equipment purchases. 

If you look at the news release, there’s no sign this new venture has any contracts already aside from whatever demand might come from local offshore projects.  That might point to another issue, namely that this pressure vessel fabrication plant is competing with well-established players globally that are considerably closer to customer locations than Newfoundland and Labrador.   The existing companies would also have the competitive advantage of experience and a proven track-record for delivery.

Taken altogether, those points suggest it might be difficult to break into the pressure vessel market successfully without using government subsidy as a way of lowering costs.

This is not the first example of government subsidized industry in this province and, if the current administration’s policies are any clue, it won’t be the last.  What this project indicates is that government has decisively abandoned the 1992 Strategic Economic Plan. 

That plan, you may recall was built on the twin ideas of lower to non-existent government subsidy on the one hand and on the other a focus on industries where Newfoundland and Labrador offered an obvious competitive advantage.  The idea was to create businesses that were sustainable in the long-haul in a global economy without government financial support.

What is now appearing more obviously is that the provincial government’s industrial development policy is a throw-back to the rubber boot and eyeglass factories  of the Smallwood era and the 1980s vintage cucumber grow-ops. 

Plus ca change, it would seem, or perhaps res ipsa loquitur:

"In particular, My Government will create sources of capital to enable businesses to establish, grow, diversify, and prosper."

There are also white tips poking through the sand, portents of the bleached bones of Latvian dinosaurs from the days when another government brought back little more from its wanderings than the crushing weight of debt. It is not for government to create sources of private sector capital out of public money, Premier Williams. One shudders at what the winds of time will expose of that seemingly Smallwoodian tyrannosaur.

After years of looking at the Irish and Icelandic models, the province’s industrial policy has apparently reverted to its original Latvian root.

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When small could mean big

As renewNewEngland.com reports, the Maine state legislature recently passed an initiative designed to encourage small, locally-owned green energy generation concepts. The bill was signed into law on June 26.

The new law establishes a six-year pilot program to encourage the development of community-based renewable energy in Maine, defined as a majority locally-owned facility that generates electricity from an eligible renewable resource.  The pilot program has an overall program cap of 50 MW, 10 MW of which is reserved at the outset for projects that have a generating capacity under 100 kW or are located in the service territory of a consumer-owned utility.  To be eligible for the program, renewable energy projects must (1) have a generating capacity of 10 MW or less, (2) secure a resolution of support from their local community (projects with a capacity of less than 100 kW are exempt from this requirement), (3) be connected to the grid, and (4) have an in-service date of September 1, 2009 or later.

This has all the hallmarks of a growing trend south of the border to focus on private sector development of small energy developments.  It’s based on the belief – apparently -  that small is not only less harmful to the environment but that local initiative and local capital can successfully combine to meet a portion of the nation’s energy needs.  The approach is supposed to create jobs and, since it is handled by the private sector and costs are relatively small, stimulate the growth of local businesses.

Compare that to the official philosophy in Newfoundland and Labrador that is touting an energy megaproject that thus far has no customers outside the northeast Avalon peninsula.  Incidentally, even your humble e-scribbler’s sister missed the point that the infeed the provincial government is trying to ram through Gros Morne is designed to bring power to townies, not Yanks. 

There is no plan in public at this point to extend any power lines south of the island of Newfoundland.  There likely won’t be if customers can’t be found for the juice.  Anyone who has read any part of the environmental review documents for the infeed to Soldiers Pond will understand that the thing is justified entirely on a supposed power shortfall on the island within the next decade. 

They plan to meet that supposed need with Lower Churchill power at a cost of $6.0 to $9.0 billion.  As the 2007  energy plan puts it:

This demand is forecast to grow at a fairly steady, moderate pace over the next several years. This would result in a need for new sources of supply on the Island prior to 2015, and later in Labrador.  As a result, we plan to develop the Lower Churchill project, which will include  a transmission link between Labrador and the Island.

Anyone reading the environmental impact documents will also realise that the provincial government’s energy company has effectively ignored the potential for small hydro developments or other small electricity projects to meet local need.  Even when an energy corporation official talks about wind power, it is obvious the corporation is fixated on the export market.  And when they think exports, big is all they seem to see.

