Innu seek halt to water management application

In a 51-page letter filed with the public utilities board on December 15, the Innu of Ekuanitshit are asking the border to refuse to approve any agreement or suspend NALCOR’s application based on NALCOR’s failure to adequately consult with them as provided under the Constitution Act, 1982.

Specifically, the Ekuanitshit Innu are seeking:

AN ORDER refusing to approve the agreement or, in the alternative, suspending Nalcor’s application and setting aside for future examination the duty to consult and accommodate the Innu of Ekuanishit; and

AN ORDER: that on an interim basis and in any event of the cause, Nalcor pay all expenses incurred by the Conseil des Innus de Ekuanitshit in connection with Nalcor’s application to the board, including costs of counsel, engineers, valuators, stenographers, accountants and other experts or assistants retained by or for the Conseil des Innus de Ekuanitshit in and about the inquiry; and
that Nalcor and the Conseil des Innus de Ekuanitshit are to attempt to agree on a procedure whereby, upon incurring costs and disbursements from time to time up to the end of the inquiry, trial, the intervenor will so advise the applicant and the applicant shall
pay them within a given time-frame, unless Nalcor objects, in which case it shall refer the matter to the Board.

The application for costs is based on the magnitude of the project, the scope of the potential infringement on the Innu’s aboriginal rights and the Innu’s lack of financial resources.

In a separate 143-page letter dated December 21, 2009, the Innu of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam make the same application to the public utilities board.  Both letters include commentaries on aspects of the NALCOR proposal for the Lower Churchill.

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TWINCO seeks intervener status in water management decision

The Twin Falls Power Company is seeking intervener status in the hearings at the public utilities board into the water management application by NALCOR Energy for the Churchill River.

In a letter dated December 17, 2009, TWINCO president James Haynes said his company may be affected by any decision in the application.

2. Twinco has a Sublease with Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation Limited ("CF(L)Co") whereby CF(L)Co is obligated to supply 225 MW and 1.97 TWh of power and energy to Twinco, included as Exhibit 4 of the Application. Twinco supplies power to two customers, 10CC and Wabush Mines, both of which are located in Labrador West and as result Twinco could be affected depending on the disposition of this matter.

3. Twinco owns and operates two 230kv transmission lines that transmit power and energy from Churchill Falls to Labrador City and Wabush in western Labrador and as a result could be an affected transmission provider.

Twin Falls Power company is owned by Wabush Mines, IOC and  NALCOR with each company holding one third of the shares.  It supplies power to the mines in western Labrador. 

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The Imaginarium of Spin-doctor Marshall

According to finance minister Tom Marshall, estimated growth in the province’s population is due to people flocking home to find work.

“More people moving to Newfoundland and Labrador represents a further sign of confidence in our economy, way of life and the plan the Williams Government has put in place to continue along a path of stability and prosperity,” said Minister Marshall.

Okay.

They are being drawn to the province by its supposedly buoyant economic prospects, right?

Well, if that’s the case, the good spin-doctor of finance might want to explain why the employment levels in the province in November were actually lower than they were the year before.

Wait.

Don’t bother asking.

The answer is readily apparent.

People are leaving places like Alberta because there are fewer job prospects there than there used to be.

That’s a trend some people have noticed for some time now.  In other words, the growth in the provincial population over the last year and a half or so is actually not due to all the splendiferous tax cuts and other budgetary bunkum the provincial government spin machine claimed.

Even if some bank economists have been fooled  - badly – the reality is something other than what the provincial government claims and the conventional media dutifully reports.

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The fly in the soup clinging to the hair

Writing in the Globe on Christmas Eve, Fabrice Taylor noted the strong performance of Labrador iron ore in the market place, bouyed by increased global demand.

Then he notes the relatively high value of the Canadian dollar against its American counterpart. 

The hair in the soup is the Canadian dollar. Part of the drop in Labrador's financials, mentioned above, is because of volumes and pricing, but a good part is also from foreign exchange. Some pundits see the dollar going to par with the greenback. That's only another nickel or so but it would hurt.

He’s right.

But the exchange rate isn’t the only thing in the soup threatening the fine meal. There’s a fly in the soup, as well, namely the medium to long term cost of operating the mines in western Labrador.

That’s not a labour problem or a dollar problem or a market problem or an ore problem.

It’s an energy problem.

Or more specifically the threat by the provincial government back in 2006 that it would expect the mines in western Labrador to start paying commercial rates for power come 2014. 

And if commercial rates weren’t in the cards, well, the mining companies expect to be paying considerably more than they are currently. 

