New “no fly list” rules

The new rule is:  The person on the no fly list is not allowed to fly on a plane.

Any questions?

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The Silence of the Jam Jams

When you’ve been writing a politically-oriented blog for five years, some things stand out by their presence, others by their absence.

Like the complete absence of any Fan Club comments on any posts by your humble e-scribbler after Monday.

A post back in early April that mentioned  - just mentioned mind you - the Premier’s 8th floor digs in a Florida condo tower generated 49 comments.

One on his potential successors last week picked up a few but for the most part they were pretty weak.

But after that Monday post, as things turned particularly sour for the current governing party,  there’s not so much as a peep out of them.

And it’s not like there has been plenty of stuff they could sink their teeth into.

Maybe they are just bored.

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The Thick of It: environment minister version

Environment minister Charlene Johnson.

Think Nicola Murray but without the gravitas.

The province’s environment minister might still be wrestling to find a way to deal with a tire recycling program.  Her only solution to the piles of tires thus far has been shipping them to Quebec for burning.

Johnson might be struggling to sort out the waste management strategy she and her cabinet colleagues photocopied in 2007 from their Liberal predecessors’ version from 2002. 

Yes, friends they just pushed back all the implementation dates by a decade.

Charlene and her colleagues may have buggered up the Abitibi expropriation such that the public is on the hook for cleaning up three of five sites needing remediation.

The sustainable development act may be lost under someone’s desk.

But Charlene knows what it is to be a minister responsible for protecting the environment.

Consider her comments about calls for greater protection for woodland caribou, creatures she has under her jurisdiction:

"I know there [are] calls to have no harvesting at all within the core areas and the buffer areas, but then there would be no logging industry," Johnson told CBC News.

So there’ll be $15 million of study. That’s despite the fact that a decade-old study by government scientists showed that logging within nine kilometres of caribou can seriously affect the animal’s behaviour.

And in her latest round, Johnson thought a bottled water ban in provincial government offices was risible.

Yes, gentle readers, she didn’t just give a straightforward answer.  Charlene thought that ridiculing the New Democrat leader was the right way to go:

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am absolutely shocked. We are dealing with an oil spill in Louisiana. We have all kinds of fishery issues that have been before the House. There are health issues, there are other issues in environment and I am getting asked questions about banning bottled water in government -

It is not to say that we do not take the issue seriously, Mr. Speaker, but I would certainly suggest that there are a lot of other issues, particularly in the environment that we can address.

Mr. Speaker, I just had a scan around government the other day. There are offices where meetings are held in government that there are no sinks. So, what is she proposing that we do not have anything to drink?

At the very least, we should all be thankful.

Thankful, that is, because even if Charlene is confused about what ocean it is that sits offshore (Hint:  it isn’t the Gulf of Mexico), then at the very least, Charlene knows that compared to the crap-load of major policy issues that have been sitting on her desk for years without any serious attention, bottled water in government isn’t actually the most pressing issue.

That is, not the most pressing even if it would be probably the easiest one of that back-log for her to deal with.

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BTDTGTTS Update:  As someone reminded your humble and now increasingly forgetful e-scribbler, Newfoundland and Labrador already had a ministry like Nicola’s with her “fourth sector” initiative.  We still do.

It’s called the minister responsible for Penny Rowe, errr, the volunteer sector, currently run by Dave Denine.  The first minister responsible for liaising with Penny used to rattle on about the fourth sector, which is a term penny used to use all the time.

BOHICA Update:  Meanwhile, the environmentalist minister landed a major gaffe on Tuesday which is likely to do wonders for the ongoing negotiations and legal action over Abitibi.  Things that were TARFU and FUBAR just went to the final stage, BOHICA. 

Charlene, quoted in the Wednesday Telegram which is sadly not online: 

“Our only concern is that the environment be brought back to the state that Abitibi found it in when they came here to use our resources.  We don’t even ask what the cost is.  As long as we’re fine with the way they’re doing it, that cost is really Abitibi’s responsibility.”

Charlene, God love her little socks, likely thinks that the big evil old company got here in 1905. That is the year on those leases which Carlene and the crowd in the House of Assembly voted to tear up a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately, the woman should actually read the backgrounders on the files she has stacked up on her desk. 

If she did, she would know that Abitibi arrived in the province in 1969.

Not 1905.

Two years after the first Summer of Love.

So basically, Charlene just said that it is government policy to restore the only land in the province Abitibi still owns back to the condition in was in 1969.  Would she like the original pollution restored then, in the places where,as the prov gov already acknowledged, the company has cleaned up a bit? Let’s hope not.

So that’s Botwood sorted out back to the year Sesame Street started.

Then there’s Stephenville.

Abitibi didn’t get that land until 1979.

And by that time both the US Air Force and the provincial government had been peeing on it for the better part of three decades.  First there was an air force base and then there was the infamous linerboard mill.  Huge disaster – at least financially – which shut down in 1979 and left both a contaminated site and a gigantic debt load for the taxpayers.

Then Abitibi bought it for a dollar, at the behest of the Peckford administration.  Abitibi, meanwhile, diverted a brand-spanking new Valmet paper making machine from its original destination of Grand Falls and set it up at the old linerboard building. 

Poof:  the long-awaited third mill, made by splitting one of the others in two.

Now since 2005, Abitibi has already levelled the building the linerboard crowd put there.  So strictly speaking, they’ve actually put the site back in the shape it was just after the Americans frigged off - 1967.

That’s even better than Charlene said the government wanted.

And yet Charlene accuses others of not understanding what is going on.

As Ron Stoppable once said, this would be so cool if it wasn’t going to hurt us.

Big Oil has L’il Buddy available for offshore fight #cdnpoli #oilspill

If the oil companies operating offshore don’t like environment minister Jim Prentice’s plans to toughen up environmental and safety rules offshore, they might well be able to count on a very potent ally:  Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams.