There’s been a moratorium on small hydro projects in the province since the late 1990s.  While the provincial government committed two years ago to make a decision on the moratorium this year, odds are the decision won’t be made on time.  Even if it is made, the energy plan links the Lower Churchill and alternative sources for the island in an “either/or” proposition.  If the government proceeds with the Lower Churchill, alternatives are dead issues.  If the Lower Churchill dies, then small generators are the way to go.

As for private sector capital investment,  you only have to consider that one of the effects of the expropriation bill last December to see the official attitude to the private sector.  While everyone fixated on Abitibi, the expropriation also included seizing control of just exactly the kinds of small hydro that Maine and others are encouraging and hand them over to the provincial government’s energy corporation.  Star Lake  - totally unrelated to the Abitibi mill - was one of the casualties of the expropriation, as was the Exploits River partnership, a joint venture between Abitibi and locally-based Fortis. 

If that doesn’t convince you, consider that in the event small hydro projects go ahead, the energy plans mandates that only the provincial government energy corporation will be involved:

If the Provincial Government lifts the moratorium, it will institute a policy that the Energy Corporation will control and coordinate the development of small hydro projects that meet economic thresholds and are viable for an isolated island system.

And it’s not like the energy corporation has been very efficient at exploring alternatives to its current obsession with megaprojects.  The earliest proposals for wind energy farms on the island turned up over a decade ago. However, it took another six years for a small project to start on an isolated island and another  seven years for a report to examine the issues involved in wind generation and another two years after that before the first larger demonstration project started.

If Newfoundland and Labrador followed the approach of other jurisdictions, the people of the province could reaping the big economic and environmental benefits of innovative, small energy generation.

Unfortunately, the provincial government’s energy plan is fixated on government monopoly and megaprojects. The only things big in that are costs and - of course - project delays.

The Lower Churchill was supposed to start in 2009.  By the latest estimates, the earliest it could start construction is after 2011.

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The Wookey Hole Witch

Wookey Hole Caves, near the village of Wookey, Somerset held a competition recently for the post of witch at the local tourist attraction.

Contestants had 60 seconds to make their pitch in front of a panel.  Carole Bohanan, a real estate agent, bested 400 or so others and walked off with the job. As the resident witch, Carole will work under the name Carla Calamity. 

The job comes with an annual stipend of 50,000 pounds sterling.

Legend has it that an old woman did once live there, with her dogs and her goats, her spells making life miserable for the locals.

Eventually, a monk from Glastonbury was sent for and Father Bernard, together with his bible and a candle, went in to see if he could sort the situation out

He failed. The witch ran off into the depths of the cavern, cursing and screaming.

So the monk scooped up some water from the cave, blessed it and threw it at the witch. She and her dog were turned to stone and can still be seen in the cave today.

Now given a choice, something suggests that people on the west coast of Newfoundland might prefer shelling out a few hundred thousand annually for a local Carla.  If nothing else, she’d be a much better draw than say some massive steel erections in a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Don’t think so?

Just take a gander at the winner.

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Fisheries activist passes away

Father Des McGrath, the Roman Catholic priest who was instrumental in the drive to organize the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union has passed away at age 74.

McGrath was found dead in his garage by police.

Born in Corner Brook in 1935, McGrath was ordained in 1961.  in 1969, McGrath and Richard Cashin helped fisherman organize the Northern Fisherman’s Union.  It amalgamated with the Canadian Food and Allied Workers Union in 1970 to form the predecessor of the FFAW.  Cashin served a president. 

McGrath held no union office but remained an advocate for fisheries union for the remainder of his life.

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Why…

1.  Does Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, keep referring to himself in the plural as in “we” received information or when “we” got into politics when he is referring to himself, singularly and personally?

The “we”, something he copied from his model’s speaking pattern along with referring to things as this “piece” or that “piece”, sounds pompous, arrogant or – worse – deranged.  [word replaced;  see note below]

And while we are at it, why…

2.  would Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, bring up optional blind trusts for city councillors when there are other ethics issues he’s clearly ignoring.

Like campaign finance reform.

Far better for people to know which monied interests in town are backing candidates than giving councillors the option of putting their interests at arms length.