Never mind that the companies own two thirds of Twin Falls Power Company, built near Churchill Falls when it was still called Hamilton Falls.  And never mind either that the companies agreed to shutter their power station so BRINCO could push more water through its new plant at Churchill Falls.  In exchange the companies got a block of power for about half a cent a kilowatt hour and anything beyond that for about a quarter of a cent per. 

Either way, the prospect of higher power costs will play a role in the future of Labrador west.  Low cost power will be crucial to sustaining the mines, especially in a high dollar world, so when threats get tossed around companies tend to take notice. 

That threat is till out there.

Plus the threat’s been reinforced by the seizure last Christmas of hydro assets belonging to three companies, one locally owned and the other running a project not connected at all to the paper mill at Grand Falls.  Longstanding agreements were brushed aside by a simple vote in the legislature.  Agreements entered into in good faith and executed in good faith were crushed overnight, forcing at least one of the companies involved to default on loans.  A court case was extinguished without compensation.  Any company with any sort of operation in the province would have been insane not to revisit all their legal options.

And in Labrador west, it would be at all surprising to find out that the companies operating mines there are keeping a wary eye on what happens in St. John’s.  That power contract issue hasn’t been resolved yet and it’s much more a looming crisis than anything connected to the Churchill Falls renewal in 2016 could ever be.

Hair in the soup?

Try a fly.

And a geezly big blue bottle one at that.

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Where’s Adolph?

Interfax added to the controversy over the whereabouts of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler’s remains in early December with a story from the Russian federal security bureau – successor to the State Security Committee (KGB) – that claimed KGB boss Yuri Andropov ordered Hitler’s body cremated and the ashes scattered in 1970.

The story is essentially the same one which has been circulating since 1968 and which was confirmed by an examination of documents in the state security archives in Moscow in the early 1990s.

Hitler’s body along with those of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family were dug up from their grave at a Soviet intelligence base at Magdeburg where they had been buried secretly after the Second World War.  The  location is incorrectly identified as a military base in some accounts. it actually belonged to a Soviet intelligence organization that operated in and with the Red Army.

Soviet officials feared that the grave site would become a haven for anti-Soviet/pro-Nazi sentiment if it were discovered. The Soviets moved from the facility (reportedly at the site now having he civic number Klausener Strasse 32) at Magdeburg in 1970.

Soviet soldiers reportedly found the remains near the Chancellery bunker where Hitler and the senior German leadership lived during the last days of what the Soviets called the Great Patriotic War. Hitler reputedly shot himself.  Braun – whom he had married shortly before the suicide  - reportedly took poison.  Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda also took poison after murdering their six children.

In 2009, a American research team claimed to have examined a portion of a skull displayed still held Russian authorities and purported to be that of Adolph Hitler.  The Americans said the skull belonged to a woman between ages 20 and 40.

The skull and lower jaw held by Russian authorities were supposedly retained by the Soviet intelligence unit that had found the Nazi leaders remained in 1945, buried them and then later cremated them on Andropov’s orders.

In some accounts Russian authorities deny that the Americans had been allowed to examine the remains at all.

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Keep an eye on Santa

via NORAD’s Santa tracker.

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The other movie to see this holiday weekend

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The movie to see this holiday weekend

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A gnu twist on the animal song meme

Another Flanders and Swann classic:

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The Written Word Round-up

1.  Rewriting the rules of defamation.  The Supreme Court of Canada hands down a landmark ruling on two defamation cases and in the process changes the country’s defamation rules.

The defence will operate in favour of the media outlet, “if it can establish that it acted responsibly in attempting to verify the information in a matter of public interest,” Chief Justice McLachlin wrote.

“The public interest test is clearly met here, as the Canadian public has a vital interest in knowing about the professional misdeeds of those who are entrusted by the state with protecting public safety,” Chief Justice McLachlin said. "The defendants' liability therefore hinges on whether they were diligent in trying to verify the allegations prior to publication, and it will be for the jury at a new trial to decide whether the articles met this standard of responsibility.”

2.  But did he have to ask where he left his own sock puppets?  A Quebec writer reveals that she has been writing a blog under a male nom de plume and doing better at it financially than under her own name.

3. But how will the great unwashed masses know what is true if reporters and editors do not tell them?  Yet another conventional journalist raises questions about the wild and uncontrolled world of the Internet:

Seeing as how information dissemination has become so easy, a lot of information might reach millions of people unfiltered. While this provides a great opportunity for the truth to reach millions, we may also be flooded by faulty, incomplete and outright wrong information, as well as malicious attack and some plain lies.