As BP told you last May, under section 5.1 of the Hebron fiscal agreement, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is obliged to side with the oil companies in fighting any regulatory change if the industry feels the changes “might adversely affect any Development Project” of the Hebron field.

David Pryce, vice-president of operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum producers is quoted in the Globe cautioning against what the Globe and Mail described as “potentially punitive regulations”:

“Don’t be too quick to respond, and don’t be too restrictive. That’s a concern for the industry,” said David Pryce, vice-president of operations at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Calgary.

“The fact that there is this concern, and there are a lot of people talking about could it happen here, the [concerns] are do we get a response that’s beyond what’s needed here.”

On Monday, Danny Williams told the provincial legislature that offshore production operations here meant that an accident might be less likely to spill oil onshore compared to the incident in the Gulf of Mexico. During Question Period, Williams said:

From our own perspective, as recently as this morning, we have looked at just exactly what the situations are in the North Atlantic. It is a general understanding that because the offshore sites are significantly offshore and well east of the Province that the situation that could arise in Orphan Basin or Jeanne d’Arc or the Flemish Pass is that there is a lower likelihood that oil would actually come ashore in Newfoundland and Labrador. Now, that is not to say that it would not.

As well, we are dealing with a heavy crude oil out there, so from a fishing perspective, there is less likelihood that it would affect the fishery although it would certainly affect the gear. However, having said that, I am not trying to minimize the circumstances under any situation, we will make sure that we monitor this very closely and that we adopt the best practices in the world.

Only the Hebron oil field will produce heavy crude.  The others all produce oil of roughly the same weight relative to water as the oil currently leaking in the Gulf of Mexico (API 34).

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador  - through its wholely owned subsidiary NALCOR - is a direct partner in offshore development with ownership stakes in one of the producing fields and with stakes in two projects under development, including the massive Hebron project.

While Prentice has no direct say in regulating the offshore, he appears to be echoing sentiment in the federal government for strong offshore regulation.

Under the 1985 Atlantic Accord, the Newfoundland Offshore Area is regulated through the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.  The board is a joint venture between the the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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AbitibiBowater moves Stephenville and Botwood properties to subsidiary

As part of its re-organization plan, AbitibiBowater sold its two properties in Newfoundland and Labrador (Stephenville and Botwood) to a subsidiary company on April 27, 2010.

The company is in receivership with Ernst & Young acting as receivers.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador did not object to the arrangements.  The provincial government was represented by Weirfoulds LLP. The arrangements do not alter the environmental orders or the appeal of Judge Clement Gascon’s March 31 decision.

However, the move appears to limit the number of orders affecting AbitibiBowater from ones affecting five sites in the province to only the two that the expropriation act left with the company. 

The cost of clean-up  at Botwood and Stephenville is listed in a report for the court by Ernst & Young as being potentially in the “tens of millions of dollars.” 

The provincial government did not release the cost estimate prepared by its consultants for all five sites, including the Grand Falls mill.  A document filed with the court by Ernst & Young dated February 19 did not establish a clear estimate of the costs involved.  It put the base case estimate as being in the mid to high eight figures and the worst case as being several times that.

The receivers have the power to sell the properties or to make an arrangement to deal with the environmental issues.

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AbitibiBowater files reorg plan

Complete text of AB’s news release [paragraphing changed for legibility;  otherwise, spelling and capitalisation as in original]:

MONTREAL, May 4 /CNW Telbec/ - AbitibiBowater Inc. ("AbitibiBowater" or the "Company") today announced that the Company and certain of its U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries, currently under creditor protection, have filed with courts in Canada and the United States a Debtors' Joint Plan of Reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and CCAA Plan of Reorganization and Compromise in draft form (together, the "Plan"). These filed documents are available on the Company website, www.abitibibowater.com.  [The Canadian documents can be found here.]

The Plan is a framework for the final forms expected to be filed in the near term and is not being filed for the purpose of soliciting votes and remains subject to finalization. The Company intends to file with the courts an amended Plan containing more detailed economic terms, along with disclosure documents and proxy materials providing information on the Plan and voting procedures.

A classification scheme and resultant forms of recoveries for all Company creditors is proposed in the Plan. It specifies that non-disputed pre-petition secured, administrative, debtor-in-possession and other priority claims would be paid in full in cash, or satisfied as otherwise agreed, at emergence. Unsecured claims would receive a pro rata share of equity in the reorganized company upon emergence, subject to certain conditions. Details on the extent of recovery for unsecured creditors will be outlined in forthcoming disclosures. The Plan also provides that the Company's current common stock will be cancelled and holders will receive no recoveries.

"The filing of these documents is an important step in AbitibiBowater's creditor protection proceedings and a precursor to a key milestone we intend to reach in the near future with the filing of the Plan's disclosure documents and proxy materials," stated David J. Paterson, President and Chief Executive Officer. "While we recognize the consequences this Plan outlines for our current common stockholders, this result was necessary in order to meet our overall obligations to creditors and effectively restructure for the future."

Before emerging from creditor protection, the Company must secure adequate exit financing and complete efforts to address labor [sic] costs and pension issues, as well as satisfy other conditions set forth in the Plan. Prior to emergence, a new Board of Directors will also be designated for the Company. The Plan will ultimately require approval by the creditors and the courts.

More information about AbitibiBowater's restructuring process can be found at www.abitibibowater.com or by calling toll-free 888 266-9280. International callers should dial 503 597-7698.

