Oh, how far the mighty have fallen

In 2003:  a bevy of promises designed to restructure and rebuild the fishing industry.  Heady days were those:  “The industry must be restructured and managed to avoid the disasters of the past and adapt to the opportunities of the future.”

In 2009, the provincial fisheries minister can only defend his government’s policy by saying they have come up with the best make-work scheme ever:

This is the first time that the province has provided a CEEP program for harvesters and it is the best program the province has ever provided for plant workers. [Emphasis added]

Could there be any more astonishing an admission of the abject failure of the provincial government to deal with the fishery?

Well, that would be the laundry list of subsidies, money and other spending on the fishery in lieu of that restructuring and management promised in 2003.

Hand-outs are – by their nature – evidence of a government that has run out of ideas and/or political ability.

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R’uh R’oh, the people version

it took a bit but labradore has laid waste to the latest bit of silliness coming from some quarters about the Glorious Growth of In-Migration.

There’s even a nice little graph that shows that since 1961 upticks in in-migration coincide with recessions.  Not surprisingly, the most recent uptick is the biggest and coincides with what the late lamented Tory Trevor Taylor described as the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The diaspora returneth not to the homeland after all, it seems.

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An admission of abject failure

A quarter of a century ago, Doug House and the Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment heard time and again of the the need to get rid of make-work programs. 

Qualifying people for federal employment insurance benefits promoted a culture of dependence and destroyed innovation and self-reliance.

Some 17 years ago, the province’s Strategic Economic Plan introduced a bold, new approach in order to bring about fundamental changes within Newfoundland and Labrador.  There’d be no more make work and government free gifts to businesses.  Neither one worked to produce sustainable jobs.

Less than a decade after the Royal Commission – with the change of administration in 1996, in fact -  things were heading back to the old ways of megaprojects and make-work schemes.

In 2003, there was a new crowd, who supposedly had a plan called the New Approach.  Some of it seemed familiar.  Doug House came back and then left again.

Nothing changed.

It’s still megaprojects,  make-work and more make-work and handouts to business, hand-outs to business, hand-outs to business, hand-outs to business and hand-outs to business.

Oh, and let’s not forget hand-outs to business.

And hand-outs to business.

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The race is on in the Straits

We can all know for sure because not only did the leader of the provincial Tory party announce it, the former president of the party “confirmed” it.

Did Paul Reynolds think we didn't trust Danny or something?

This should be an interesting race.

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Innovation?

A 10 minute video from the provincial government’s energy monopoly corporation is titled “Innovation in Renewable Energy”.

So what’s so innovative about damming off a river to generate electricity and running transmission lines to market?

Why nothing at all, of course, and in the case of the Lower Churchill project, the ideas from transmission line running around Quebec to the entire project itself have all been around for about 45 years.

There’s even the highly unimaginative and incorrect claim that running a power line down to Soldier’s Pond will “displace” the diesel generators at Holyrood.

And the project is a heckuva long way from starting if the current trends continue.

The only real innovation mentioned is in the discussion of the Ramea wind-hydrogen-diesel test project. 

But that’s one project, it’s a small project and it’s more than five years away from anything significant.  Meanwhile, the rest of the world is much farther along in developing alternative energy technologies.

Maybe what the provincial government should be doing is figuring out a way to turn bullshit into energy.  If that was the case, videos like this show they’ve already got a powerhouse that could displace the entire global output of greenhouse gases until the end of time.

At least when it comes to the Lower Churchill, the current administration has shown it is highly adept at recycling  even if it’s complete lack of planning beyond what was done 20 years ago is painfully obvious.

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When all they can offer is an E.A.…

There’s something about the life of provincial political parties that gets to be a bit predictable.

Like you can tell how healthy the party in government is by how successfully it attracts high quality, high profile candidates into its ranks after the first general election when it takes power.

You see one of the jobs the leader of a party gets to do is find candidates.  They get to pick the people or approve of the people who run for the party.  Leaders of parties in power usually have an easier time, but the leader still has some work to do in spotting talent and bringing it forward. 

Now some people like to think otherwise.

You’ll see comments in the local media lately that Hisself would not work with some of the current governing crop if this were his own private business.  But the thing is that Hisself actually did pick ‘em all.  And even if there were a couple he didn’t recruit to run or approve to run and work to get elected, he certainly picks the people who serve in his cabinet.