Amazingly enough people might cope just as they have coped with “faulty, incomplete and outright wrong information” in the conventional media.  Heck, they might even find stories that never get covered at all by the conventional media even though they are entirely true.

They might even manage to find a personal relationship with accurate information that does not require the intervention of self-appointed High Priests.

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The Hippopotamus Song, Flanders and Swann version

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They can’t re-blackball him

Publisher Craig Westcott’s recent editorial from the Business Post has found its way to a New Brunswick newspaper.

Wonder what the locals will do besides despatch another of the Premier’s fanboys to post a comment on the piece?

It’s not like they can re-blackball Westcott from government interviews.

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I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

The song that is driving people insane.

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Rumpole and the Christmas Honours List

Word coming from the clerks’ room at Iniquity Court has it that on Tuesday next the province’s justice minister will announce recipients of the cabinet’s appointments to the provincial court bench.

There are four slots open, as Bond Papers readers already know. Some of them have been vacant for a year.

Who will make the Honours List?

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Yipppeee! Bring on those higher energy prices

From the New York Times:

In 2009, some 31,000 households in Rhode Island will have their utilities shut off, and the effort to juggle energy bills and mortgages is helping push some homeowners into foreclosure, said Henry Shelton, director of the George Wiley Center, a consumer advocacy group here. (Here, as in many states, utilities may not disconnect the poor in the winter.)

Since 2000, the cost of heating a home with fuel oil has more than doubled and the cost of heating a home with electricity has risen by one third, outpacing many incomes. The recent surge in unemployment has thrown even more people into energy debt.

High energy prices will hamper any recovery in the United States.

Hindering a recovery of the American economy will screw everyone who depends on exports into the Untied States as a staple of their own economy.

Like say Canada generally and Newfoundland and Labrador in particular.

Any fiscal plan built on perpetually high energy prices is inherently flawed and prone to failure.

Catastrophic failure.

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Kremlinology 13: the seat by the door

Used to be Ray Hunter, a backbencher who reportedly had his fair share of differences with the direction some things went.

Now it’s Wade Verge.

Wade’s seat is as far from the Speaker’s chair as one can get on the government side of the legislature and it is right next to a door everyone uses to go in and out.  It is not exactly prime real estate.

It may also be a clue as to who is in favour and who better mind their “P”s and “C”s.

That’s not the only peculiarity in the House of Assembly seating chart.  Usually when the government side has too many to sit on the government side, they tend to stick the lowest seniority fellows over with the Opposition.

Not in the current session.

There’s the last Boy Scout, Steve Kent, marked by the red “1”, accompanied by a whole bunch of other fellows of about the same or more recent vintage. And truth be told that’s where Wade and Harry should be.

But they aren’t.

Instead there are a trio of parliamentary assistants  - designated by the red “3” - who ought to be over closer to their ministers so they could confer on important matters without having to walk all the way around behind the Speaker.  They are pseudo-ministers after all and as such should be over with their fellow assistants. They should be in the seats on the very back of the government side and the crowd up by the Speaker (marked by a red “2”) should be back one tier.

Now that other crowd of red “2”s on the right there are also a bit out of place. The middle tier of that last block down on the right there seem to be a bunch of ministers who don’t hold a high prominence in the cabinet.  proximity to the Premier and the Speaker are huge clues to prominence in the usual way of seating people.

Oddly enough, that would include Ross Wiseman who, while he gets a front bench space due to seniority perhaps, is still only a couple of steps from being out through the centre doors (denoted by the bit of a bracket on the extreme right). His distance from the Premier and the Speaker seems a wee bit odd.

Now all of this might mean nothing at all.

But then again, this whole Kremlinology thing started with Trevor Taylor.

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Hebron Project Timelines

For those interested in this sort of detail, and from the good folks at the Hebron project website, comes this picture of the project timelines:

 

Note that the partners don’t anticipate giving this project the green light until the early part of 2012.

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Significant digits: December 2009

1.  Number of days Tom Rideout was premier:  43.

2.  Number of days the House of Assembly sat in 2009:  43.

3.  Average number of days the House of Assembly has sat each year of the current administration (since 2004): 43.

4.  Number of provincial Conservatives in the House of Assembly:  43

5.  Number of boil water advisories in effect in Newfoundland and Labrador as of June 2009,  the last date the list was updated:   239  (Some communities were affected by more than one boil water order.)

6.  Total number of boil water advisories in the province as of April 1, 2008:  228.

7.  Total number of communities affected by boil water advisories in the province as of June 2009:  174.

8.  Total number of communities in Newfoundland and Labrador: 593. (Yes, that means 29% of communities had at least one boil water advisory in place in June 2009.)