AbitibiBowater produces a wide range of newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products. It is the eighth largest publicly traded pulp and paper manufacturer in the world. AbitibiBowater owns or operates 22 pulp and paper facilities and 26 wood products facilities located in the United States, Canada and South Korea. Marketing its products in more than 90 countries, the Company is also among the world's largest recyclers of old newspapers and magazines, and has third-party certified 100% of its managed woodlands to sustainable forest management standards. AbitibiBowater's shares trade over-the-counter on the Pink Sheets and on the OTC Bulletin Board under the stock symbol ABWTQ.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND USE OF THIRD-PARTY DATA

Statements in this press release that are not reported financial results or other historical information of AbitibiBowater Inc. (with its subsidiaries and affiliates, either individually or collectively, unless otherwise indicated, referred to as "AbitibiBowater," "we," "our," "us" or the "Company") are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. They include, for example, statements relating to our: creditor protection proceedings under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and the Canadian Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act; debtor in possession financing arrangements and reorganization process; ability to successfully restructure our debt and other obligations; efforts to reduce costs and increase revenues and profitability, including our cost reduction initiatives regarding selling, general and administrative expenses; business outlook; curtailment of production of certain of our products; assessment of market conditions; and ability to sell non-core assets in light of the current global economic conditions and the requirements under the creditor protection proceedings to obtain court approval for certain asset sales; and strategies for achieving our goals generally. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as the words "should," "would," "could," "will," "may," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "attempt" and other terms with similar meaning indicating possible future events or potential impact on our business or our shareholders.

The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on management's current assumptions, beliefs and expectations, all of which involve a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to the following:

(i) risks and uncertainties relating to our creditor protection proceedings including, among other things:

(a) risks associated with our ability to: continue as a going concern; stabilize the business to maximize the chances of preserving all or a portion of the enterprise; develop a comprehensive restructuring plan in an effective and timely manner; resolve ongoing issues with creditors and other third parties whose interests may differ from ours; obtain court orders or approvals with respect to motions filed from time to time, including court approvals for asset sales; obtain alternative or replacement financing to replace our debtor in possession financing arrangements and restructure our substantial indebtedness and other obligations in a manner that allows us to obtain confirmation of a plan or plans of reorganization by the courts in order to successfully exit our creditor protection proceedings, especially in light of the current decline in the global economy and credit conditions; renew or extend our current debtor in possession financing arrangements and/or accounts receivable securitization program, as the case may be, if the need to do so should arise; successfully implement a comprehensive restructuring plan and a plan or plans of reorganization; generate cash from operations and maintain cash-on-hand; operate within the restrictions and limitations of our current and any future debtor in possession financing arrangements; realize full or fair value for any assets or business we may divest as part of our comprehensive restructuring plan; attract and retain customers; maintain market share as our competitors move to capitalize on customer concerns; maintain current relationships with customers, vendors and trade creditors by actively and adequately communicating on and responding to events, media and rumors associated with the creditor protection proceedings that could adversely affect such relationships; resolve claims made against us in connection with the creditor protection proceedings for amounts not exceeding our recorded liabilities subject to compromise; prevent third parties from obtaining court orders or approvals that are contrary to our interests; and reject, repudiate or terminate certain contracts; and

(b) risks and uncertainties associated with: limitations on actions against any debtor during the creditor protection proceedings and the values, if any, that will be ascribed in our creditor protection proceedings to our various pre-petition liabilities, common stock and other securities; and

(ii) risks and uncertainties relating to our business including: industry conditions generally and further growth in alternative media; our capital intensive operations and the adequacy of our capital resources; the prices and terms under which we would be able to sell assets; the relative volatility of the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar; the costs of raw materials such as energy, chemicals and fiber [sic]; the success of our implementation of additional measures to enhance our operating efficiency and productivity; our ability to obtain fair compensation for our expropriated assets in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and the possibility that we could lose any or all of our equity interest in Augusta Newsprint Company ("ANC"). Additional risks that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements are enumerated in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, as amended, "Risk Factors" ("Item 1A"). We filed the Annual Report on Form 10-K with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on March 30, 2010. All forward-looking statements in this press release are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section and in our other filings with the SEC and the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. We disclaim any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For further information: Investors: Duane Owens, Vice President, Finance, (864) 282-9488; Media and Others: Seth Kursman, Vice President, Public Affairs, Sustainability & Environment, (514) 394-2398, seth.kursman@abitibibowater.com

@DaddyMillions – local humour hits Twitter

Some wag’s joined the legion of humourists using Twitter to parody and comment on prominent figures.

Yes, lads, someone is tweeting as Danny Millions, an ersatz Danny Williams. Not quite the love child of Malcolm Tucker (@MTuckerNo10) and Jim Hacker but you get the idea.

No sign who is behind it, but it is topical:

Don't worry... there's no chance of an #oilspill off NL's shores. Zip. Nada. End of discussion. Any questions? #beijingsortofthing#cdnpoli

Ok.

So maybe it’s an acquired taste.

Maybe some of the other stuff, like a reference to the subject that got Bob Wakeham in crap last February, would be more to your liking.

In any event, start following if you want.  At least you know it’s there now.

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Hebron deal may affect future offshore spill response #oilspill

Premier Danny Williams assured the people of the province on Monday that his administration will ensure that “the necessary policies, procedures and processes are put in place…” to deal with an offshore oil spill like the one in the Gulf Of Mexico.

During Question Period in the provincial legislature, Williams also said that “the people of the Province can be assured that we will adopt the best practices in the world. As we come to this process now in the Gulf of Mexico, if there are any new devices or methodologies or technologies that are developed, we will make sure that they are adopted in our offshore.”

Williams said that offshore petroleum board “is responsible primarily for any offshore problems. If it comes to any leakages or seepages that come from tankers or ship transports, then that is the responsibility, of course, of Transport Canada.”

Williams also told the legislature that “we are dealing with a heavy crude oil out there, so from a fishing perspective, there is less likelihood that it would affect the fishery although it would certainly affect the gear.”

