CNLOPB advises operators of changes to search and rescue practices

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board announced today that it has received some early recommendations from Commissioner Robert Wells of the Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry, which concern search and rescue practices.

Following a review of the recommendations, the Board advised operators of changes which are to be implemented.

The recommendations and the Board’s directions to operators are contained in  correspondence which is available on the Board’s website.

Update:

A key part of the letter from the Board to the offshore operators:

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Credit where credit is due

You either get credit because you deserve it or you don’t.

Absolutely.

When it comes to the Atlantic Accord, it is unfortunate that the landmark agreement in the province’s history is suffering the fate of so many aspects of local history.  That’s right:  the Accord is becoming the stuff of myth on the one hand and general ignorance – for the most part – on the other.  Having its name appropriated for another, far less significant document is but one symptom of the problem.

Well, just to clear up any question about credit for negotiating the Accord, the best evidence is a photograph taken of the people directly responsible for that task.  That would be the provincial and federal negotiating teams along with the first ministers and energy ministers at the federal and provincial levels.

The woman seated in the front on the right is Pat Carney, then federal energy  minister and now a senator.

Now that you’ve noticed Pat, notice who isn’t in the picture.

What is it about Tories and eating their own?

Meanwhile, notice that this issue isn’t new by any means.  It cropped up in 2007 as well, as a result of public chatter about other, related issues.

Update:  Here’s the print story on which CBC radio is basing it’s news piece on Friday. The print story gives much more detail.  you really need the two to get a balanced account. The story is by Barbara Yaffee who some will remember from her days – back then – reporting from this end of the country. 

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Not good enough for the big leagues

Bill Clinton had two stents surgically implanted in an artery on Thursday after complaining of chest pains two days ago.

Emergency surgery and the guy is a model of public disclosure even though, not holding elected office any more, he really isn’t obliged to say anything.  The public knows what happened – down to a description of the tiny devices – and they even know where the surgery took place.

Meanwhile a town councillor in the United Kingdom disclosed his recent bout of cardiac problems.

Meanwhile in Calgary, a local columnist  - and Ralph Klein’s former chief of staff - offers some clear-eyed observations on how another politician handled his own health issues:

None of that appeared to have been done. The whole thing was rushed, and a flustered deputy premier was pushed out in front of the cameras, ill-prepared, with no script and few answers. Not good enough for the big leagues. Having said all that, get well Danny, and remember to pay the bill.

Like the Oilers.

Notice the number of nasty comments from the brave souls who can’t even sign their own names.  Of course none of those comments could possibly be part of an orchestrated attack campaign.

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Planted calls and personal threats against talk show host revealed

In an interview with Geoff Meeker, VOCM Open Line show host Randy Simms gave the text-book definition of a planted caller. 

Simms was describing his experience in the first couple of days after news broke that the Premier was in the United States for heart surgery. He rejected the idea the calls and e-mails were organized but then gave what is in essence the textbook definition of an orchestrated, partisan political campaign of intimidation aimed at local news media:

“…In many instances, they weren’t listening to the program, they don’t know what the question was that I asked, they haven’t read my column. But they are responding (anyway)… and a lot of them will respond and cc it to other offices, let’s say that.  And it’s done for a different motivation than engaging in legitimate democratic debate. But you get some of that, right?”

Simms also described the e-mail portion of the campaign:

Towards the end of the February 2 program, Simms referred to a bunch of emails he had received that day; messages that were vicious, insulting and mean-spirited.

“I don’t know why you would take the time to write an email, the sole purpose of which is to insult, to see if you can inflict some kind of emotional hurt. I don’t know why you would do that. That says more about you, than it does about me. …”

And if that wasn’t enough, Simms has also been subjected to personal threats:

““All of us, everybody, in any form of public life will have threats made against them. If you could read what has been said to me, about me, and of me, simply because we mentioned Danny Williams name and health care in the same sentence. I’ve had my life threatened. I’ve been threatened with being shot. I’ve been threatened with having my house burned down. We even had a guy come on Facebook yesterday and he actually said that Randy Simms should do us all a favour and hang himself in his basement. Now I ask you – These people… should these people be walking around free?”

The short answer is “no”.

It’s a criminal offence to make threats, and if Simms has been getting that type of stuff, the best thing to do is turn the information over the police.  Let them investigate and take appropriate action.  Some of these louts can be tracked down and when they’ve been rooted out, let them deal with the consequences.

No need to wonder any more if last Saturday’s analysis here at Bond Papers read too much into the current climate in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Government smears landmark agreement with false statements

The provincial government has tarnished the 25th anniversary of the Atlantic Accord by issuing a news release which contains false information:

In 2005, the Williams Government improved upon the benefits in the original Atlantic Accord by negotiating a new deal that retained a greater share of offshore revenues for the province. The new revenue-sharing arrangement reached between Premier Danny Williams and then Prime Minister Paul Martin resulted in Newfoundland and Labrador receiving 100 per cent of its offshore revenues for the first time, free from any clawbacks while an equalization-receiving province. he 2005 Accord enabled Newfoundland and Labrador to truly be the “principal beneficiary” of the petroleum resources off its shores. …[Emphasis added]

“The original Atlantic Accord has greatly assisted in the pursuit of long-term economic prosperity and self-reliance for Newfoundland and Labrador, and these benefits were secured and improved in 2005 when Premier Williams succeeded in convincing the Federal Government of the inequity Newfoundland and Labrador had endured for years in not receiving the full benefit of the exploitation of its offshore resources,” said Acting Premier Dunderdale.