But in the spirit of disclosure and accountability, maybe Ron could disclose publicly his own local business interests for starters and a complete accounting of his campaign donations and expenses for the past two elections.

We are not talking about the ones required by the laughable city election rules.  We are talking about full and complete disclosure using – for example – the federal campaign spending and reporting rules.

Ellsworth has made a rod to beat his own back, but his rival for the mayor’s chair – Doc O’Keefe  - isn’t likely politically swift enough to use it. 

Others might not be.

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Change update:  There are two parts of that post that require correction, elaboration and clarification.

The first is the use of the word “mentor” in reference to Ellsworth.  That wasn’t the right word since it could suggest a conscious collaboration by both parties. The word “model” is better since it merely suggests what seems to be obvious, namely that Ellsworth is modelling himself on a certain well-known politician.

The second is to replace the words “but Doc is too stunned to use it, most likely”.  Stunned is a common enough local word and while that phrase would come across to someone who got the point using dialect, the potential for misunderstanding is too great to leave it alone.

The phrase could be taken the wrong way so best to change it to one that more accurately reflects the meaning intended:

As it now reads, the sentence should convey the point that while Ellsworth has essentially handed his rival with a political rod to beat him about the head with, Ellsworth’s rival hasn’t displayed the sort of political savvy and moxie – the political swiftness – to capitalize on his opponent’s blunder.

Now for those who think your humble e-scribbler got calls, be assured that there were none.  Also be assured that Doc’s crowd won’t like the revised version any better than the one before.  Nor will Ellsworth and his crowd.

This just makes plain what was meant.

Re-union fever

Among the bands re-uniting for concert dates in 2009:

1.  Kajagoogoo.  [youtube link]

2. Spandau Ballet

3. Ultravox.

4.  Earth, Wind and Fire are still out there so this doesn’t really count as a reunion;  it’s worth just posting this video of a recent version of September that stills kicks ass.

5.  And to reunite you with some really great music from a band that never stopped, there’s always Kid Creole and the Coconuts:

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Significant digits: $100 million

No, it’s not Dr. Evil trying to catch up with the times.

There’s something about $100 million that seems to tweak the current Provincial Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even more specifically, it is $100 million coupled with Labrador.

Take, for example, the plan to string hydroelectric lines and massive steel towers from Labrador to St. John’s via a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Premier is backing the proposal to drive the giant steel erections straight through Gros Morne because the cost of jogging around the park -  which he estimates at $100 million – is too high a price. 

Or during the last provincial election campaign when the Liberals floated the idea of establishing a $100 million fund for economic development in Labrador.

Oh no, screamed the Tories.  The province might go bankrupt at such a price.

And then there’s the cost of extending fibre-optic telephone and data lines to Labrador.

Glorious idea, but the provincial government can’t even think about starting without federal cash.  The estimated cost is $80 million, but that’s only a couple of minor cost overruns or a simple bit of rounding from hitting the magic number.

All that is strange enough from a government that has money pouring in by the barrel-full from oil deals signed before 2003 when they came to power.

But, in fact, the Tories in power have so much cash floating around from all those old deals that, according to the last budget, they’ve got almost 20 times $100 million sitting in temporary investments.

Bankruptcy is far from imminent.

Still, the consistency of the talking point that connects $100 million and Labrador as being something problematic, just leaps out as a pattern.

Labrador.

$100 million.

There’s something about the two that sounds awfully familiar.

A few clicks of the keyboard and up it pops.

Faced with bankruptcy in the early 1930s, the Dominion of Newfoundland tried to sell Labrador to Canada as a way of picking up some fast cash and retiring the crushing debt that had been accumulated by decades of over-spending and mismanagement by Tory and Grit and coalition governments alike. 

Labradorians didn’t even have a vote before the 1946 National Convention but their lands, won by Newfoundland in a 1927 Privy Council decision on the boundary went up for sale before the ink was even dry on the documents.

The asking price was $110 million.  In some accounts the $10 million bit gets dropped off, probably due to rounding.

The Canadians weren’t interested.

Seems like the connection between Labrador and $100 million is passed on genetically because it just keeps seeming to crop up among local politicians.