But as Bond Papers noted exactly one year ago, under section 5.1 of the Hebron financial agreement, “The Province shall, on the request of the Proponents…support the efforts of the Proponents in responding to any future legislative and regulatory changes that may be proposed by Canada or a municipal government in the Province that might adversely affect any Development Project, provided such action does not negatively impact the Province or require the Province to take any legislative or regulatory action respecting municipalities.”

In other words, should the federal government – Transport Canada, for example – try to beef up offshore regulations, the provincial government would be obliged to oppose such changes if the oil companies felt they would “adversely affect” the Hebron development and asked the provincial government for support.

That intervention might be much easier in a situation involving heavy oil if, as the Premier asserted, “there is less likelihood that it would affect the fishery although it would certainly affect the gear.”

Of the fields in production or under development, only the Hebron field contains heavy oil.  The producing fields – Hebron, Terra Nova and White Rose – all pump light, sweet crude of about the same weight compared to water (API) as the oil currently spilling into the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico (API 34).

While prevailing winds and currents may not bring the oil from any of those fields to shore in Newfoundland and Labrador, there’s no public indication of how far across the Atlantic a spill might go and what impact it might have in Europe. 

Williams also did not discuss an contingencies to deal with an oil disaster on the south coast of the island, the coast of Labrador or in a Gulf of St. Lawrence development such as one potentially at Old Harry.

Williams did say that, as far as the provincial government’s offshore equity stakes go,  “the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador stands behind the environmental liabilities no different than the Abitibi situation. When environmental disasters happen, we go to our primary source of responsibility and then the government, of course, is the backup at the end of the day.”

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Abitibi “intended to go bankrupt”': Williams

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams today said that the expropriation of assets belonging to three companies was a “very deliberate move” and that as a result of the expropriation of assets belonging to three separate companies, the provincial government can now “use the value of these assets to deal with the environmental liability which we would have been responsible for because they [AbitibiBowater] intended to go bankrupt in the first place.”

Williams made the comments in Question Period during an afternoon sitting of the House of Assembly.

He said that AbitibiBowater “would have walked away from their responsibilities”.  Williams said the paper company would have gone bankrupt, sought creditor protection or “done what they were in the process of doing and that was trying to sell off those assets to somebody else.”

That’s the first time Williams has linked the expropriation to a failed bid by the provincial government to buy one of those assets, a hydro project at Star Lake which was not supplying power to the mill at Grand Falls.

In another answer to questions from opposition leader Yvonne Jones, Williams described the mill at Grand Falls and the two houses associated with it as “the most valuable piece of real estate in Grand Falls”.  He did not explain why the provincial government intended to expropriate all the other assets and leave  AbitibiBowater with the most valuable piece of real estate in Grand Falls when he had earlier described the expropriation as seizing the valuable assets to forestall their being sold off.

Those assets would have been lost to an irresponsible company that did not give a darn about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, the people of Central Newfoundland and Labrador. They would not - they would have walked away from their responsibilities. They either would have gone into consumer protection, they would have gone bankrupt or they would have done what they were in the process of doing, and that was trying to sell off those assets to somebody else.

While Williams has been careful in previous statements and made no comments during debate on the expropriation bill, his most recent remarks could weigh heavily against the province’s efforts to fight off a NAFTA challenge and to push the environmental liabilities onto AbitibiBowater.

Williams comments raise the prospect that the expropriation was not done  - as he originally suggested  - because AbitibiBowater breached a 1905 lease.  In a statement to the legislature before his natural resources minister introduced the expropriation bill, Williams said:

Abitibi has reneged on the bargain struck between it and the Province over the industrial development of the Province’s timber and water resources for the benefit of the residents of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, we cannot as a government allow a company that no longer operates in this Province to maintain ownership of our resources.

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NALCOR takes on Fortis loan payments

NALCOR, the provincial government’s energy corporation, is paying a loan on behalf of the Exploits Partnership, one of the entities affected by the expropriation fiasco in December 2008.

In its 2010 first quarter financial statements (2010 Q1) released on Friday, Fortis, one of the partners in Exploits River Hydro Partnership, said that NALCOR  is making the “scheduled repayments” under the terms of the loan. 

As of March 31, 2010, $59 million remained outstanding on the loan. The statement reads in part:

As the hydroelectric assets and water rights of the Exploits Partnership had been provided as security for the Exploits Partnership term loan, the expropriation of such assets and rights by the Government of
Newfoundland and Labrador constituted an event of default under the loan. The term loan is without recourse to Fortis and was approximately $59 million as at March 31, 2010 (December 31, 2009 - $59 million). The lenders of the term loan have not demanded accelerated repayment. The scheduled repayments
under the term loan are being made by Nalcor, a Crown corporation, acting as agent for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador with respect to the expropriation matters. [Emphasis added]

Newfoundland and Labrador-based Fortis noted in 2009 first quarter financial statements that the unidentified lender had not sought “accelerated repayment” following government’s expropriation.  The Exploits Partnership (51% Fortis/49% Abitibi) made the scheduled term loan payment in 2009.

The expropriation bill passed by the House of Assembly in December 2008 seized all the generating assets and transmission assets of the partnership and cancelled all leases and contracts related to it.  The assets were used to secure the loan. 

Under a contract with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, the Exploits partnership sold surplus power not needed for the Grand Falls mill to Hydro for sale to its other commercial and residential clients.  The 30 year power purchase agreement would have expired in 2033.

There is no indication in the 2010 Q1 statement that NALCOR and Exploits Partnership reached an agreement on all issues related to the expropriation.

