Justice minister approves of double-dipping

From the House of Assembly, Monday May 10, 2010:

MR. F. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, given the situation we had in that office as of September of last year, this government had to make a decision to find somebody who was competent to fulfill that role in an acting capacity, to get that office back on stream, to re-establish morale, to advocate for youth, and to do all of the things that office is supposed to do.

We were very fortunate, Mr. Speaker, to get a person of such impeccable credentials as Judge Rorke. He is a retired judge - I assume he has a pension as a retired judge. Whether he is collecting it or not, I would not know, but if he is, he is certainly entitled to it.

And people wonder how the province’s finances could be in such a mess.

They need only ask a cabinet minister who thinks such double-dipping is just tickety boo.

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It’s always about the money

Former cabinet minister Trevor Taylor, whose surprise resignation last fall triggered a wave of set-backs and problems for the ruling Conservatives, wrote a letter to the newspaper in his former district last week about the air ambulance controversy.

Trev’s argument in a nutshell, paraphrased by your humble e-scribbler:

• “Any intelligent person” would have seen that an independent review of the air ambulance service would lead to government shifting the airplane from St. Anthony, however, it was only through Taylor’s political intervention that the ambulance stayed in St. Anthony.
• Oh yes, and I brought $163 million to the district and [some people] claimed I did nothing.  You elected the other guys.
• Live with your f*ck up.

Did he really mean to suggest he created the situation that triggered the review and relocation, i.e. the incidents in Labrador?

Methinks not.

But the logic is inescapable:  Taylor is effectively taking responsible for the circumstances that existed before the relocation.  If any “intelligent person’ could have foreseen the service needed to be moved, then only Trevor’s political arguments based on something other than the most effective and efficient operation of the service kept it in what Trevor suggests would be the wrong place, were it not for political interference.

Interesting.

Curiously,  he makes no reference to the fact that the review recommending relocation was structured in such a way as to support that conclusion already, not as an independent and open-ended review on the efficient operation of the air ambulance service. 

Oh yes and it is all about money:

During that time I had the complete and unwavering support of the Premier for viable legitimate investments in the district, to the tune of $163 million during the six years we were in government, one of the biggest investments in any district in the province.

And then he finishes with a heartfelt “f- you to his former constituents:

The district voted for change, change is what you are getting.

Trevor’s letter also suggests that there was a deep-seated dissatisfaction with Taylor and no shortage of deep animosity between Taylor and his constituents.Taylor’s letter speaks volumes about how he and his colleagues operate:  pork, for one, and if you read between the lines, payback for the other.

The current administration is viciously partisan in a way not seen in this province since the 1960s.

Maybe that’s why it feels like 1970.

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Rumpole and the Double Dippity-Do

Simple question.

But first, the background:  Retired Provincial Court judge John Rorke is pulling down $175 an hour for a 35 hour week as the acting child advocate in Newfoundland and Labrador.

That’s more than double what his predecessor made.

It’s also more than a sitting justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador pockets annually.

Rorke is also the commissioner for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Public Complaints commission.

So here’s the simple question:

Has Rorke parked his judge’s pension?

It’s one thing to be pulling in some pin money as a complaints commissioner, essentially a part-time job. 

But collecting a gigantic salary as acting child advocate and  collecting a pension at the same time seems a bit extreme if it were to be happening.

After all, in Ontario, the issue is a hot one across Ontario where the Globe revealed that school boards spent $16.7 million last year using retired teachers to fill in rather than hire new teachers. It wasn’t so long ago that the same thing happened here.  In fact, if memory serves, there was even a treasury board directive that placed some pretty strict conditions on the practice of hiring people who were already collecting provincial government pensions.

After all, it isn’t like Rorke doesn’t have a pot to piss in.

 

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Democracy Watch: Newfoundland and Labrador edition

Think of it as another type of mother’s day:

"The reality is that a friendly dictatorship definitely applies in this case."

Resulting legislative dysfunction is "quite shocking," [Memorial University political science professor Alex Marland] said.

"A number of the parliamentary principles that are supposed to occur don't occur here. The biggest problem is the lack of opposition and the lack of scrutiny of government operations."

Three things:

One:  there’s nothing friendly about the sort of nasty, mean-spirited, vicious, petty, personal digs quoted in this Canadian Press piece running across Canada this weekend. They may not be friendly but they have been very much par for the course since 2001.

Two:  Marland ought to know how dysfunctional politics is these days in Newfoundland and Labrador.  He used to be a comms director in Williams’ administration.

