Looking for a mid-year update at mid-year

September marks the middle of the provincial government’s financial year.

Makes sense, then, that the provincial government should issue a mid-year financial update update in September or maybe October. But these days, when the administration led by Danny Williams doesn’t like to spend any time in the House of Assembly, it’s not unusual to see the mid-year update delivered in December.

Strange then that the newspaper covering the electoral districts held by both the Premier and the finance minister is asking to see that mid-year update now, when it ought to be delivered, instead of December when the finance minister will deliver it.

The people of this province are used to red ink when it comes to provincial budgets of the past but balanced budgets have also become commonplace in recent years.

This province managed better than most jurisdictions during the worldwide recession but the time has come to clean up the books and get back to paying our bills when they are due.

Finance Minister Tom Marshall should get his figures in order and tell taxpayers where we stand at the halfway mark and where we can expect to end up when the year is done.

Maybe they suspect something is amiss in Marshall’s books.

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Prov Gov appoints mediator in Vale strike

The provincial government today announced the appointment of Bill Wells as a mediator in the ongoing labour dispute at Voisey’s Bay.

The best they’d been willing to do before is strongly encourage both sides to get back to the table.  The most recent example of that was in June, 2010.

So what happened recently for government to change its approach?

Money might be getting tighter as we come up on the half-way point in the fiscal year.

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Hibernia 20

To mark the 20th anniversary of the development for the Hibernia project, cbc.ca/nl put together a special page of video clips from the time. It’s a great site and a great reminder of one of the most significant events in the province’s long history.

There are so many aspects to the Hibernia story (and the CBC vids) worth noting:

• There’s the signing ceremony with all the Premiers since Confederation to that time in attendance.
• There’s the caution from Clyde Wells that offshore oil and gas would not solve all the province’s economic problems. That one pissed off a lot of people in the oil industry but he was right.
• There’s the warning from Wade Locke about the project would cost the province its precious Equalization hand-outs and as such would be a bad thing. Locke wasn’t alone in his pessimism and unfortunately the thirst for federal hand-outs proved to be a major policy initiative of the current administration.  Thankfully, Locke  and the others were and the provincial government is now off Equalization despite the best efforts of the current administration.  The Premiers who worked to bring the Hibernia project to the province got their wish instead.
• The forecast was for $4.0 billion in revenue based on oil prices at the time.  Change oil prices and the amount coming from Hibernia will be more like nine times that amount.
• By contrast, the equity stakes secured at great price by the current administration from Hebron, White Rose and Hibernia South will be only a tiny fraction of the royalties from that original project based on the royalty regime put in place in 1990 and revised in 2000. 
• Construction on the project began almost immediately.  Construction on Hebron, by contrast, is not expected to begin until four years after the partners signed the development deal.

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Unsecured creditors accept AbitibiBowater restructuring plan

News release issued by AbitibiBowater:

BWTQ (OTC)

MONTREAL, Sept. 14 /CNW Telbec/ - AbitibiBowater is pleased to announce that the Company has received approval for its plan of reorganization from unsecured creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Canada. The plan of reorganization received overwhelming support from its unsecured creditors both in dollar amount of claims and in number of claim holders who voted on the plan. Having obtained the requisite votes in each class, except with respect to Bowater Canada Finance Corporation (BCFC), a special purpose company subsidiary with no operating assets, AbitibiBowater will seek a sanction order in respect of its CCAA plan other than in respect of BCFC, which is excluded from the CCAA plan. The Company does not believe that the exclusion of BCFC will affect the timing of the Company's sanction hearing by the Canadian Court nor does the Company expect it will materially delay AbitibiBowater's emergence from creditor protection slated for this fall.

Voting tabulations on the plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code are expected on September 20, 2010. The Company will provide further information when the results become available.

"We appreciate the support given by the significant majority of our creditors under the CCAA process for our plan of reorganization," stated David J. Paterson, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are confident our restructuring efforts have created a stronger foundation for a more sustainable and competitive company. We look forward to completing the restructuring process and emerging from creditor protection this fall."