The loss of income from the the Exploits Partnership as well as the expiration of a water rights contract in Ontario on another project combined to reduce gross revenue for Fortis Generation 73% from $19 million in 2008 Q1 to $5.0 million in 2010 Q1.  Fortis Generation is the subsidiary through which Fortis partnered in the Exploits project with Abitibi.

Contacted by Bond Papers in early 2009 to clear up confusion created by comments by the Premier and the text of the expropriation bill on the Fortis aspects of the expropriation, a spokesperson for the province’s natural resources department refused any comment on the process as there was a process in place to discuss the expropriation and any compensation.

In answer to questions in the House of Assembly last month about negotiations with Fortis and ENEL - another company affected by the expropriation - natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said only that talks were continuing and that “a number of arrangements had been made” in the meantime.

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Stat Porn: April’s Hits

The top 10 Bond posts for April [with links fixed]  as determined by the statporn machines at  feedburner.com:

1. Colbert doesn’t RATE (Municipal politics)
2. Rosy with a chance of goofballs (Economic forecasting)
3. Epic Fail of the Week:  prov gov loses to Abitibi…again (The Fubar File)
4. Crisis at Tammany (Municipal Politics)
5. Western Star raises issue of Danny Williams resignation (Provincial Politics)
6. The Abitibi Expropriation:  TARFU (The Fubar File)
7. Dunderdale on Abitibi/Fortis/ENEL Expropriation:  Oops! (The Fubar File) 
8. The Fragile Economy…two steps back (Economic policy)
9. Just shoot me (humour)
10. Labour Force and Employment, March 2007-March 2010  (Economic analysis)

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How our system doesn’t work

Supposedly the Western Star – the province’s west coast daily – has never liked or supported Danny Williams.

Now before anyone starts clacking a comment just remember that is the official crackberry statement from the Premier’s publicity machine in response to a recent editorial in the Star that suggested the Old Man is getting a bit cranky and might want to consider retiring.

It’s a load of dung but that’s another story.

The Star editors this week could have decided to write an editorial on the revelation that the provincial government had royally screwed themselves and taxpayers with a botched expropriation of assets that used to belong to Fortis, Enel and Abitibi.

Sounds like a logical topic especially for a paper the crowd with crackberries would like you to think keeps a voodoo doll of Hisself that they stick pins into every day during the morning story meeting.  After all, what better story is there for the bunch of Danny-haters at the Star than this.

So what did the Star do with it?

Try this assessment on for size:

The ruling PCs stood in the House of Assembly this week and said the botched the expropriation of the AbitibiBowater properties in this province when they included properties that will likely require millions of dollars in environmental cleanup.

That aside, at least the Tories, to their credit, were up front about the blunder, and said so straight out without trying to couch it in some political song and dance.

Then they turn their attention to what the Star editorialists see as the real villain in this piece,  the five people on the opposition benches:

It’s time they admitted their shortcomings in the process.

It’s the duty of the opposition to challenge the government on legislation it brings before the house, and make sure these kinds of potentially expensive hiccups don’t make it into law.

They were asleep at the switch in this matter — there’s now way around it.
They dozed in their seats, didn’t ask enough questions ... and let the bad legislation become the law of the land.

It should be a lesson for all concerned.

Our system works best when the tough questions are asked ... not when  government gets a free pass.

That last sentence is absolutely true.

We also know our system is not working in this case because the crowd at the Western Star can’t even get a simple fact right.  When they say that the provincial government was “upfront” about the blunder and didn’t couch their news in political rhetoric, well, nothing could be further from the truth.

A good 10 months elapsed between the time the crowd on the Hill discovered the shag-up and the first time they mentioned it publicly in this province.

That’s right 10 months.

But that’s just for this province. 

In Quebec, people there knew of the monumental blunder back in October.  That’s when a Quebec court handling the Abitibi bankruptcy protection listened to arguments in a case involving the provincial government and its ongoing war with Abitibi.

And when the provincial government finally did publicly mention they owned the mill, the news release made it sound like Abitibi had simply abandoned its property and that as a result, the provincial government was doing the noble thing and taking custody to protect the public interest.

None of the government narrative on this issue since May 2009 has been even vaguely close to the credit-worthy actions the Star editorialists invented.  In fact, so great a work of fiction is the premise of this editorial that its writers would be better off handing their resumes to the show driver on Doyle than wasting their time out there in the second city.

As if that hum were not enough for the Humber crew, though, the Star then decided to blame the Liberals and New Democrats. Apparently the whole thing while a government measure could have been avoided if only they had done their jobs.

Well, here’s a simple test:  look around and try to find anyone - any one person – in December 2008 who publicly doubted the wisdom of the expropriation and/or the haste with which it was done.

Go on and look.  We’ll wait until you are done.

No luck?

That’s hardly surprising.  The Western Star,  for example, thought that the expropriation was the right thing to do and praised the legislature – the full legislature, no less – for acting.  Not a peep about the possibility of mistakes or the need to slow down and let the opposition do its job. Not a word about how our system requires a bit of sober second thought, a bit of careful scrutiny lest someone make a colossal mistake of any kind.

If there were two people in the entire province publicly criticising the haste of it, let alone the expropriation itself, then that’s all there was.  We were summarily dismissed by all those, the opposition included, who shared the view that Abitibi, the friggers,  ought to lose all its stuff in the province.  We were discounted by those who trusted the provincial government to be careful and to make sure everything was done properly.  After all, they have never been wrong before.

Your humble e-scribbler singled out the NDP leader in December 2008 to illustrate how little thought had gone into the expropriation bill, but, in fairness Lorraine Michael is nothing more than an example of the views and attitudes of almost everyone in the province at the time.

And in the end, that post concluded, somewhat prophetically, that:

In the future  - perhaps a few months or even a few years - someone will look back on this time and wonder how such steps could be taken.  They wonder how the Churchill Falls deal could have be done, with the concurrence of all members of the legislature.