And it’s not just the health of parties in power that shows up in candidate selection.  Take a party like the provincial New Democrats during the leadership of the fellow now in Ottawa helping  Jack Layton keep Harper and the Connies in power.  Every by-election and general election seemed to come like a total surprise to them. The party never seemed to grow and never seemed able to capitalise on a couple of noteworthy successes in the 1980s.

Ditto the Liberals in the aftermath of 2003 or for that matter in Trinity North before the fellow changed teams.

Take a look at the pending by-election in the Straits and White Bay North. Just ignore the fact that the seat is vacated with unseemly haste by a fellow Danny Williams has come to rely on as a bit of an attack crackie alongside John Hickey.

Just notice that even though the seat used to be held by a Tory big-wing and even though said big-wig was looking to bail about six months ago and even though he made a firm decision a month ago, the best the Tories could come up with to replace Trevor was the guy who was Trevor’s constituency assistant.

You won’t see much mention of that in media stories on Rick Pelley but that’s who he was until today.

Now some executive assistants can wind up being superlative politicians in their own right.  But there’s something about a guy bailing out and his EA being the  one to get the nomination that makes you scratch your head.  Maybe what’s really so noticeable here is that Pelley is running a mere six years after these guys got to power.

Maybe it’s because the first Tory EA to run and get elected was in 2007, a mere four years after the party took power.  back in the 1990s, the Liberals got through two terms before the first executive assistants started turning up as candidates.  Before that there were fresh faces.

Now maybe there’s nothing to this at all beyond the original questions raised by the way Golden Boy Trevor Taylor bailed in the first place.

But still, maybe you only have to look at the stark contrast between what Taylor said back in 2001 and how things turned out to find out why the Tories got the candidate they got in this case:

I want to ensure The Straits & White Bay North is poised to ride the wave that's about to wash over this province. This is no time for backroom silence and backbencher obedience. Now is the time for the district to take a bold step in a new direction. It's a time for someone who will speak up loudly and effectively for this district, and people know that's exactly what they'll get in electing me.

Electing Trevor’s EA hardly would seem like a bold step in a new direction.

And as for that bit about backbencher obedience, well, these days everyone pretty well knows how much of a joke Trevor’s words turned out be.

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And you think Hisself has it bad

As much as some people like to moan about The Racket, there were a couple of things this past week to show that that self-serving load-of-crap bit of whinging for what it is.

First, Arnold told an audience at the Governors’ climate conference in California that it was worth putting up with all the shit he takes as governor because he wants to give something back to the state that has given him everything. 

Yes, there are people looking for more government money and people complaining about him and people poking into his life, but darn it, everything he has – from his success as an actor to his family – are attributable to California.

Yes people, real leaders don’t bitch about a job they volunteered for six years ago.

Second, not a single person during the entire period since 2001 has dared ask Hisself a question even vaguely as outrageous as the one faced by Gordo Brown earlier the week:

Heck they have a hard time putting a real question to Ole Twitchy sometimes let alone getting an answer.

Even people asking simple stuff like how many people went with him on the swan to California and how much it cost taxpayers get told to file an Access to Information request.

At least the crowd that surround Hisself have a sense of humour.

And trucks keep on rolling

Fire truck month is turning into a regular occurrence.

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A modern method of deciding

For all those people who find it a little silly to be picking a winner out of a hat, labradore notes that the current municipal elections law passed the House of Assembly at high speed in May 2001.

As to the charge of antiquity... the Act was shepherded through the Bow-Wow Parliament as Bill 7 in 2001. It received First, Second, and Third Reading, Committee Stage, and Royal Assent, in the present, 21st, century.
So, what did the Members have to say about the tie provisions when it came before them for their measured and serious examination?

Hansard records the eloquent and passionate debate for posterity; reproduced here in its entirety:

“On motion, clauses 55 through 96 carried.”

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Of course he’s unbiased and non-partisan

From the 2003 Progressive Conservative Party news release launching their blueprint campaign platform:

The plan has also been vigorously studied by Wade Locke, an independent economist and Memorial University professor, who endorses the plan as a positive step for the province.

In a letter to Williams, Mr. Locke stated, "I find the ideas contained in the Blue Book 2003 to be progressive and encompass a vision that holds great promise for the economic future of Newfoundland and Labrador. I find the balance between the business/economic initiatives and the social/cultural approaches to be encouraging.... Should you be successful in implementing your vision, current and future Newfoundlanders and Labradorians stand to gain significantly."