All of that is completely false.

Provincial government officials should know it is utterly untrue false because they link to the text of the 2005 deal in the news release.  Here’s what the 2005 agreement says in plain English:

2. This document reflects an understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador that:

• Newfoundland and Labrador already receives and will continue to receive 100 per cent of offshore resource revenues as if these resources were on land; [Emphasis added]

There were no changes to revenue-sharing spelled out in the 1985 Accord. Under the 1985 agreement the provincial government alone sets and receives all offshore oil government royalties. The federal government collects only what it would from any other industry in the way of business and personal taxes.  

Despite ludicrous claims at the time it was signed, the 2005 agreement delivered nothing more than a single $2.0 billion payment to the provincial government. 

That’s it.

The Equalization formula continued to work as it is supposed to work.  As forecast in 2005, the provincial stopped qualifying for Equalization payments in 2009. 

When that happened, the “clawback” described in today’s news release didn’t hit zero. Rather it became a full  - 100% - clawback of all offshore revenues.

The 2005 made no changes to any of the provisions of the 1985 agreement.

The 1985 Accord alone forms the basis for the current offshore oil industry and for current provincial prosperity. 

Here’s the way your humble e-scribbler laid it out in 2004/2005:

First, [under what became the 1985 Accord] the provincial government would gain the right to manage the offshore jointly with the federal government, particularly with respect to setting the mode of production. This had significant implications for local benefits, as evident from construction of the gravity-based system (GBS) for Hibernia.

Second, the provincial government gained the right to collect revenues from the resources as if they were on land. This established that the provincial government would determine its own revenues to be collected from offshore oil and gas development and production just as a province like Alberta is able to do. These revenues would, de facto, be treated as “own source” revenues like income tax, sales tax and other similar levies.

Third, the province as a whole would benefit from the development of local jobs. Mulroney committed that oil-related infrastructure would be sited in the province, where possible. This was no small matter. Mulroney’s letter [Brian Mulroney to Brian Peckford, 1984] contains strong language and conveys a deliberate intent on the part of the future Prime Minister to provide this province with significant job and business benefits. “Local job creation and labour development would be of paramount concern.”

Fourth, the province would benefit since the provincial government would not see a dollar-for-dollar loss of Equalization payments that would naturally result from growth in the government’s own-source revenues. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador would receive all of its own-source revenue, potentially a portion of any federal shares in the offshore, and as well, additional payments to offset any losses from Equalization.

The same general approach was taken by the Liberal administrations which preceded Mr. Mulroney. For example, the comprehensive proposal made by the Government of Canada in 1982 stated that “it is recognized that Newfoundland should enjoy the major share of the revenue that offshore resources are expected to generate…” and that “the people of the province would realize the greatest and the most direct benefits from the development of offshore oil and gas resources in terms of growth and income, jobs, opportunities for new businesses, and significant new provincial government revenues.”

The federal Liberal proposal on revenue sharing was linked inextricably to the overall performance of the provincial economy and hence may be taken as further evidence of the extent to which the federal government before 1984 viewed the benefits from the offshore to this province to be greater than just the sums flowing to the provincial government’s treasury.

While local job benefits merited two short paragraphs in the original Mulroney letter, both the Accord itself and the enabling legislation provide an elaborate structure aimed at managing local benefits. No one can underestimate the value of local industrial benefits to the province; nor can anyone easily dismiss the contention that the architects of the Atlantic Accord saw local industrial development as a significant factor in establishing this province as the principal beneficiary of offshore oil and gas development. [Paragraphing altered to improve readability]

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Customer Service: Tammany Style

The thrust of comments made on CBC Radio this morning by the guy responsible for clearing the snow:

**  Yeah we buried the taxpayer’s driveway and then didn’t do anything about it for three days after the storm even after he called the right number and pointed out our mistake like we told him he should.

We showed up three days later by which time he’d dug himself out and the snow had melted a bit.

There was no real problem by then.

These things happen.

We have a gajillion miles of streets and if we responded to just one percent of the calls about driveways we’d never get anything done.

Now this driveway was hard to see, so maybe – and only maybe – if the taxpayer had taken it on himself at his own expense to mark the driveway somehow we might have avoided the problem.  There’s no guarantee though because we keep shifting the drivers around and they don’t always know the neighbourhoods.  **

Or words to that effect.

Absolutely amazing.

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Up the Creek with Jackman and Rideout

And neither had a paddle to get anyone out of the mess which is the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Latest word is the Sullivan family – close Tory ties there or what? – cannot do any better a job running the fish plants they got from the smash-up of Fishery Products International than the crowd who ran FPI.