In the energy bill and now the expropriation bill – as exemplified by Lorraine Michael’s comments - they have a very simple answer. No one bothered to think.

And there it is, dear friends, the simple truth of the matter.  No one bothered, no one took the time to think. no one felt thinking might be even needed.  Let Hisself and the crew look after that.

No government ought to get such a free pass.

But in this case, the government got its free pass, handed to them gleefully by the legislature and everyone else.

The expropriation debacle is the result.

And if the Star editorialists want someone to blame for this fiasco they can look in the mirror.  They needn’t waste much time doing that, though.  There’s enough guilt to go around when it comes to people who let the government have a free pass on this issue.

Then again, for the past seven years that’s what this government has had:  a free pass. They are popular because they are right and right because they are popular as the sock puppets, Fan Clubbers and pitcher plants will tell you. Things worked out when it appeared the provincial government won.  After all, our system can’t be broken if everything turns out right.  Trust in the saviour of the moment and all will be well.  Anyone saying otherwise just hates Danny.

Such ideas seem so foolish now.

The reality is that just as it was in 1969, so it was 40-odd years later.  Back then the three opposition members – Gerry Ottenheimer, Tom Hickey and Ank Murphy – sided with the government.  So too did the province’s editorialists. Fast forward to 2008 and see the same thing playing out all over again.

Our system of government works when tough questions are asked and  when thorough, prompt and complete answers are demanded.  There must be consequences  - even if only in the form of criticism - when the answers aren’t received. 

All the members of the legislature have a responsibility to ask those questions but so too do editorialists and ordinary citizens have an obligation to pose questions and demand answers.

It is the government’s duty to answer them.

Our system of government in this province is not working;  it has not been working since 2003.  The Abitibi expropriation mess serves only to highlight just exactly how great is the risk that people in this province are taking as a result.

And until people  - ordinary citizens and Western Star editorialists alike - start to acknowledge that, the risk that more Abitibi fiascos will take place – or have already - will only increase.

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Underwater duster

ConocoPhillips’ first well in the Laurentian sub-basin turned out to be a dry hole, according to The Telegram.

The company will continue with its exploration program using seismic surveys but there is no word on future drilling plans.

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The King and the Qatar Confusion

According to education minister Darin King, employees at College of the North Atlantic in Qatar will see their contracts honoured, as it would appear, with the mistaken salary numbers in them.

"It's not their issue or their fault as to why the college made an error and entered into an agreement that they ought not to have. So we'll honour the contracts," King said.

But reports from Qatar quote the College president there - Enid Strickland -  as saying:

She said new contracts with the correct salaries were signed at a meeting with the staff yesterday.

“This only affects a limited number of faculty members and some support staff,” said Strickland, adding “and now we have discussed the situation with them and signed their new contracts, everyone is fine.”

So when King said that contracts would be honoured, did he mean the old contracts or the new ones signed apparently on Wednesday, two days after King said what sure looks like the old contracts that existed at the time would be honoured?

To anyone else it sure looks like a case of two completely different stories.

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h/t to comments by One Woman on another post in the ongoing Qatar story.

With friends like that…

Around these parts, the former Ambassador to Disneyland on the Rideau, the successor to the Premier’s Personal Envoy to Hy’s has been know as Our Man in a Blue Line Cab.

That goes back to an old comment by a former minister who said that whenever he visited Ottawa, the provincial representative – Dr. John Fitzgerald – would come to the airport and pick him up and show him around to his various meetings.

Poof!

A name is born.

What started out as a humorous jab turns out to have some disquieting  accuracy in it.  During at least one year on the job, the good doctor took a few cab rides back and forth from the office and his home, 72 such rides if the Opposition has its numbers correct, and then expensed them to the taxpayers:

Mr. Speaker, we requested travel claims for the former Ottawa representative through FOI and we were charged significant fees; however, we did pay for his 2007 travel claims to get a glimpse of his activities. As outlined in the documents, the former Ambassador charged the people of this Province seventy-two taxi trips from his private residence to work. There is nothing in his employment contact that permits such claims and no other public servant is permitted to claim travel to and from work each day.

Now while that is bad enough, Our Man didn’t exactly get what one would call a truly ringing endorsement from the Old Man.  Opposition House leader Kelvin parsons calls Fitzgerald Dr. Feelgood, going back to the  whole cabinet minister driver thing but here’s how the Premier replied to one question:

I had conversations in Ottawa whereby people in Ottawa on the ground spoke extremely – very, very highly of Dr. FitzGerald, who is referred to as Dr. Feelgood by the Opposition. I refer to him as Dr. Sealgood because of all the fantastic work he has done with regard to promoting the sealing industry in Ottawa.

Dr. Sealgood?

Holy crap, what a lame-assed remark.

Poor old Fitzie deserves way better than that, especially if, as the Premier claims, the fellow was doing more than hanging out in the gallery at the House of Commons, being ignored at the Prime Minister’s Office or when he wasn’t scarfing down the canapés at this reception or that.

After all that time in Ottawa and the best thing Danny could do is connect Fitz to the whole seals are better than billions in trade nonsense last year?

There’ll be no Latin words and phrases on facebook from this corner.

No references to Machiavelli.

Because if that’s the very best that the Premier can come up with to defend his loyal advisor, then all you can say is gotterdammerung.

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iQuisling

Apparently, Apple considers an app developed by a St. John’s programmer to be “offensive'’.  It’s a game in which players get to bop seal pups on the head.

So if bopping seals is such an important activity around these parts that it supposedly trumps major trade deals worth billions, and,

If this action puts Apple in the same league as all those anti-seal hunt and hence anti-Newfoundlander and Labradorian people,  

therefore would that make any Newfoundlander and/or Labradorian who promotes Apple products an iQuisling?

iTraitor?