Musta been a smelter in there or a can opener?

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Americans look to home-grown hydro

The United States can generate an additional 70,000 megawatts of electricity by upgrading existing hydro facilities according to U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu.

The juice would come from newer, more efficient turbines and other technologies that would goose more energy without having to undertake megaprojects and risk additional environmental damage.

This further dims the prospects for the Lower Churchill as the Americans are looking at a wide range of ways to meet future energy needs. 

It also reinforces the idea that megaprojects like the Lower Churchill just aren’t considered to be green anymore.

The Americans are developing real energy plans.  That is they are developing ways of meeting their energy needs in environmentally friendly ways and by encouraging ingenuity. 

By contrast what is called an energy plan locally is nothing more than justifying a bunch of decisions already made to produce a megaproject called the Lower Churchill and create ways of stymieing any development that isn’t controlled by a large, ponderous government monopoly.

h/t RenewNewEngland.

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Dear Ralph: resign

Ralph Wiseman was screwed either way.

On election night, the veteran politician lost his seat as mayor of Paradise to a 19 year old up-start.  he lost by a mere three votes.

So Ralph asked for a recount.

If the recount affirmed his loss, he was out of a job.

If the recount put him on top, then Ralph could only stay in office dogged by the knowledge he had pissed off enough of his residents that they would rather see a kid run the place before him.

He’d be the lamest of lame ducks for four years.

But now Ralph Wiseman has found a way to screw himself in a whole new and even more politically painful way.

After today’s recount, Wiseman and challenger Kurtis Coombs were tied.

So someone drew a name - no shit; that’s what they did  - and Wiseman is back.

Holy Dead Duck, Wise-man.

Ralph is foolish to be grinning and claiming he won fair and square.

Maybe he did, but there’s no mistaking the fact that right now Wiseman does not have the comfortable support of a majority of the people of  the town called Paradise. His election lacks legitimacy.

Wiseman got the job because someone pulled his name out of a hat.  What’s next, election at the local amusement arcade?  Break the balloon with this blunt dart and you could win a cheap stuffed toy or be mayor of the fastest growing town in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The only thing for Wiseman to do if he wants to govern is  resign.  Resign and cause a by-election to take place for the mayor’s seat.  Call it a run off.  Maybe someone else will come forward.  Maybe no one will.

But at least at the end of the contest Wiseman can say the choice was unmistakeable and democratic.  In a healthy  democracy, only the voters get to make the choice. 

As it stands right now, Wiseman stands to have nothing but political trouble for the next four years.  At the very least he’ll be a laughing stock across town and across the province.

And frankly, having  accepted this ridiculous way of settling the tie, Wiseman deserves every ounce of grief, every snicker he gets.

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Lahey on the lam

A Roman Catholic bishop accused of possessing and importing child pornography is still at large.

Raymond Lahey resigned abruptly last week as the bishop of Antigonish. Turns out child porn had turned up on his laptop when it was examined by border services agents when Lahey returned to Canada via Ottawa.

There’s a Canada-wide warrant for Lahey.

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Anderson cops to 90K; Walsh files for bankruptcy

Another spending scandal player has copped a plea.

Wally Anderson, the former Liberal member for Torngat Mountains admitted to fraudulently receiving about $90,000.  That’s a fraction of the total he was accused of obtaining and there is no admission he engaged in bribery like former Tory cabinet minister Ed Byrne.

There’s another difference.  Anderson claims he never pocketed any of the cash himself.  Byrne funded his party with the illegal gains in addition to funnelling the money to his own benefit.

Anderson will be sentenced on Friday.  The Crown is seeking up to two years less a day, a sentence on par with the Byrne plea agreement.  The Crown’s rationale for sentencing is interesting:

"Mr. Andersen is clearly a respected individual in the area he represented," said lawyer Frances Knickle. "But that's what makes this so troubling. We are not talking about a crime of impulse but something that was done deliberately over many years."

That’s interesting because in Byrne’s case, he was the leader of the party and leader of the opposition at the time of the crimes. Some of his activity involved illegally funded his party, and the scope of Byrne’s illegal activity isn’t known.  How much money was directed to his party simply hasn’t been revealed and may never be known.