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iPod and flames

Seattle, Washington television station KIRO 7 reported last week on an 800 page report by the American Consumer Product Safety Commission into reports that some iPods have apparently burst into flames for no observable reason.

The report included 15 cases across the United States of iPod-related fires including some that caused injuries. There are over 175 million iPods across the globe.  No recall is planned.

Consumer reporter Amy Clancy obtained the report after a seven month long process under US federal access to information laws.

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Gasoline plus Taser equals?

Fire, apparently.

Well, maybe. 

A man in Australia who had doused himself in gasoline reportedly burst into flames when local police hit him with a Taser. A police officer who tried to douse the flames suffered burns and injuries from rocks thrown at him by a nearby woman.

However police are also checking to see if the lighter the man was brandishing along with a container of gasoline may have ignited or if the man ignited as he was being struck with the Taser.

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The Newfoundland Flag: Great War version

For those who have been following the Newfoundland flag posts, here’s another contribution that may well surprise some people.

This is an example of the certificates sent to families of soldiers killed during the Great War (1914-1918).  A similar document for sailors killed in action had the words Royal Naval Reserve in place of “1st Newfoundland Regiment”.

The flag to the left is the familiar Union Flag. 

The one on the right is the red ensign, adopted by the Newfoundland legislature in 1904.  The red version flew on government buildings while the blue version flew on government ships.

Incidentally, a Wikipedia entry on Newfoundland and Labrador incorrectly identifies the ensign as an “unofficial commercial flag” while one on the Dominion of Newfoundland shows the ensign correctly as the official flag..

The ensign included the 1827 Great seal of Newfoundland in the fly.   The Great Seal depicts a fisherman and Mercury, the god of commerce, presenting the harvest of the sea to Britannia.  The motto is translated as “These gifts I bring thee.”

This was the official flag of Newfoundland at the time of the Great War.  In fact, you’ll have a hard time finding any official documents from the period which substitute another flag for the red or blue ensign. 

There are other examples of unofficial documents that use this flag in preference to any other.  A handbill distributed by the Fishermen’s Protective Union to praise the sacrifice of the Morey family of Boot Harbor [sic], Hall’s Bay shows the Union Flag and the red ensign.  The Morey’s had seven sons:  a total of four served with the Newfoundland regiment (2), the Royal Naval Reserve (1)and the forestry corps(1) .  A fifth had joined the American army and two others had tried repeatedly to enlist but been rejected for undisclosed reasons.

A poem honoring the regiment’s Roman catholic padre, Father Thomas Nangle, appeared in the August 1916 issue of the Newfoundland Quarterly. The only flags on the page are the Union Flag and the red ensign of Newfoundland.

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Tourism industry association caves on Gros Morne hydro towers

The province’s hospitality industry now supports the provincial government’s plans for Gros Morne national park, expressing their belief that a “balance” can be found in the government’s plan to sling hydro lines along 120-foot-high steel towers along the most visible, public portions of the park.

There’s a story in the Western Star from last week.

Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador – the province’s tourism industry association -  issued an unprompted and undated statement  in early July that said:

…By being an active participant in this process and working with stakeholders to find the best solution, HNL is optimistic that a balance will be found. As business owners, the tourism industry understands the need to be financially prudent in making long term economic decisions and is confident that the long term economic and social impact of Gros Morne to the province is being considered during this process.

That statement appeared around the same time the Gros Morne story reared its head again publicly.  It came about a month after the provincial government created a new provincial tourism board.  The membership includes a bevy of current and former HNL heavyweights including HNL president Bruce Sparkes.

The language in the statement – especially the bit about being “financially prudent”  - matches perfectly the line taken by the Premier that he was prepared to sacrifice Gros Morne’s UNESCO status because the costs of going around the park might possibly, theoretically, be too high.  Financial prudence dictated the shortest route, especially if that extra money could be spent on health care instead.  Never mind that the province’s energy corporation would be building the lines with borrowed cash not money from the provincial treasury.

The Premier estimated the cost of going around the park at $100 million.  The provincial government currently has cash assets on hand of upwards of $1.8 billion.

By the time HNL issued its new position, the “long term economic and social impact” had already been considered of course, and promptly dismissed by the provincial government.