Just thinking out loud.

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Just to let all the mainlanders off the hook, there is some context to this post that may not be readily apparent.  This is neither an endorsement or critique of Apple or of the seal hunt.  If you don’t find it funny, don’t worry about it:  not every joke is for every one.

Newfoundland and the Great War

There’s a new exhibit available online from The Rooms that shows two contrasting things.

On the one hand, it is an excellent example of what can be done using modern technology to make available The Rooms diverse collection of materials and in the process help people to understand the past.

There are video, stills and audio, although the latter seems to be missing from some of the spaces.  The text is simple and crisp which is not surprising given that is written, as the news release announcing this website states, to support the province’s Grade Eight curriculum.  Some of the materials come from within the Rooms while others come from the Royal Newfoundland Regiment museum and and the Canadian War Museum.

In a section labelled ‘Database” both the casual searcher and the dedicated researcher will find a genuine treasure trove.  The website contains scans of the Provincial Archives’ collection of regimental records including soldiers’ individual personnel records.  This will be of tremendous value to both family researchers and to anyone doing work on everything from recruiting patterns to deaths, injuries and illness within the regiment.  The personnel records aren’t censored:  if great-grandfather Jack had venereal disease, the treatment is noted.

There are also some wonderful video “overviews’ or short summaries of major events.  Beaumont Hamel, Gueudecourt,  Cambrai  and Monchy are covered in tidy little summaries of no more than five minutes or so. The narration involves a female voice giving the overview and a male voice reading what appear to be first-hand accounts.

That’s all the positives and they are considerably more than that brief description might suggest.

The negatives are glaring.

The first sentence of the second paragraph is simply wrong: cabinet determined the shape of the country’s war effort, not the governor.  Likewise the third sentence is grossly misleading at best and as wrong as the first sentence of that paragraph at worst.

This is basic stuff and the evidence to prove it is wrong is there in plain sight in the archives at The Rooms.

This point is also crucial to an appreciation of the role played by the Dominion of Newfoundland in the war. A reader who gets to the end of the site and the assessment of the political aftermath of the war would be misled by the introduction into believing the debt caused by the war came as the result of a decision taken by the Governor.

The surrender of responsible government and then Confederation become the result of the war (and Davidson’s decision):

Although many factors influenced Newfoundland and Labrador's choice to join Canada, most historians agree that the colony's involvement in the First War World was a significant underlying factor. Historian Patrick O'Flaherty noted, "It is apparent ... how Newfoundland got itself into financial trouble. It was not mainly through post-1920 extravagances such as ... road building or ... town halls and bridges. Fighting England and France's war with Germany and paying related costs thereafter were crippling expenditures."

And citing Patrick O’Flaherty as a source when others with far better professional historian chops exist doesn’t bolster this profoundly flawed narrative thread.  O’Flaherty’s also wrong in his conclusion which surely doesn’t help.

In the same fashion, the role of sectarian youth groups in providing recruits is grossly inadequate to the point of being misleading.  The groups did not form the basis of the First 500 merely because the unit was raised in St. John’s and these groups were around. Using the cadet corps as the bases of the regiment was an active government policy, a point again established fairly clearly in the government archives.  And if that is not enough, the whole issue of sectarianism and its role in local culture and politics ought not to be simply omitted. 

In short, the whole section on entering the war deserves the scope of the rest of the individual pages on key events.  Four paragraphs doesn’t even come close to being an acceptable minimum as they do not properly set the stage for what comes later.

Another technical shortcoming is the absence of audio in some places.  Yes, there is space for it but some of the spaces are blank.  An excellent set-up showing uniforms – presumably out of the The Rooms’ collection -  would be much easier to understand and appreciate if there was a simple audio file,  as indicated that there was supposed to be.  Again, these sorts of things can tend to be overlooked in government circles as people get busy with other work.

Social historians and those interested in the economic life of Newfoundland at the time will also miss the significance of another small error on a pop-out page that shows the supposedly diminishing medical standards applied to recruits. The 1914 figures cited are for the British Army standard. 

Because he didn’t have a copy of the army medical standards, Dr. Cluny Macpherson conducted the medical screenings of the volunteers in August and September 1914 based on a Royal Navy manual that set the minimum height at five feet two inches. 

Still, even with that lower standard, half the men who volunteered in the first weeks failed to meet them and were rejected.  Just as the rush of volunteers introduced the British Army and government to its people with an unsettling start, so too did the Newfoundland government get to see the deplorable physical state of its young men in the late fall of 1914.

For all that, the positives of this venture – including the fact it exists at all – far outweigh the negatives, as serious as one of them is.  This is good stuff and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador ought to see more of it on other topics.

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  Related:  “Newfoundland and the Great War:  the beginnings”

Fortunately…the Qatar Version

Fortunately for the employees of College of the North Atlantic – Qatar campus -   education minister Darin King always says exactly what he means:

"It's not their issue or their fault as to why the college made an error and entered into an agreement that they ought not to have. So we'll honour the contracts," King said.

So they won’t have to pay back any money they received as a result of  unspecified errors, right?

Well, no.  Apparently, the minister doesn’t have enough information yet to determine what happened.  As a result, it’s too soon to know if the money will be written off.