There is nothing new in any of the latest demands.  The Sullivans want to ship yellow-tail flounder to China because it can’t be processed profitably in this province. 

Mind you this is exactly what FPI did to subsidise the plants it used to own. Last going off, the fisheries minister of the day undertook a prosecution of FPI under the fish export regulations which  - like so much of government policy toward FPI - certainly had the stink of being politically-motivated and insubstantial all over it. 

Rather than bother commenting on the current demand from the company, let’s just review some of the recent history on this via some old posts. 

What you’ll quickly discover is that the current problems are essentially the same as the old ones.  In other words, fish minister Clyde Jackman is dead wrong if he thinks the problems fish minister Tom Rideout faced were different from the ones Jackman is facing today. 

You’ll also find their solutions today are going to look all too familiar as well. They are both up the same creek without anything that even looks like a paddle. The fish plant workers and fishermen who suffer as a result are farther up the same creek and they don’t even have a canoe.

And of course nothing at all will happen with any of it because the only man who apparently is allowed to make a decision in the current administration is currently laid up in hospital for another few weeks.

• June 2005:  “The tragedy of common-place thinking”
• November 2005:  “The return of Backuppable Tom”
• November 2005:  “The FPI-competitor myth and one of the real problems”
• March 2006:  “FPI, Tom Rideout and the future of the fishery”
• March 2006:  “Was Rideout asleep in the wheelhouse?”

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Doing the Spandau Ballet

labradore highlights the bizarro world of local Cultists including one of the leading worshippers who – according to very poorly informed pundits and some misguided others – is considered as a potential leader of the Liberal Party.

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Kiss it all good bye

Anyone hear any comments by the current St. John’s city councillors at how proud they were of the way the city looked in CBC’s Republic of Doyle?

Well, here’s what some of them told reporters, as presented in the Telegram:

“Republic of Doyle," a TV series that aired on CBC last week, received rave reviews from St. John's city councillors Monday.

"I didn't realize what a city I lived in, how beautiful it was," Coun. Gerry Colbert said. "When I look back on when I was a young fellow watching Magnum P. I., I used to say, 'God, I'd love to visit Hawaii, look at the shots of Hawaii, ' but I mean these shots, forget about the acting for a while, the shots that were taken were absolutely incredible."

Colbert said the show has gained popularity on the Internet and can be found on YouTube.

"We couldn't buy, in a million years, what that show gave us in one night," he said.

Mayor Dennis O'Keefe agreed that the city wouldn't be able to buy that kind of profile.

Coun. Debbie Hanlon and Coun. Sheilagh O'Leary also praised the show.

"It was fabulous, St. John's certainly looked gorgeous in it," Hanlon said.

"I was delighted," O'Leary said. "It was just fantastic."

Bet your last dollar that every single one of those councillors – except for Sheilagh O’Leary – is already sold on the idea of demolishing the downtown portion of St. John’s that provides much of the backdrop for the show.

You see every single city councillor – save O’Leary and maybe two others – is already on board with a plan by Fortis Properties to smash the existing municipal development plan and stick a 15 story high-rise on prime real estate on the waterfront.

It’s hard to imagine otherwise when you hear the mayor say absolutely asinine things like his line to local businessmen and women at a Rotary club that without development like Fortis is proposing, the city will have to rely on taxes to get its money.  

And if you listen to other councillors, it’s hard to imagine any of them standing in the way either.  There’ll be lots more talk about listening to the other side and about the need for development and progress.

That’s all just code for “I’ve already decided to vote for Fortis”. 

The crew at City Hall and their backers know how to talk out the clock.  They would like nothing better than an endless series of meetings and all sorts of hot air.  At the end, they’ll just vote the way they know right now that they will vote:  with Stan Marshall and his crowd.

Just remember what they did to people over the stadium, right down to the appeals farce.

Once the Fortis gig is done, then someone will file a proposal for the empty lot across Prescott Street from the current Fortis property.  This time they won’t try and conform to the old by-law like they sort-of did last time.  This time they’ll shoot for the stars.

And they’ll get that too.

Not long after there’ll be other plans. Other old buildings will be torn down because they are…well…old.

In place of these icky old things will rise the sort of architecture you see not in New York or Paris but in the true centres of modern civilization and culture.

Places like Mississauga or maybe Burlington.

Now this is not a lost cause by any stretch.  St. John’s city councillors are notoriously a pretty weak-kneed bunch. That’s why a few guys with imaginations as limited as their pockets are deep can win them over so easily.

But it’s going to take way more than a conversation or two in order to stop this proposal in its tracks.

Public meetings and letter writing won’t work much on them either. 

If people really don’t want to see the downtown turned into a carbon copy of a million other eyesores on the planet then they have to make it clear to each councillor that there is a huge political and maybe even a social or business price to be paid for what they are going to do. 

You see that’s the sort of stuff that is helping persuade them to vote with Fortis.  They are siding with their peeps.