As the Western Star noted, the new HNL language is also radically different from the statement HNL made in February when the towers controversy first appeared.  Back then, there was an unequivocal statement that the towers were the wrong way to go:

"Running towers in front of dynamic and dramatic landscape is going to take away from the natural beauty of it," [HNL president Bruce] Sparkes said. [CBC story]

"From a photographic, awe-inspiring point of view, it's going to take away that. And who wouldn't say, 'Gee, too bad they put that pole line there?'"

What hasn’t changed in the government position, as expressed by the Premier:

“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.

Seems like that happened, but not to the park people. Who knows?  Maybe the HNL rethink was aided by a few phone calls and e-mails.

What makes the HNL about-face even more spectacular  something your humble e-scribbler noted back in early July when the erection story heated up again:  “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.”

The tourism people have spoken.

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Irving shelves second refinery

Irving oil has cancelled plans for a $7.0 billion refinery in Saint John New Brunswick, adjacent to its existing refinery and natural gas facility.

The company cited the recession and forecasts of weak demand.

The proposal would have doubled the size of Irving’s existing 300,000 barrel per day refinery in the southern New Brunswick city.

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For want of a nail: cabinet ministers and conflict of interest version

The issues raised by the Paul Oram case just got a whole lot worse, politically:

…Oram replied that "if you look at any business people that are involved in government you'd have to ask the same question."

"I'm not the only one that owns businesses within government and owns shares within government, and has been a director of a business within government. There's all sorts of people that are involved there."

Expect reporters and others to ask some logical questions:

• Who are the others in cabinet with business interests that aren’t in a blind trust?
• Has there been a real or perceived conflict of interest in each of these?
• How come the Premier didn’t simply require his ministers to put their businesses in a blind trust when they were appointed to cabinet?

That last one remains the crucial one for your humble e-scribbler.  This entire issue was one of the easiest to manage with a little preventive action.

As a result of that initial decision, Paul Oram’s answer to The Telegram just opened up a whole new line of inquiry where really there shouldn’t need to be one.

-srbp-

Freedom from Information: the “how Irish are we” version

From the 2008 annual report of the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership:

Irish Legacy Project at The Rooms

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, INP and IBP are supporting the establishment of the Irish Legacy Project at The Rooms Provincial Museum, Art Gallery and Archives (www.therooms.ca). 

The Irish Legacy Project will be a focal point for telling both the historical and contemporary stories of the Irish in Newfoundland. It comprises the development of a permanent exhibit for the museum, and the creation of an ancestral research workspace for the archives. It is expected that the museum exhibit will open to the public in September 2009.

There’s also a pretty good description of the project in the INP strategic plan for 2008-2010:

In 2007, INP became a partner in a major initiative titled the Irish Legacy
Project, which will establish a permanent exhibit at The Rooms Provincial Museum, Art Gallery and Archives in St. John’s. The exhibit will incorporate film, artefacts, maps, and text to describe the historical and present day relationship between Ireland and Newfoundland. It is envisaged that the establishment of this legacy project at The Rooms, will provide a focal point
for future culture and heritage projects and will assist the long-term sustainability of the Ireland Newfoundland connection. The core of the Irish Legacy Project will be a permanent exhibit in the provincial museum. To complement this exhibit, INP should continue to encourage art exchanges between the provincial art gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, building upon a previous exchange in 2005.

You also won’t find anything over at the provincial version of the Ireland partnership.  There’s been no annual report from the Ireland Business Partnership since 2006-07 likely because the local website hasn’t been updated for the most part since late 2008. Even the “What’s New” section doesn’t mention the permanent exhibit, even though that page was updated in June 2009.

So what about The Rooms?

Funny thing is, you won’t find any reference to this exhibit on The Rooms’ website, even though the project has been underway since 2007  - at least  - and is apparently slated to open in September 2009.
This is really strange since in the museum world a permanent exhibit is a pretty big deal.  It’s basically the core of what the museum is supposed to represent.

You can see that by looking at two of the three permanent museum exhibits at The Rooms right now.  One is on the province’s natural history.  A second one focuses on aboriginal people in the province.  That pretty much follows on from the old Newfoundland Museum which combined a natural history museum and a human history museum in one pile.