9.  Longest time under boil water advisory: 20 years 11 months (Branch, 01 Jan 1989.)

10.  Total number of days in which someone made reference to boil water advisories or drinking water quality in the House of Assembly since 01 January 2008:  2.

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Hitchhiker’s Update:

Purely coincidental: Hydro-Quebec/NB Power version

Some of these things are linked.  Some may be purely coincidental.

1.  Hydro-Quebec plans to buy NB Power including the Point LePreau nuclear generating plant.  October 29.

2. Ontario Senator Lowell Murray thinks it’s time for the federal government to get interested in the Hydro-Quebec/NB Power thingy. December 15.

3.  Ontario considering sale of hydro-electric generation, transmission and distribution assets. December 16.

4.  Government of Canada announcements plans to sell off the Candu reactor division of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.  December 17.

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“Everything else is advertising.”

Sometimes, things that don’t appear to be connected things scream out to be connected.

Take, for example, a piece last weekend in the Globe on one of the legends in the newspaper business.  Harry Evans was in Toronto flogging his memoir, My paper chase. He thinks that news is whatever anyone tries to suppress.  “Everything else is advertising, ” he contends.

On the same weekend, a Telegram editorial revealed that the local daily tried to get government polling results this past August but came up with six blacked-out pages. Proprietary information don’t you know and there was just no way the government could release stuff that belongs to a third party and still comply with the province’s access to information act.

News is what The Man wants to suppress, sez Harry.

Not in this case.

That story of the blacked out bits  - the suppressed bits - never made it to the news pages. The Telly did run a story last September based on a few pages of numbers that the government did happily send out but the full-on research report story doesn’t seem to have made it to the news section.

And the story that did appear took such a high-level picture it missed some of the details within the numbers they did have.  It wound up telling you – in the very first two sentences -  that:

Residents of the province are split on their satisfaction with the government's handling of health care, according to recent polling commissioned by the Williams administration.

Satisfaction levels in other areas, however, remain high.

This is hardly news for anyone who has been reading the CRA polls as if they actually had something to say that didn’t exaggerate the actual results they got. The rest of the story didn’t add anything else.

Now this way of handling the suppression of polling information is rather odd. The questions being asked would potentially be very controversial stuff. After all they were questions like:

• Do you think Newfoundland and Labrador has benefited since joining Canada in 1949?
• Do you know anybody who's left the province to work in Alberta in the past six months?
• Do you consider yourself foremost a Newfoundlander, a Canadian, or something else?

and according to the Telly-torial:

Other questions touched on topics such as the phasing out of pesticide use and the image of the commercial seal hunt.

All pretty obviously related to public policy and all pretty obviously no the stuff covered by section 27:  “trade secrets of a third party, or … commercial, financial, labour relations, scientific or technical information of a third party…”.  Yet that was the basis on which the provincial government kept the information secret.

So at the end of it all we wind up with information being suppressed and the story about the suppression winding up as an editorial. And the bit on polling that did wind up on the news page was little more than the usual advertising copy that polling results have become in this province’s news media. Sometimes the ad copy comes with third-party endorsements from people supposedly with absolutely no connection to the subject of the story either.

Not so long ago, such blatant suppression of information that legitimately belongs in the public domain using a trumped-up excuse would have prompted a much sterner response and not one confined to the editorial page.

Things have changed, though, as Harry noted and as pretty well everyone dealing with news media can tell you. The change is not glacial, either, well at least not the way glaciers used to melt in the days before Al Gore.  Rather the transformation of newsrooms is as easily seen as the curious drop in online viewers highlighted by a couple of earlier posts.

The pressures in newsrooms are well known.

Other stuff that adds to the pressure may not be so well known or sufficiently appreciated for what they are and what they do: the nasty  - and often-time orchestrated – comments, short public attention spans and memories, The Attitude about advertising and what it buys, and even editors who publicly criticise the milquetoast reporting of today as too aggressive.  All add up such that it becomes much much harder for the crowd in the newsroom to do what Harry did and what many of the reporters and editors might like to do.

This is not a local phenomenon alone. It is also something that isn’t confined to one single outlet and it certainly isn’t affected by corporate ownership.  The problem  applies as equally to news outlets owned by large corporations as it did to a locally-owned vanity publishing enterprise that died twice. So-called independent media, that is stuff that isn’t corporately owned, also brings its own problem of rather strong ideological biases.

This is not a post which reaches a logical or orderly conclusion.  Frankly, your humble e-scribbler can only note the phenomenon just as with the curious drop.

But there is no mistaking the connections among a bunch of things you might not think were actually related.

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