So if you want them to shift positions, then sticking with their pals has to become painful.

Opponents of the plan need to consider some frank talk, some plain language.

Otherwise, kiss the whole of the downtown good bye and say hello to a cheap imitation of Scarborough.

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Over and over and over, ‘til my tongue spirals out of my head…

That seems to be the mantra of government spending announcements for things like the Conception Bay South Bypass Road.

This is one recounted in this space last summer.

Well, now Terry French – since elevated to cabinet – is breaking the oft-announced and long delayed project down into its sub-components.  It’s no longer good enough just to announce a construction.  Now there has to be an announcement of the award of tenders to supply every bit of the sub-work.

In this case, it is the call for tenders for five kilometres of brush clearing.  Undoubtedly awarding the tender will get another release and then the felling of the first bit of scrub should be good for a photo op.

It all fits into the current Conservative philosophy – provincial and federal – of announcing announcements previously announced.  Makes it look like things are happening and that perception gets especially important four times a year.

Like say right now.

It’s February and the official government pollster is in the field.

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Trivimania: the Premier Edition

Thursday, February 11, marks the 25th anniversary of a document that is second only to the Terms of Union in the profound transformation it caused in Newfoundland and Labrador in the past 100 years.

February 11 is the date on which the federal and provincial governments concluded the Atlantic Accord.  We aren’t talking about the one-time load of  “f” off money from 2005. 

Nope.

We are speaking here of the landmark federal-provincial agreement that is the underpinning of every single offshore oil penny that has ever come, bar none.   Were it not for the 1985 agreement, there would be no offshore oil industry in this province, at least not the way it is today.

But there’ll be more on that later in the week.

Today, let’s take a quick look at the lighter side of events like this.  Inevitably, they bring to mind the sorts of details, the tender morsels of information that only regular fans of Friday Cross Talk’s trivia show or jeopardy would bother to notice.

Who was Premier of Newfoundland – as the province was then called – in 1985?

Brian Peckford, of course.

Sadly, he is forgotten by too many people in our province, perhaps most surprisingly of all he is neglected – and has been savagely abused even - by the crowd who currently run the place.

But Brian stands out in another way.

Of all the post-Confederation Premiers who held the office as the result of a general election, Brian Peckford was the youngest person sworn into office as Premier.  He was just 37 years old in 1979.  He’d won the Progressive Conservative leadership and took office as Premier before the election, but unlike Roger Grimes, Beaton Tulk and Tom “43 days” Rideout, Peckford won his own mandate.

So here’s the rest of the trivia quiz for you.  Sorry, there are no prizes other than the satisfaction of knowing you are a fountain of seemingly useless information too.  And remember, we are excluding from our consideration those three post-Confed Premiers who didn’t win the job in a general election.

1.  We know Brian Peckford was the youngest, but which Premier was the oldest at the time he was sworn into office?

2.  Which Premier was second oldest at the time of swearing in?

3.  Which Premier was the oldest at the time he left office?

4.  a.  What provincial district has the distinction of being the one from which the most post-Confederation premiers have been elected?

b.  How many of those Premiers could be considered townies by place of birth? [To avoid any confusion, let’s restate this question to make it clear: Of the Premiers since Confederation, including Tulk, Grimes and Rideout, which one was born in St. John’s?  That is who is the only townie Premier since 1949?]

And finally,…

5.  If we take every single person sworn in as Premier (yes, including Grimes, Tulk and Rideout),  list them in order from oldest to youngest at the time he was sworn in.

Perhaps your humble e-scribbler can come up with some prizes to hand out for the next contest.

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From base commander to QDC

News today from Trenton of the arrest of the local base commander on two counts of murder, two counts of sexual assault and two counts of break and enter would be shocking news in itself.

The you take a look at the guy’s service record.

And if he is found guilty, he would have evaded background checks and security clearances at pretty high levels within National Defence and the Canadian Forces.

Those are all things for later, after a trial that will look at events that took place after the guy arrived in Trenton in July 2009.  Undoubtedly other police services will be looking into unsolved cases that coincident with times the guy was in their neck of the woods.

Like, say Halifax Metro and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the years between 1992 and 1995 when the guy flew with 434 Squadron while it was based at 12 Wing Shearwater.

For now, the former VIP pilot will be cozying up with his fellow inmates at the Quinte [pronounced kwintee] Detention Centre near Napanee. 

It’s not one of the nicer spots in the Ontario corrections system.

Sort of on par with Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s  - but nowhere near as old - where guests have been known to bunch three and four to a room designed for one or two just like at Quinte.

It’s a long way from what he’s been used to. 

But then again, if he’s found guilty, he’d better get used to it.

And be thankful he won’t be sent to the old detention barracks at Edmonton.

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Blog comments controversial?

Via Crisisblogger, you can find a link to a post on mashable.com about a brewing controversy about comments on blogs.

Seems some people making comments have been nasty:

Popular gadget site Engadget has recently shut down comments. It’s a temporary measure, it says, but the blog took it because the “tone in comments has really gotten out of hand.”