Three:  Irony is referring to a Quebec judge making palpable errors in the context of the Abitibi expropriation TARFU.

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Head Shaker Update: The Globe headline on this CP story makes it sound like the Old Man just dropped the writ:  “Williams seeks third term as Newfoundland’s premier”.

The next election isn’t due until October 2011.  A lot can change in the time between now and then.

The Same and the Different

Bob Wakeham may find this irritating or revealing but, contrary to Wakeham’s conclusion, there is nothing ironic in Danny Williams’ letters to the CBC ombudsman complaining that CBC producer Peter Gullage is biased.

First, here’s Wakeham’s comment from his Saturday column:

The irony in all this is that Williams has absolutely no need to stoop to this thin-skinned foolishness, turning molehills into mountains, and portraying himself as a mannequin for diapers.

The premier is still immensely popular, has done more things right than wrong, and should keep his disgust with journalists like Gullage (and commentators like me) buried.

Perhaps it’s part of the addictive power trip.

Now here’s a definition of irony:

Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

There is nothing about Williams’ action in the Gullage complaint that is different from what occurred before.  So if one expected Williams not to moan, whine, bitch and complain, then one has not found irony, but blindness on the part of the observer.

Williams’ relentless negativity is legendary.

His capacity to slag off anyone, friend or foe, is equally legendary.  Take friend George Baker, for example, who has nothing but Bill Rowe-like praise for the powerful Premier and his amazing awesomeness.  The senator was not immune to Williams’ wild accusations, as labradore recently noted:

What about George Baker who got muzzled after they bought him off? What happened to him?

George Baker:  bought, i.e. corrupt as in bribed into silence.

Nothing could be further from the truth – to borrow one of Williams’ ironic phrases - and at the same time, nothing could be closer to Williams’ hyperbolic ranting.*

Nor is this the result of the supposedly usual addictive power trip that seduces Premiers. Wakeham tells a story about Clyde Wells complaining  - legitimately - about Wakeham’s crowd, the ombudsman ruling and Wakeham ignoring.

Yes, folks, Bob’s balls are legendary, at least in his own mind even if, as it turns out, his memory isn’t.  There was another episode in which the Ceeb buggered up a story about expenses.  They thought that the amounts to be spent went up when -  in fact – the administrative rules had changed on how much entertainment needed** pre-approval from treasury board.

That’s as arcane an issue as it gets but it was also a highly contentious one at a time when the government is hurting for cash and laying off workers.  And, in the case of the Ceeb, the story was totally wrong in the implication that cabinet ministers and senior executives were whining and dining better than ever before.  They aired a nice correction to that once the ombudsman ruled.

The lesson there is not what Bob would like us to focus on. The story here is not of sameness but of differences.

For starters, the complaints to which Wakeham refers were ones where the issue was about specific incidents and actions by Wakeham’s crowd with specific details anyone could look at and judge.  The complaint was not about Bob Wakeham but Williams’ bitch about Gullage seems to be characteristically personal in all its dimensions.

Then, the complaints to the ombudsman followed a series of calls and letters (no e-mail in those days) trying to resolve the disagreement in that way.  One gets the sense the Gullage episode was basically a letter straight to the Big Gun.

Then, it was all perfectly normal stuff in the dance between politicians and government on the one side and news media on the other;  pretty much indistinguishable from what happens between reporters and other people being reported on.  No screams  - necessarily - of “your mother wears army boots” or “you don’t have the balls for it”.  Just disagreement, heated or otherwise. Not personal; just business.

And the most important distinction of all:  it wasn’t Wells, if memory serves, who penned the missives and made the phone calls. He knew to leave decisions to the people he hired to do specific jobs.  He had staff and in particular senior staff who were seasoned enough and capable enough to talk him out of doing the sorts of things that Williams is now famous for.  Refuse to let him do the things that would damage his reputation in the community.

As much as something got up Wells’ nose, he – and they – appreciated that becoming the butt of jokes, even if confined to the newsroom, diminished not him but his entire administration and the people in it. Once you’ve become a mannequin for diapers, to borrow Wakeham’s phrase, it really doesn’t matter that you’ve “done more things right than wrong”.

They knew that if Wells spent huge chunks of his time and all that emotional energy chasing after every little thing, there’d be crap-loads of work that simply didn’t happen.  There’d be projects delayed by years with all the cost over-runs  - wasted public money - associated with the sluggishness.  Legislation would get lost in the bureaucracy.  Other laws would be passed but not enacted.  Staff appointments would be delayed and at times there’d be an enormous turn-over in a short period.