Details of the voting results including votes on a class-by-class basis will be available at www.abitibibowater.com/restructuring.

The sanction hearing under the CCAA process is scheduled to occur on September 20, 2010 in the Quebec Superior Court and the confirmation hearing under the Chapter 11 process is scheduled to start on September 24, 2010 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

AbitibiBowater produces a wide range of newsprint, commercial printing and packaging papers, market pulp and wood products. It is the eighth largest publicly traded pulp and paper manufacturer in the world. AbitibiBowater owns or operates 19 pulp and paper facilities and 24 wood products facilities located in the United States, Canada and South Korea. Marketing its products in more than 70 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.

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

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A left wing Tea Bagger

Pity the poor federal New Democrats.

Just as they turn themselves in knots over a private members bill on the gun registry, along comes defence critic Jack Harris sounding like a left wing Tea Bagger but without Sarah’s Palin’s intellectual depth or subtlety of mind.

Harris managed to get himself standing before the offshore helicopter safety inquiry. The former provincial New Democratic Party leader decided that his closing remarks were a good time to launch another unfounded assault on the integrity of the men and women of the Canadian Forces who provide search and rescue service.

"As long as that Canadian Forces Response [sic] time is as slow as it is — and inadequate in my view — then there may have to be more severe restrictions on the use of helicopters to transport offshore," said Harris, MP for St. John’s East and defence critic for the federal NDP.

That’s the quote from a story carried by cbcnl.ca. Harris recommended that offshore helicopter flights be limited to daylight hours during the weekdays since, as the Telegram put it:

The Department of National Defence’s (DND) search and rescue response times are 30 minutes on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and two hours at all other times.

The only problem is that Harris knows the response is not slow, as he alleged, nor is it confined to certain hours during the day, as his comments suggest.  Harris knows the correct information that because of evidence presented at the inquiry.  The information is there.  Why he choses to ignore it remains a mystery.

The offshore helicopter inquiry, directed very ably by retired Supreme Court justice Robert Wells, has revealed a great many details of offshore helicopter safety and travel that many – likely including Harris  - did not know before. It is all information that should have led Harris to make other comments, ones that fit within the inquiry mandate.  That information was there as well.  Why he chose to ignore it and instead launch yet another attack against the men and women of the Canadian Forces remains a mystery.

But it is not the first time Harris has made comments contrary to the facts.  In an interview with CBC Radio, Harris called for an agency separate from the offshore regulatory board to set standards for offshore safety.  He made the comments while discussing safety standards set by Transport Canada, the agency separate from the offshore regulatory board that sets safety standards for the offshore.

On another occasion, Harris said that on the day of the Cougar incident, the Gander search and rescue squadron was “off station,” that is outside the province. They were not outside their operational area and, as evidence at the inquiry confirmed, the presence of all the region’s search and rescue aircraft in Sydney Nova Scotia for an exercise sped up some aspects of the response.

Harris has accused the Canadian Forces of failing to conduct a study of the Cougar incident out of fear of what might be revealed.  He had no basis for making the allegation  - yet another cheap shot - but yet he made it anyway.

Outside the bizarro world where Harris might be considered an expert in anything military, let alone search and rescue, it is hard to fathom why the New Democrat defence critic persists in sloganeering. Perhaps someone has told him that it plays well with the base.

Well, it is hard to imagine New Democrats being quite so stupid as Harris’ comments suppose. New Democrat voters are, in fact, considerably more intelligent than Harris’ remarks allow.  Nor are Harris’ comments consistent with what any Canadian would expect of a national party that is serious about wanting to form government.  But apparently, they do at least wish to pose as such a party.

Interestingly enough, though, when Harris had the chance to question Colonel Paul Drover at the Wells inquiry, he wasn’t quite as bold in his assertions.  Faced with someone who knew the facts, Harris would only cluck about the gold standard. In itself, that is revealing.

Harris’ anti-military comments reduce the New Democratic Party’s position to a caricature.  They diminish the men and women of the party.  What is worse, Jack Harris’ scurrilous comments attack the men and women who risk their lives to rescue others.