Quel horreur, indeed.

Anyone running any local website of any kind knows the trouble of not only cleaning off the scorch-marks from the site but trying to keep the vicious little buggers from setting all sorts of flaming bags of dog-turd alight in the first place.  The Telegram site and cbc.ca/nl have all had their share of comment wars. 

There is no full-proof method short of closing off comments altogether.  Your humble e-scribbler shut down comments for the longest time.  Then it seemed like a good idea to open them up with varying ways of making sure people took some responsibility for their words. 

The system in place right now is mostly based on the honour system and for the most part it seems to work.  There are Chinese and Philipino spammers who sometimes get through but they get deleted as soon as they are found.  Comments that add nothing to a discussion are very rare.  The most recent spurt happened over the weekend but that lasted only a few hours.  Cleaning up the mess was simple.

The most remarkable thing about SRBP is that the people who do comment manage to remain respectful and generally offer some thoughtful input.  The exchanges may get heated but for the most part things remain civilized. There is no magic formula that others may copy that just seems to be the way.

And SRBP isn’t unique in that respect.  You can find a great many Internet spaces locally and nationally where the comments sections offer input that is sometimes more significant than the stuff in the post itself that sparked the given conversation.

Now aside from the spammers, everyone is familiar with plants.  For the most part, they are easy to spot and they really don’t cause much of an issue.  Any audience is usually savvy enough to tell which comments come from real people and which comments are from a script.

Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be much online comment about blog-writers who pen their own sock puppet  -that is, planted - comments apparently in an effort to make their space seem more interesting or popular than it is.

The phenomenon certainly exists.

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And here’s one that deserves a few e-mails

Janice Kennedy – Who? you may rightly wonder – writes in the Ottawa Citizen on a topic of considerable current interest. 

Hard to tell what is worse:  her suggestion the Premier should resign for seeking medical treatment in the United States  - get a life, Ms. Kennedy -  or the use of the word “Newfie” by one of the people commenting on her post.

The first is just nonsense, as is most of the rationale she uses to get to that conclusion.

The second is just plain insulting.

Feel free, gentle readers, to give her way more attention than she deserves.

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A fraudster (allegedly) by any other accent

A member of parliament facing fraud charges in the Whitehall spending scandal tries gamely but lamely to defend himself on national television.

Just remember:  people elected this guy to vote on what the rules would be for everyone else.

Warning:  This video contains scenes of incredible stupidity that may strike some viewers as awfully bloody familiar.

h/t Guido.

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Kremlinology 16 (Update): Deep T’roat

This is more like a blast from the past but it is curious artefact in light of recent events.

From December 2007, a comment by then-fish minister Loyola Hearn on the sour relationship between the crowd of Conservatives in Sin Jawns and the crowd of Conservatives in Ottawa:

"There are times I'm sure I know as much as what's going on in cabinet and caucus or on the eighth floor as the premier does," said Hearn, referring to Williams's office in Confederation Building in St. John's.

"I always do. That's why we can always be one step ahead of him," Hearn said in a year-end interview with CBC News. "I have friends throughout cabinet and caucus."

That doesn’t mean Loyola is Deep T’roat. What it shows is that the idea is already there of some measure of tension and dissent within Conservative circles.

At the time, Danny Williams dismissed the idea [of traitorous dissent within the ranks] with characteristic bluster. The faithful deployed, too, with their now-signature set of over-the-top messages, delivered in one example by permits and licenses minister Kevin O’Brien.

But still, that didn’t stop Hisself from demanding every member of his caucus swear a sort of loyalty oath during the 2008 federal election and the Family Feud that caused massive discontent within the party.  That was about 10 months after Hisself dismissed the whole of idea of loose caucus and cabinet lips in the first place and, on a go forward basis it seemed to telegraph a huge level of unease or uncertainty.

After all, if their loyalty was unquestionable – the essence of the December claim – then it seems odd to question it at all let alone in a way which someone leaked to the local media. Beth Marshall – now a senator – is the only one who said she wouldn’t support the anti- federal campaign.

Contacted by The Telegram via e-mail at the time, only six Conservatives would give an answer publicly.  The rest of the Tory caucus ignored it, apparently, although the Telegram piece does end with an interesting reference:

Outgoing federal cabinet minister Loyola Hearn has charged that the premier's office is threatening those who may aid the federal Conservatives, citing "a growing number of calls we have received from concerned caucus members and Progressive Conservative staffers."

Williams has denied the allegation.

You see, it is interesting because it matches up with what was going around the local Tory circles at the time.  There were a great many, for example, in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl who were extremely upset that Kathy Dunderdale, Paul Oram and other prominent local Tories were out door-knocking for the Liberal in the riding.

The idea of friction within the provincial Conservative camp isn’t new.  Some of it has been known to flare up in public.  And in 2008, don’t forget, St. John’s South is where the Tory vote didn’t stay home like it did in other ridings.  By all appearances and indications, a goodly chunk of the Conservative vote did head to the polls.  And voted overwhelmingly for the Orange candidate.