And that was at a time when government wasn’t run, in detail, from the Premier’s own office.

Wakeham’s basically out to lunch on this one:  Williams behaviour in going after Gullage is exactly what anyone who has watched the man for more than five minutes would expect.  Everything about the episode is typical.

It isn’t confined to people of Gullage’s stature.  Judges are a favourite target, usually because Williams has lost yet another legal case. Even a letter from Ordinary Joe to the Gulf News or some other of the weekly organs across the province can net an unhappy call from the Old Man.

At some point, mainstreamers like Wakeham will start noticing there’s much more to this than an addictive power trip:  If Hisself is writing letters and making phone calls about this trivial stuff, what is it that he isn’t doing?

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May 8, 1945 – Victory in Europe!

$8 million government loan to Kodiak under review

The provincial government is reviewing an $8.0 million interest-free loan made two years ago to Kodiak, according to the Telegram.

The cash was supposed to cover the cost of consolidating the company’s Canadian operations at Harbour Grace. As a result, and according to the official government news release, the work force of 170 at the boot plant in Newfoundland was supposed to increase by another 75.

Last week, the company slashed the Harbour Grace operation to 100, blaming a depressed marketplace.

In the government hand-out photo, from left to right, Harbour Grace MHA Jerome Kennedy, Premier Danny Williams, then-business minister Paul Oram and then-innovation minister Trevor Taylor try on some Terra boots at the cash hand-out ceremony in September 2008.

The loan to Kodiak represents more than half the cash the Williams administration has managed to hand out to business since it announced its cash give-away programs in 2007.

Out of $75 million in total budgeted for the business attraction fund since 2007, only $14 million has actually been announced. In the first year, the government spent not so much as a penny of the $30 million initially budgeted. As the Telegram’s Rob Antle noted:

Other pots of cash set aside by the department to generate economic activity in the province have had similarly little take-up.

A "special initiatives" fund has doled out just $4 million of a budgeted $19.5 million over the past three years.

The department has budgeted an additional $7.75 million for special initiatives this year.

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Related – The Fragile Economy series:

• Staying the course
• Reductio ad argentum
• …and two steps back

Kremlinology 21: Tells

The local CBC is to the local Tory crowd as the Globe is to the local, umm, well the Tory/nationalist tribe.

It is the only news medium they pay attention to.

Just look at the number of times they reference the Globe about something related to this province either because it is or is not in Toronto’s national newspaper.  If it isn’t in the Globe it never happened.

Ditto CBC.

Item: Fred Hutton and NTV broke the story about Danny’s sooper sekrit trip to Florida to fix his heart problem.

The Chris Crocker Brigade attacked the CBC.

Listening to Cross Talk that day was like listening to a pack of enraged hyenas tearing kittens to pieces.

Just insane.

Item:  Danny files a complaint with the CBC ombudsman about a comment made by a local CBC producer in a story in the National Post. 

Item:  the editorial in the Western Star suggesting the Old man might consider packing it in if he is getting too tired and cranky.

Never got much attention until CBC posted it online.

And then all hell broke loose.

But don’t just look at the fact the Fan Club reacted to the location of the story.  Look as well at the content.  labradore picked it up.

It’s all fairly typical stuff for the Fan Club what with the sneering personal attacks in lieu of anything else or the fact that the editorial opinion of the newspaper was not signed. Again, a hunt apparently for the individual to be sliced and diced.

Rather than look just at that, though, look at the fact they reacted to what – according to them and the Old Man  - is supposedly a non-story.

If it wasn’t something playing on the minds, if the fear of his departure did not cause their stomach to shrink, then they wouldn’t have to work so viciously to deny it or spew so savagely at their mortal enemies, well enemies other than Reason and Civility.

Call it a tell or, as those of us not inclined to gamble might say, a dead give-away. There have been other little dead give-aways, like Ed Buckingham’s test drive last February of a eulogy line for the Old Man’s political career.

Or Jerome!’s moustache.

Or his shoulder twitches.  Check the House of Assembly video for Question Period on that one.

Or Tony the Tory’s letter to every paper in the province  to reassure himself it seemed that last falls’ political disaster in the Straits didn’t mean the Tories were dead as a political force.

But when it comes to tells, nothing is so telling as the fact the government crowd are predictable.

