Top 10 Stories of 2009

No need for elaborate commentaries for this one. 

Here are the 10 stories that  - in the not so humble opinion of your humble e-scribbler - had a huge impact on Newfoundland and Labrador in 2009 and/or which will continue to affect the province into the future.

Odds are this list will look like all the other locally generated lists of top news story for 2009, even if the ordering may be slightly different.

1. Cougar 491:  A tragedy that prompted a genuine outpouring of sorrow across the province and left a mark on psyche of many that just won’t go away any time soon. A public inquiry will examine offshore helicopter safety and make recommendations in 2010.
2. H1N1:  The health pandemic dominated the news in the front of the year and again in the fall. People changed their habits and many organizations changed the way they conduct their affairs:  for instance, shaking hands in greeting was out for a while in many churches. In the end, this province wound up ahead of the country in percentage of population inoculated.  That’s something everyone can be proud of.
3. The Recession:  It’s been walloping Newfoundland and Labrador much harder than many have acknowledged and the effects of the largest global economic downturn since the 1930s are being felt in everything from layoffs and temporary closures at mines to a continued increase in people from  returning to this province other parts of Canada because they can’t find work anywhere else.  Expect the recovery to take a while.
4. Hibernia South:  So many people lined up to criticise the Hibernia deal over the past 20 years and everyone one of them turned out to be full of crap.  From Ian Doig to Bill Callahan to Danny Williams, they were all dead wrong.  Danny Williams was so wrong about give-aways he used the Hibernia royalty regime as the basis for his deal to bring more oil into production. The royalty regime hashed out two decades ago and adjusted in 2000 will pour billions into the provincial treasury. The new deal added a couple of tweaks but all the heavy financial lifting is coming via the old deal. The new deal will bring new oil ashore, swell provincial coffers, produce more jobs and set a foundation for future developments around the Hibernia oil field.  The development deal didn’t need all the hype and bullshit the provincial spin machine laid on it:  it could stand up on its own merits and garner well-deserved credit for the administration that delivered the signed agreement.
5. Double political suicide:  First Trevor Taylor, then Paul Oram.  Two stalwart Tory politicians ended their political careers  - unexpectedly - in the space of a couple of weeks last fall and in the process sent shockwaves through the provincial Conservative party. When Tony the Tory has to write letters to the newspapers defending his team’s future viability, you know the province’s governing Tories were badly shaken. In the subsequent by-elections, the Tories swept one and lost one.  More political changes may well be on the way in the run-up to the 2011 general election.
6. AbitibiBowater:  A carry-over from 2008, the closure of the century old paper mill at Grand Falls in March shock the economic foundations of the central Newfoundland town. The reverberations are still being felt. Plenty of people never imagined the company was serious.  Surprise!  They weren’t bluffing.
7. Have Province:  The provincial economy finally generates enough revenue so the provincial government can deliver its constitutional obligations without hand-outs from Uncle Ottawa. Announced prematurely in November 2008, “Have” status arrived in 2009, much to the chagrin of some politicians. 
8. No Hydro Lines Through Gros Morne:  “The argument was made, quite rightly, by people that you don’t want to create an eyesore in…one of our best tourism attractions in the province.”  Amen to that. There were other political climb-downs in 2009, but this one stood out because it was the most unusual one for the provincial government to stand on its haunches about in the first place.
9. The ABC’s are over/The End of the Ig-man: The rapprochement between the revanchist provincial Conservatives and their federal cousins happened quietly but the fact it happened will wind up having a profound impact on politics in the province.  That’s especially true at the federal level where the sitting members of parliament have already been dismissed by the national media as DW’s bitches.   What will they do when the next federal writ drops?  What price might the provincial Tories have to pay to get back in Steve’s good books?  Will the whole thing fall apart? Only time will tell. The other half of this story is the Ignatieff implosion.  So much hype; so little delivery.  When their boring stuffy academic  - and an economist to boot – is more popular than yours, you can be assured there is a giant political crisis desperately needing attention.  The second half of the problem:  Bob Rae as the only apparent alternative.  Nice guy but an aging former premier is not likely to catch fire with the electorate.
10. Darlene Neville. As Russell Wangersky already noted, this is just the latest in a series of problems with people hired to fill important jobs reporting to the House of Assembly.  The problems aren’t confined to one office or to one government administration.  The offices are important ones, however, so there is a pressing need to sort out how they are filled.  Maybe one solution would be to get cabinet out of the game entirely and leave the running of House offices to a special committee of the legislature. 

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Kids say the darndest things

Before Christmas Memorial University political science prof – and former Williams administration spin-meister -  Alex Marland had some choice observations about his former boss and said boss’ apparent popularity with voters.

Umm, that bit of context didn’t appear in the Telegram story, by the by, even though it is more than a wee bit relevant to the story.

But anyway, Marland had this to say:

"It's something in political science we call economic regionalism," he said, explaining Williams is seen as somebody who's not trying to favour any particular group. "It's almost like he's trying to help out the Newfoundland society as a whole," Marland said.

Williams has also learned to target his anger and desire for reform against outsiders, he said, like Hydro-Quebec, New Brunswick or Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as opposed to people in the province.

Target his anger outside the province?

That’s what political scientists used to call bullshit.

Just ask all the traitors and quislings just exactly how far outside the province political anger gets targeted.

And economic regionalism?

Let’s just say that Marland was about as far off base on that one as he was on the anger ball thing.

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Scenes from a parking lot: recycling at Walmart

Discarded chewing gum is used to pave in front of every Walmart.

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Scenes from a parking lot: Big Truck

There’s is no amount of l’il blue pills that can overcome the inadequacy symbolized by the honking great, brand new pick-up trucks to be found in parking lots around St. John’s these days.

Just sayin’.

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The Cure and The Disease

The guy who tried to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit hid two containers of flammable materials inside his underwear.

His unsuccessful effort  - he set fire to his own scrotum and created some minor panic – end when passengers seized him and doused the smouldering bits of his crotch with anything liquid close to hand.

In the security,  American and Canadian authorities made it even more difficult to get on an airplane in the first place without actually making it any less likely that someone with stuff secreted around their genitals can get on an airplane in the first place.

The initial response included manual searches of carry-on baggage.

Remember that the guy hid the package next to his package not in his luggage.

They also conducted pat searches.

Again, unless they grabbed everyone’s package the odds of finding a little do-it-yourself flame kit would be slim.

Now the geniuses who now decided passengers can’t take a whiz in the last hour before landing  - will they now hand out catheters at check-in? - have decided to ban carry-on luggage.

Not surprisingly, real security experts – as opposed to the Mensa masterminds actually in charge of security screening at airports – are pointing out that the stuff happening across North America this holiday season is nothing more than theatre.

That’s right.

A show.

Something to make it look like they were doing something to prevent loons with glowing Johnsons from getting on airplanes.

And in the process they have virtually guaranteed the airline industry will lose passengers.

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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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