That definitely was not the officially sanctioned Family Feud choice.

10 years is a long time to crush every bit of difference and ambition in a crowd of ambitious political types.  A decade is a long time to demand unquestioning obedience or face the consequences of cashiering or a miserable seat.

And even if that weren’t true, there is still the fairly obvious unease resulting from both the by-election loss last fall and the fairly obvious fact the win in the other seat required every member of caucus and a whole lot of political staffers in order to hang onto what should have been a safe seat and an easy win.

“Atrophy” was one word used privately by someone who ought to know in order to describe what has happened to the district-level party machinery across the province.

There’s something to be said for that.  It’s pretty bizarre to shut down a government for a couple of months to fight two by-elections.  Historically in this province, incumbent parties can usually manage to walk and chew electoral gum simultaneously.  Work gets delegated and the Leader/Premier and senior cabinet get deployed only as needed.

And it’s not like Hisself didn’t say loudly and clearly and repeatedly in 2006 – although it seemed like everyone missed it – that he wouldn’t be hanging around for the Hat Trick.

10 years is a long time in politics anywhere.

And it’s a long time for people to be studying how things work in practice.  Size up the strengths and weaknesses.

And then lay in wait to take advantage of a golden opportunity.

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The Screaming of the Banshees

This week Newfoundlanders and Labradorians found themselves embroiled in yet another political psychodrama in the endless series of psychodramas that are Newfoundland politics these days.

The members of the Fan Club -  the Cult of Personality - deployed, en masse, over the past couple of days all screeching the same tune of self-righteous indignation at that favourite target of the political right, the news media.

They started on Day One with a strike at Ramona Deering and John Soper in CBC radio’s lunchtime phone-in show.  Now there are two things to note here.  First of all, the show has ratings which – to be truthful – are nothing to write home about. This is not an opinion-driver of a show by any stretch.

The usual sort of call-in fare would be the show on Tuesday, the one pre-empted by the Premier’s health crisis.  It was about the challenges and choices for women in changing their name after they marry.  Not an insignificant topic, but not exactly one to raise the blood-pressure either or suddenly cause an outbreak of the vapours in Botwood.

Second of all, the topic for the show gave callers a chance to express publicly their concern for the Premier's health.

And do that they did.  Caller One.  Then Caller Two  - the now well-known Minnie, she of her own considerable medical burden and ardent admirer of the Premier - and then Three and then Four.  All as respectful and as courteous as the two hosts, both of whom – incidentally – are well known for their professional and sedate demeanour.

And then the fan-blades started spitting the crap.

Caller after caller and e-mailers to boot all lambasting the Ceeb for having the gall to invade the premier’s privacy by discussing the fact he had a health care problem in the first place.  What other people said didn’t matter;  these people were angry that “it” was being discussed at all.  They all used similar words and generally expressed similar sentiments in such a way that made it unmistakeable that every single one of them had been organized into some sort of vox putz.

One thought there should censorship of everything anyway. Another said  – with absolutely no sense of irony  - that there was too much focus on personality these days.  What should be reported was somewhere between nothing and what we see today.  Do not merely accept this characterisation of the show.  Listen for yourself.

What made the calls after Number Four stand out is that they all said the same thing, in so many words, and, what they said bore no resemblance in any way to what had actually been said by anyone else.

Incidentally, the only thing more amazing than the heaps of scorn these planted callers piled on the media in general is that so many people at the Ceeb still don’t seem to realise they were apparently the victims of a concerted attack.

The meek at the Ceeb aren’t the only ones to inherit a biblical whirlwind of vengeance from the local personality cultists.

Charter Fan Club member and alleged positive thinker Dave Rudofsky made at least one call  - to the drive-time show – to spew an amazing lot of negativity in curiously familiar words about something heard on the Morning Show from former CBC television producer Bob Wakeham.  Unconfirmed reports, by the by, have it that Wakeham’s temerity in mentioning a certain subject right up at the top of the cult’s extensive AbsolutVerboteneliste prompted a torrent of bile aimed solely at him via the Mother Corp’s local e-mail and telephones.

So intense is the anger among the Fanboys and Fangirls that even The Voice of The Cabinet Minister has been getting a heaping of orchestrated outrage and concern.  In the afternoon slot at the semi-official government information dispensary, Our Man in a Blue Line Cab: The Original Series found other things to talk about so  for the most part Lord Haw Haw of Hy’s has been relatively unscathed.

Not so Randy Simms.

Simms has been subjected to the barrage e-mails and telephone calls intended  - as with all the calls, e-mails and comments to and about local media – to bully him into silence.  The whole thing got so intense so quickly that by the end of the Wednesday show, Simms politely told the lot of them to shag off and just stop listening.

The most startling expression of the cultish line came bright and early the next day from none other than the guy who runs The Voice.  Broadcaster John Steele – also a cabinet appointee to look after those precious government oil stakes, by the way - shat on broadcasters for reporting stuff so that other people might know it.