From the Lower Churchill illusion to Jerome!’s use of salaries and a personal attack on the exec director of the medical association to the old chestnut that Charlene flicked out about working for Quebec and not the province in the Abitibi thing, these guys have nothing new.

We can’t do a deal because this guy is blocking?  Like you never tried that line before and still got a deal at the end once the bullshit stopped?

Or like this government itself doesn’t try to and sometimes do business with the Great Satan to the West:

• Danny, Kathy and the five years of secret talks to get Hydro Quebec to take an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, no redress?
• And environmentalist Charlene’s deal to burn used tires from here at a Quebec site? No pollution there, buddy.

There are plenty of signs if you open your mind to the possibility they exist.  The truth is there waiting to be seen.

And it all makes you wonder what would happen if not a single leader but a handful of credible potential cabinet ministers popped up on one or another of the other political sides.  People the rest of the province outside the Fan Club could see as the nucleus of a credible alternative administration.

The Tories would never notice, of course, until it appeared in the Globe or on the Ceeb.

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“Tell Danny I love him thiiiiiiiiis much” Update:  The legendary Tony the Tory displays his ignorance of how newspapers write editorials.

Yes Tony.  He is popular because he is right and right because he is popular.

How do you know it’s polling month?

Sure there is a sudden uptick in the number of happy-crappy announcements about everything from water bombers to smoother roads.

But you can really tell it is polling month because of this.

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Libs accuse Tory minister of keeping enviro risks under wraps

In a news release issued Thursday, Opposition leader Yvonne Jones accused the provincial government, including environmentalist minister Charlene Johnson of being “negligent in not revealing they had reports which exposed the full extent of pollution on former Abitibi properties, particularly the scope of contamination at the mill site in Grand Falls-Windsor.”

Jones said evaluation by the government’s enviro consultant – Conestoga-Rovers Associates  - revealed that reports on Grand Falls “identify heavy metals and other toxins polluting 16 areas exceeding human safety guidelines.”

In the House of Assembly, Johnson said that:

Mr. Speaker, this information is public. I have offered it to the member, to come over to my office, and she has sent her staff over. I have offered it to the mayor of Grand Falls –

Of course, the information wasn’t public until Johnson let the opposition take a peek.  And the documents aren’t publicly available if the public has to troop into Charlene’s office, find the papers among the mound of major issues that have been stacked up unattended on her desk for years and then only take notes on them.
Johnson also was doing a bit of a nosepuller with respect to Grand Falls-Windsor.  Apparently, the mayor didn’t have any information until Jones’ office sent him an e-mail wondering if the town council had seen anything on the enviro review of the mill site.

We know he didn’t have the information, since, as Johnson admitted in the legislature:

Mr. Speaker, I had to pick up the phone and call the mayor of Grand Falls-Windsor yesterday to reassure the people of that community that there is not an immediate health and safety concern there.

Johnson defended her actions by saying that the reports showed a potential life safety issue in Buchans  - tailings supposedly blowing around town - but not in Grand Falls where, according to Johnson, all the enviro issues are confined to the site.

Of course, the whole matter could be cleared up if the documents in question were actually in the public domain.

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IOC expansion back on

Ironore Company of Canada is reactivating its half a billion dollar plan to expand production at its a facility in western Labrador.

IOC shelved the project in 2008 during the Great Recession.

Work on the expansion is expected to be finished by 2012.

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The Polling Month Issue

Yes, CRA is in the field again.

No, not Conestoga-Rovers and Associates doing more environmental work for Charlene in the battle against the Great Satan of the Moment.

Corporate Research Associates.

While many of you might think something else might wind up being a big issue in public during that time, offshore drilling might well top out whatever you’ve got on your list today.

The Globe’s got it started with questions about Chevron’s planned deep water exploration well offshore Newfoundland.

And @cbcnl Morning Show in St. John’s is adding to the discussion with comments by biologist Bill Montevecchi who had a go at all comers, including the offshore regulatory board.

Let’s see how things shape up.

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Imho-humtep Update:  This story is not going to develop any traction whatsoever if the best anyone can do is start quoting implacable offshore drilling foe Ian Doig.  Apparently someone has managed to resurrect Doig for a quote.

If all we get to listen to are people who thought Hibernia was a bust then let’s just quote Wade Locke and be done of it.  Next thing you know we’ll be hearing about aluminum smelters in Labrador again.

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.

-srbp-

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.”

-srbp-