A permanent exhibit that focused on one of the groups of European settler populations wouldn’t necessarily be the logical next step. Given the limited permanent space in the building, one might expect the next permanent exhibit to have a broader look at European history in the province with sections devoted to various aspects of that history.  The Irish would be there, along with the English – as the largest group – and the Norse, French, Basques and others.

An approach that emphasises diversity and the complexity of our history would also be in keeping with the provincial government’s own stated image of the province:

My Government will affirm Newfoundland and Labrador’s status as a distinct people, not uniform in lineage but multi-cultural, one nation inclusive of many nations living in harmony together.

Focusing in one one specific ethnic group - even one with as significant a role in Newfoundland and Labrador history as the Irish  - would be a pretty powerful political statement for one thing. 

Such a narrow exhibit would also run the risk of  providing a potentially distorted view of the history of Europeans in Newfoundland and Labrador complete with the stamp of museum authority.  That’s no small issue given the absence of a required history course in the provincial high school curriculum, for example,  and what appears to be a popular tendency to imagine or fantasize our history.

Then there’s that ancestral archives thing.  The provincial archives already get a huge chunk of business from people doing research into their own family tree.  Putting in some sort of dedicated genealogy workspace is a significant undertaking.  If the new workspace had an ethnic overlay to it, like say a special emphasis on the Irish alone, we’d be looking at a major alteration of the archives’ philosophy.

So with such a big thing in the works, it’s a bit peculiar that there has been so little public mention of it by the people behind the “legacy” project.

Let’s look a little deeper.

There is a reference to the project in The Rooms strategic plan (undated, but covering the period 2008-2011) tabled in the legislature in 2008.  It refers to completion of an undefined “Irish Legacy Project” by 2011, as one example of how the museum division will “have increased opportunities for the public to interact in a meaningful way with the history and visual arts of the province.”  Planning would be done by 2009.  The strategic plan doesn’t saying anything about this being a permanent exhibit.

There’s also a reference to the project in The Rooms 2007-08 annual report (tabled in February 2009 (!)):

…working with the Irish Business Partnerships and the Irish Newfoundland Partnership, and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Museum initiated the Irish Legacy Project. The project, scheduled to open in March, 2009, will result in an exhibition focusing on the historical and contemporary connections between Newfoundland and Ireland.

Again, there’s no definition of the project nor a reference to a permanent exhibit but we do have a new date:  March 2009.  Now that’s not a date for planning to finish, that’s a date for the thing to open even though a different timeline was given in the strategic plan.

Let’s go back to digging and see if there’s more somewhere else.

Forget the provincial government website.  There’s nothing there on it at all in the way of a news release or ministerial statement. 

Over at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s website you’ll find this bit:

The Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese will have a number of archival documents on exhibit in Talamh an Éisc – The Fishing Ground , an exhibition that introduces the Irish peoples who have been in Newfoundland and Labrador since the late 1600s, the exhibit explores the communities they built and celebrates the contributions they made to life here in Newfoundland and Labrador. The permanent exhibit will open in The Rooms on March 18, 2009. [Bold in original]

They even have a specific date, but no exhibit opened in March 2009, though.

But there’s that word “permanent” again.

This is all very peculiar.  Neither The Rooms’ strategic plan nor annual report are documents people are going to leaf through impatiently trying to find out what is coming up.  Even if you did, the language is so vague as to be impenetrable. 

Sure, the documents are publicly available but if no one from The Rooms or the provincial government highlighted the project, mentioning it in the annual report or strategic plan is as good as saying nothing about it at all.

And if the crowd at The Rooms were hopped up on this major project, you’d think they’d be mentioning it, letting us now how important it is, how much work it will involve, and generally trying to build up a bit of attention for it.  After all, a new permanent exhibit on the Irish in Newfoundland is no small venture.

And since both the archdiocese and the Irish government think this is going to be a permanent feature of The Rooms, it seems very strange there’s been not so much as the peep of a pipe or the lilt of a lyre about it.

This is all very interesting and very peculiar.

And it makes you wonder what is really going on over in the box the Basilica came in.

-srbp-