Simms - a Williams target of old - handled him deftly and with undeserved restraint.  Simms posed a few simple questions to his boss which left Steele rather obviously stuck for an intelligent response.  He fell back on the talking points.

Now if the Premier and his associates genuinely didn’t want any attention drawn to his personal health problems, then they went about handling this in a way that seemed calculated to generate the maximum amount of attention and controversy. A number of news media editorials and comments – including ones from Simms – have noted this.

On the other hand, if they wanted to generate international media attention for some unfathomable and insane reason, then the way they handled this only guaranteed the story rapidly became a firestorm over which the people at the centre had no influence whatsoever. That is simply the way the world is these days;  to decry it is to waste energy complaining that dogs bark or that the sky is blue.

But if either secrecy or adoration was the objective, the media line fixed on Day One wouldn’t be to send out any and all Blue Dart Irregulars to pummel anyone who mentioned heart or surgery in a public forum.

Go back to that CBC Cross Talk and you can see exactly the point:  a respectful show in which the first four callers expressed nothing but concern for the Premier’s health followed by a string of pompous negativity from a bunch of planted callers.

Simply put, the two things don’t fit together at all.

What the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have seen the past few days, though, is not the product of any deep thoughts.  There are no complex plans at work.  There is nothing more substantive than what the legion of fanboys have consistently brought to politics over the past decade or so.

What there has been is what last fall’s political crisis brought:  fear and insecurity.

There was plenty to be jittery about.

Most obviously, someone with some pretty good inside information opted to bust the whole thing wide open.

On the face of it, it seems that those in the know hoped to scoot the Premier out of the country for one of his now legendary holidays this time of year.  If it had worked, the job would have been done and no one would have been any the wiser.

But that isn’t what happened.

First there was the leak to NTV – and not CBC – about the trip and the surgery in the first place.  Then a couple of days later, there was the leak about the date of the Premier’s surgery.

Bits and pieces of a story are now floating all over town but the sources are never traceable.  Make no mistake though:  the stories have – at their heart – some kernel of truth, some nub of authenticity which suggests that someone in the know is very consciously dripping information out.

What makes that all the more striking is that this was a story access to which was very tightly controlled.  
Even the provincial Conservative caucus didn’t hear about it until the day after the story hit the news.

Take a look at Kathy Dunderdale on Tuesday and you can see pure stress. The panicked look on the deputy premier’s face during the briefing told you the scrum was not not part of any plan. Gone was her usual – and always unjustified -  smug demeanour,  replaced by something that spoke of tension.  Her angst wasn’t caused by the nature of the news she was discussing. Something else was clearly bothering her as she delivered an ersatz Plan B to replace the Plan A that someone had blown to smithereens the night before.

The aggressiveness and bullying of the cult telegraphs their fear.  It’s like their reaction to the political turmoil last fall.

Some wag said this week that the Tory caucus Tuesday morning was  - like all caucuses faced with such news - likely made up of two crowds.  There were the rabbits huddled in the corner, shivering.  Those are the ones who took to the airwaves and helped bring out the other fanboys.

And there were others looking to capitalize on things if not now, then down the road a ways.

Like say the one(s) who spilled the beans to NTV.

Likely they can see how times are changing across the province, how things are just a wee bit closer to normal, how the same old schtick just doesn’t work any more.

They can hear that the tune from the cult now sounds less and less like hymns of praise and glory and more and more like keening.

Even the banshees themselves know  - in the dark places in their hearts where they are afraid to go - they know what their screeching means.

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Another view on The Big Story

This time from Andrew Coyne at macleans.ca who sparked a rather interesting series of comments on how the media has or has not been covering the story which has the local personality cultists in such a snit:

Ever since Danny Williams was revealed to have been seeking treatment for a heart ailment across the border, the media have been observing a strange and uncomfortable silence about the matter.

On one hand, this reticence is commendable. Williams’s [sic] preference in health care is nobody’s business, and should remain, as far as possible, a private matter between him and his God. Though some claim this is a lifestyle choice, it’s far more likely that it is a result of something beyond his control. As such, it is not a fit matter for public commentary.

But once the story has, by one means or another, entered the public domain, that puts a different colour on it. At that point, the media are not just declining to report on something: they are actively colluding in a fiction. The issue is no longer Williams’s [sic] medical inclination. It’s the media’s refusal to acknowledge reality

On a day when Jack Layton announced that he is being treated for prostate cancer and labradore reposted a block of news stories and three official news releases from a previous trip Danny Williams took to the hospital,  it all adds to the views worth considering.

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Taxpayers shafted

On February 2, Abitibi notified the provincial government that the company vacated the only properties the provincial government didn’t expropriate in December 2008.

As a result, the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador are entirely responsible for cleaning up whatever environmental mess may be attached to the century old facility.

There is no word on how big the problems at the old paper mill are or how much it will cost taxpayers to clean it up.

The official government release on the development is a masterpiece of uncommunication from a department – natural resources – that has become legendary for its practice of the dark art of misinformation. 

There is even a complete contradiction in the claim at the front – namely that the provincial government is now responsible for the sit in every respect and a statement at the back that Abitibi is still liable.