Meanwhile, former Liberal cabinet minister Jim Walsh  - another one of the spending  scandal accused - has filed for bankruptcy in an Alberta court.  Walsh apparently now resides in Alberta.  Bankruptcy would frustrate efforts to recover any of the money in the event Walsh is found guilty.

During his trial, Walsh has acknowledged receiving thousands more than permitted by his allowance limits but is claiming he isn’t responsible.

His trial continues in November.

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You know them as sooks, Ma’am.

In Corner Brook, they are apparently called penders, after the big sooky former mayor of the great city of the west.

Rather than be gracious in defeat, Charles Pender decided to moan and whine a bit:

“It wasn’t a one-on-one campaign,” Pender said. “I had other forces I had to deal with ... Mr. Greeley had a definite strategy with the support of Gerry Byrne’s campaign team, which is a formidable opponent, and Eddie Joyce bringing people to the polls all day in Curling.”

Pender must get the sooks from some of the company he’s been keeping since 2001.

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Population and the economy

labradore may do more of his own with this, but in the meantime, it’s useful to steal his observations on the most recent quarterly population statistics.

He left them at Townie Bastard’s corner. Some people, including local media, took the wrong perspective which is not surprising since the StatsCan release wasn’t very clear on what’s been happening in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Anyway, here’s Wally’s take on things. Bear in mind he accurately predicted a recession in 2008 by noting the sudden change in in-migration and hence in population that took place in mid-2007:

The population bump from in-migration happens during every recession.

Out-migration hasn't really slowed down. Actually, it hasn't slowed down at all. International migration is stable at best; the last two quarters have been slightly worse for international immigration than the same time last year.
And the imbalance of deaths over births is trending in death's favour. This was the third consecutive quarter of natural population decline (more deaths than births). Six of the last seven, and eight of the past eleven quarters have seen negative natural population change. One more quarter, and there'll have been a full year of it - the first time for any province, I believe.

The only thing that's causing population growth is net in-migration, largely driven by people moving in from Alberta and Ontario.

Two guesses as to what's driving that. First doesn't count.

Now anyone who looks at the release and stopped for a second might have noticed that the increase was only about one quarter of one percent. And if that person had clicked back to the release before, he or she might have noticed the previous quarter where population declined in Newfoundland and Labrador.

But those wider points – about persistent out-migration and the deaths/births ratio – require a level of analysis that reporters just don’t have time to do.

Sadly for the reporting world, that’s where the real story sits.

You can find it over at labradore.

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Predictable Update: You won't find the real story in a provincial government news release, as Jerome!'s effort Wednesday morning confirms.

Micromanaging health care = vague direction and uncertain authority

Back then, the Tories wanted to get out of the business of deciding how and where health care was delivered.  They wanted to get the department out of operational decisions.

From Our blueprint for Newfoundland and Labrador (2003):

Effectively Managing Health Care Services

The Department of Health and Community Services spends too much time micro-managing the health system, and too little time articulating policy. As a result, health care suffers from vague direction and uncertain authority, and managers continue to apply patchwork solutions to a system that is becoming more unmanageable every day.

In 2009, the cabinet decides what communities will have laboratory and x-ray service and the minister responsible tries to claim that the health regions made the choices when – quite obviously – they didn’t.

Odd that the people who had the right answer, consistently pick the wrong answer.

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Municipal round-up

1.  St. John’s:  A bunch of things already noted.  Here are a few additional quickies:

Municipal politics has never been issue driven and that seemed to be the case across the board.  2009 confirms the iron law:  to get elected talk about anything but what you’ll be responsible for.  Tom Hann and Sandy Hickman both boosted their votes at large, Hann by talking about search and rescue and Hickman with ferry service at Port aux Basques.  Colbert reputedly took a holiday in the middle of the campaign.

Recycling is popular in the city, especially if you look at the trend to re-elect incumbents.  In Ward Three, voters elected a guy who used to be on council almost 20 years ago.

Cost per vote:  Sheilagh O’Leary brought up something about finances but it wasn’t clear if she was complaining about the cost of  campaigns or about the fact that campaign contributions aren’t tax deductible.

Doesn’t matter:  just take a look at what the candidates spent in the mayoral and deputy mayoral campaigns compared to the votes received.  Gigantic sums, even if some of its was comp/in-kind and the vote results were appalling. On the other hand, look at what other candidates in city-wide races did with only a tiny bit of spending. 