Unfortunately for those employees, Darin King said exactly what he meant on Thursday, too:

I could easily do, Mr. Speaker, what the Leader of the NDP wanted me to do three or four days ago; washed my hands of it, abdicate my responsibility, walk away, pretend it never happened, write-off the $5 million and perhaps do as my colleague the Minister of Tourism would say, add it to the NDP debt clock. I could have done that or I could have done what the Leader of the Liberal Party asked me to do which was the complete opposite.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we are taking a responsible action here and when we determine what exactly has transpired here, and when we determine the appropriate actions that need to be taken; we will take them. Until such a time as we have the information to draw the appropriate conclusions; I am not prepared to stand here and speculate for a bit of political posturing on the other side of the House. [Emphasis added]

Fortunately,  Darin says they can keep their current contracts, and the pay along with it, until they renegotiate or leave their current position whichever comes first:

“At that time we will make sure the salary and compensation package that’s offered is the one that’s approved, not the one that was offered in error,” King said.

Unfortunately, King told that to the Western Star before he said he didn’t have enough information to figure out what “appropriate actions” need to be taken.

Oh well, at least Darin thinks he’s been clear in everything he’s said.

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Darin, King of Uncommunication

Plenty of people in Newfoundland and Labrador are running around thinking that, as a result of a bureaucratic error,  a bunch of people at the College of the North Atlantic got more in their pay envelopes than they were entitled to receive.

It’s understandable that they believe this or something like it since that is exactly what is implied in the very careful selection of words education minister Darin King used to reveal this issue on Monday:

Education Minister Discloses Errors Made at
College of the North Atlantic’s Qatar Campus

There is that word right there in the headline on the release:  “errors”.

That same idea is also there in the release itself, referring to “salary overpayments”, and “errors” that were “made in determining salaries”.

All through his comments in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, King kept using the word “error”:

I made a release yesterday that fully disclosed to the Province an error that has been made to the tune of approximately $5 million. I also made it fully clear that this is not a decision of government that made this error; …

…we would do an external review for the purpose of trying to determine exactly where the College of the North Atlantic made mistakes that led to the error that has been identified

But then there is a curious statement attributed to the minister in the news release:

"I want to assure employees of the Qatar campus that they will continue to receive their current salary for the remainder of their contract," said Minister King. "We will continue to work with the college as they address this situation and assess the full financial impact of the errors."

Okay.

Just follow this for a second.

As a result of an “error”, people have been overpaid – supposedly – but then there is an assurance that those same people will continue to receive their “current salary” – that is, presumably, the overpaid one – until the contracts expire.

Odd, isn’t it?

It’s odd because what people think happened and what actually occurred are two different things.  All those people are running around believing things that aren’t true  because the news release and the minister’s media lines bury the real story under mountains of obfuscation.

If you confronted King about the news release, he will insist he told all.  Well, he didn’t really do that in the release itself, but between the news release and his subsequent comments, the real story is there;  you just have to dig it out from underneath the vague words and sentences in what is truly a classic piece of uncommunication. 

To find out what really happened, though, you just have to read carefully. 

Take a look at what education minister Darin King told the House on Tuesday:

I also made it fully clear that this is not a decision of government that made this error;  it was a decision made by the College of the North Atlantic which is an arm’s-length corporation of government, Mr. Speaker.

The editors at Hansard mistakenly stuck a semi-colon in there but there is no mistaking that the error was not overpayment. Just take out the mistake in punctuation and read the resulting sentence out loud. 

Poof.

The “error” not a mistake at all.  It was some unspecified decision taken by the people who run the College of the North Atlantic.

But what decision?

Well, that bit too is buried away in another comment King made:

For example, it is only about a month and a half ago, Mr. Speaker, when the former president of the college decided, without the proper authority and authorization, to sign a one year extension to the current contracting tender, …

Poof.

He tried to obscure the relationship between the “error” and this example of him being helpful but that’s just a bit too convenient a bit of timing to be real. 

Put that comment about helpfulness together with the rest of it and a more complete and accurate version of the current crisis appears than the one most people seem to be getting.

All clear now?

King’s two news releases on Monday are a classic example of uncommunication, of concealing crucial information by carefully selecting words and sentences that have fuzzy meanings. It’s like issuing a news release that makes it sound like Abitibi abandoned a mill site rather than admit that the provincial government had shagged up royally and expropriated the thing by mistake.

Oh yes, and it was two releases.

The second one – issued as King scrummed reporters – announced that that president of CMA tossed her teddy in the corner on Friday afternoon citing, among other things, inappropriate provincial government interference in the management of her operation.

Despite the fact King had the resignation three days beforehand, the announcement appeared one and a half hours after the first release in which King claimed credit for disclosures he really didn’t make.  It might just be bungling – Lord knows there’s been enough of that lately  – but there is something about the second release and the timing that screams “uncommunication.”

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NTV news website remake

Until now, NTV News lagged behind every other media outlet in its web presence.

That’s been a shame because NTV News has consistently delivered what you could call industrial strength news:  it’s straight-up and dependable. Unfortunately you’d have to get the live broadcast to actually see or hear any of it.

Not any more.

NTV News’ new website is bright, clean and professional.  The layout gives all the features you’d expect on a current web space and the presentation is such that it should work well on a variety of browsers and platforms. Stories are categorized by different topics so they can be searched a couple of different ways.

Major problem:  all the material is at least a day old.  After 10:00 PM on April 28 and the major stories are all datelined the 27th.  That’s not a killer issue and NTV can fix it pretty quickly.

Peeve:  Comments are closed but the comments space opens up when you click on a video story. That may reflect a staffing decision – comments will need a full-time moderator around these parts.

Major bonus:  NTV is not reinventing the wheel by giving new web content.  They are posting the news stories already filed and broadcast.   That means they can do more with the existing staff. 

That can be a good thing.  Aside from some of the other relatively easy changes they could make, NTV is a very short technical and organizational step away from being able to post new video content to the web in near real time.

And that gentle readers would be revolutionary around these parts.  The Indy went down in part because it tried to push a 19th century concept on a 21st century audience rather than take maximum advantage of the technology available and the skills of employees to beat the competition every time.

NTV’s makeover looks like they are headed in the right direction.

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