This is the third financial shaft to be felt by taxpayers resulting from the 2008 expropriation.  The first is the yet-unresolved bill for the expropriation itself.  The second is the voluntary payment by the provincial government of money owed by the company.

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Health care and a politician’s privacy

Now:

The Premier, as well as every one of the rest of us, has a right to privacy.

and

"You forgo a lot of privacy when you put your hand up to do this job but there are certain areas of your life that are sacrosanct," [Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale]  said.

but back then?

Well, let’s just say things were different.

Extremely different.

One example, an official news release:

Williams provides update on medical condition

ST. JOHN'S, May 20, 2003 — Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition and MHA for Humber West, today provided an update on his medical condition. Williams was admitted to hospital on Wednesday, May 13, suffering from severe back pain. He was permitted to leave the hospital over the weekend while his physicians awaited the results of medical tests. However, his mobility was severely limited.

"The physicians and staff of St. Clare's have conducted tests to determine what is causing the pain. They believe it is the result of inflamed tissue in my back. Tomorrow, [May 21, 2003] they will perform back surgery to try and alleviate the pain," Williams said.

While recovery time will depend upon the extent and nature of the surgery, Williams' back problem is not expected to have a long-term impact on his political career. "I expect a full recovery and look forward to serving the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for many years to come. However, any type of surgery and subsequent recovery should be treated very seriously. I will follow the instructions of my doctor with regards to recovery time and physical activity and won't do anything to compromise my long-term health and well-being.

"I respectfully ask for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to be understanding of the fact that I will be temporarily out of the office while this back problem is being addressed. However, I am in regular contact with my staff and caucus and am still able to perform my duties as the MHA for Humber West, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador.

"I want to thank the staff at St. Clare’s for their first-rate care and medical treatment. They have been extremely professional and I am very appreciative of their efforts. I would also like to thank all the people who have left messages of support. My family and I take great comfort in knowing that so many people are thinking of us."

Followed by another:

Williams undergoes successful back surgery

ST. JOHN'S, May 21, 2003 — Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition and MHA for Humber West, today underwent successful surgery to alleviate severe back pain. Williams was admitted to hospital on Wednesday, May 14, and is expected to remain there for several days as part of his recovery.

During the complicated operation, which lasted more than two hours, doctors removed a mass of tissue from his back that was believed to be the source of his pain. As a standard precautionary procedure, this tissue will be analyzed over the next 48 hours. Williams is now fully conscious and resting in hospital with his family.

While Mr. Williams is expected to make a complete recovery, his physicians will work with him over the coming days to develop a comprehensive rehabilitation program. That rehabilitation program will determine when he is able to return to the office and resume his provincial tour schedule. In the interim, he continues to be in regular contact with his staff and caucus.

"I ask people to understand that while I may not be able to travel throughout the province in the short term, I will continue to fully discharge my duties as MHA for Humber West, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. I will do everything possible to work with my doctors to expedite my rehabilitation program and I look forward to a complete and prompt recovery," Williams said.

The Williams family would like to sincerely thank the physicians and staff at St. Clare's for their professional care and treatment. They would also like to thank the countless people who have sent messages of support and encouragement. The family is truly touched by such a wonderful outpouring of emotion.

And then another…

Williams receives excellent prognosis for recovery

ST. JOHN'S, May 26, 2003 — Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition and MHA for Humber West, today provided an update on his medical condition. Williams was admitted to St. Clare's Emergency Department Wednesday, May 14, and underwent surgery Wednesday, May 21, to alleviate severe pain that was being caused by a mass of tissue in his back.

"My physicians are very pleased with the surgery and expect me to make a full recovery. In fact, I am already able to take short walks in the hospital. All tests to date have been completed and the results were extremely favourable. Doctors say that I am making excellent and steady progress, but given the nature of the surgery, complete recovery could take upwards of six weeks. They have developed a rehabilitation program that involves rest, appropriate physical exercise and physiotherapy. I will strictly adhere to that program and will do everything possible to expedite my recovery," Williams said.
As a result of the surgery, Williams is experiencing normal post-operative pain. He is continuing to receive medical treatment in hospital and is being re-evaluated on a day-to-day basis to determine an appropriate discharge date.

"Given that physicians are advising me not to travel in the immediate future, I will be asking a number of our MHAs to represent me and the party at various functions throughout the province. With the exception of travel, I expect to be able to conduct all of my duties as Leader of the Opposition, MHA for Humber West and Leader of the PC Party of Newfoundland and Labrador while working from my office at home."

Williams once again thanked the physicians and staff of St. Clare's for their outstanding medical care. "I don't think a person can truly appreciate the remarkable efforts put forward by our health care workers until they are able to experience it first hand. These dedicated professionals work very hard to provide quality care to their patients. My family and I are very grateful for their efforts. We would also like to thank the thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who have called or sent cards with their support. Such kind gestures will never be forgotten."

There is no record that the premier’s personality cult voiced any objections to these news releases or the subsequent news coverage.

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