We’ll have to wait until the official reports, but a preliminary winner would be Gerry Colbert who spent nothing but sweat apparently and pulled in 16,000 votes.

2.  Paradise:  Ralph Wiseman loses either way.   As of last night, a 19 year old second year university student beat him by three votes.  If the recount affirms that victory, the voters just slapped Wiseman hard.  if he wins on the recount, they have slapped him hard and put him in a really tough spot for the next four years.  held have to radically change his approach or risk being run out of town on a rail.

3.  Corner Brook:  A last minute promise of hundreds of millions in a new hospital couldn’t save Danny and Tom’s hand-picked mayor.

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“Unsustainable” public spending: the fin min version

Former finance minister Tom Marshall said on Tuesday that he was once asked by an analysis for Moody’s bond rating service if he felt the growth in public sector spending was sustainable.  Marshall didn’t reveal his answer. 

The subject came up in a discussion with talk show host Randy Simms on VOCM.  Marshall noted that the province spends more per person than any other province in Canada. 

Simms suggested that high rate of spending was because of the geographical dispersion of the population.  He didn’t mention that costs in Newfoundland and Labrador are typically lower for many things, including wages.

At that point, Marshall noted that people not from here often don’t understand the issues and then mentioned in passing the comment from Moody’s.  He also referred to boosting spending based on oil revenues only to be faced with a problem when oil prices drop dramatically.

That matches recent comments by health minister Paul Oram that the provincial government’s spending levels were “unsustainable.” 

It doesn’t match claims by Marshall and other cabinet ministers up to now that the current administration was practicing sound financial management.

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Ron Ellsworth: R.I.P

The big political story of the 2009 St. John’s municipal election has got to be the political implosion of Ron Ellsworth.

The supremely ambitious fellow burst on the political scene in 2005 with a big win in Ward 4.  His lust for higher office was no secret and in 2008 he ran for the deputy mayor’s job grabbing more than 19,000 votes.

But he fumbled badly a little over a year later, polling almost 7,000 votes less than he got in 2008 and going down to defeat at the hands of one of the weakest mayoral incumbents in recent St. John’s history.

Heck the top six at large candidates all polled more votes than Ron Ellsworth.

Talk about a political catastrophe.

And in record time.

Ellsworth may have made a furtive try at municipal politics in 1997 but when he came on so strongly in 2005, he seemed to be destined for bigger things.

A mere four years later, he is politically left high and dry.

Maybe he’ll do -  as the rumours suggest -  and look to replace Bob Ridgley as the Tory candidate in St. John’s North provincially. 

If he does, Ellsworth will need to find new help with his political advertising.  Whoever did the work for him this time did him a huge disservice at every step.  The only mayoral campaign that sucked more was the winner’s. 

The surprise upset in the election has to be Danny Breen’s victory in Ward One over incumbent Art Puddister.  That isn’t the way your humble e-scribbler called the race and this is one case where it is great to be proven wrong.

St. John’s city politics and its appalling mail-in ballot system are notoriously skewed in favour of incumbents.  Where else but at Tammany on Gower could the polls close at 8:00 PM and the election machinery – literally a machine – could declare victors two minutes later?

It normally takes a herculean effort to unseat a townie incumbent unless you have some kind of momentum behind you as a local celebrity of sorts.  Name recognition and affability often count for  more than any demonstrated knowledge or ability. 

Whatever Dan Breen did to win, he deserves much praise and a whole pile of credit. No one helped him outside of his driven campaign team and that should prove interesting if and when some of the moneyed interests come forward looking for friends to return favours.  

Meanwhile, in the deputy mayor’s race, Shannie Duff handily defeated Keith Coombs.

That wasn’t much of a surprise since Coomb’s resort to negative ads was a huge tell that his campaign was getting desperate.  he wasn’t helped at all by the poor timing of them since they hit the papers – who reads any more – and the airwaves after the crucial date for voting. 

Coombs might have beaten Duff in a old-fashioned race, but he and his crew should have know all that the mail-in ballot system changes the voting dynamic dramatically. 

Pushing poorly executed negatives ads too late in the campaign was just a waste of time and money.  Going negative may have suppressed some of Duff’s vote – which is what going negative does – but it also may have turned off some of Coombs’ potential supporters as well.

At this point, it doesn’t matter.  Keith will have two years to get ready for a provincial run or four years if he wants to try and pull a Sears.  Maybe he an Ron will get together and compare notes.

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