If Harris had the courage of his convictions, if he really is  - as some contend - some sort of an expert, he ought to do one simple thing:  go to Gander sometime soon and speak with the men and women of 103 Squadron and their families.  Not a private meeting, but one with media present.  Let Harris explain – in his expert opinion – how it is that 103 Squadron screwed up the Cougar response.  Let him point out why their response to search and rescue calls, generally,  is too slow and how they might do it better.

And then let Jack sit back and hear from the real experts. That would be something worth broadcasting in prime time.

Sadly, it will never happen.  But it won’t be because the men and women of the Canadian Forces are afraid of the results.

No.

It won’t happen for the same reason Jack says one thing to the media, but another thing when faced with a real expert.

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And the survey says… maybe not much, really

The Canadian Payroll Association is getting a chunk of media attention for a poll they just released.

The stories are running something like this one from CBC:

Almost 60 per cent of Canadians live paycheque to paycheque and say they'd be in financial difficulty if their paycheque were a week late.

A new survey from the Canadian Payroll Association released Monday showed some troubling signs about Canadians' personal finances.

To its credit, CPA released a detailed research report. That’s where you will find some useful information when it comes to the survey.

For one thing, there’s no indication of how CPA or its research partner selected or contacted the respondents.  The report does give some demographic data but how CPA found these 2766-odd people could affect results.  If CPA depended on respondents to contact CPA then that might tend to skew the results toward people who were motivated for some reason. Since CPA represents the people who look after payrolls across the country, the responses might be skewed if the respondents knew the person from payroll was asking questions about their job security and personal finances.

These sorts of details matter when it comes to the results.

If you don’t think so, notice that one of the questions was about confidence that the person preparing the regular paycheque got it right. Forty-eight percent were extremely confident, 38% were very confident and 10% were confident.  That’s 96% incidentally.

And if you think that might not be important, notice that in most provinces the total number of respondents was very small.  Just 16 people answered the survey in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

That might not matter in a national poll designed to sample the opinion of all Canadians on a few general questions.  But on a political poll, it could matter quite a bit.

Even on a regional or provincial basis, you can get plenty of skewed results based on who gets surveyed.  A recent opinion article in Campaigns and Elections predicted that 2012 will be the last presidential election in which pollsters rely on landline telephones for collecting data.  Already 25% of Americans use cellular phones as their primary means of making telephone calls. The demographic that goes with that – young, African-American or Hispanic – is also an important one for some races or aspects of the bigger picture.

The situation is much the same in Canada.  Researchers are having a harder and harder time getting people to spend the 15 or 20 minutes to do a telephone survey.  A sample of 400 respondents might mean trying to contact over 6,000 people. And while cellular telephone usage might not be as significant in Canada as in the Untied States, other issues can affect results.  Even in a province like Newfoundland and Labrador, language, comprehension (literacy) levels and social and cultural factors can all have an impact on results.

So when you look at a news story about another poll, don’t just take the results at face value.  Go looking for more information about how the poll was conducted.  Sometimes you might turn up some details that affect your perception of the poll and the news story based on it.

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A-ha! Update:  An excellent story in the Tuesday Telegram (not online) raises questions about this poll.  According to the article, the survey went to local payroll officers who sent it out to employees for response.

That accounts for the varied response rates (16 in NL, 193 in QC and 500 in ON) and, as the article acknowledges, likely would affected the ability to take attitudes about the economy and extrapolate them to regions.

Of course, it also explains why 86% think their payroll officer is doing a fine job, but that they just need to keep those cheques coming to avoid personal financial disaster.  Even if it wasn’t true, what else would you tell the person who makes sure you get paid?

Conditioned Response

Political dog-whistling is something your humble e-scribbler has talked about before.

Basically it is using words that means certain things to certain segments of the population, usually things that touch on deeply held beliefs and core values. To others, those same words have little or no meaning beyond the plain English. in politics it is a way of saying two things at once as a way of mobilising different segments of the population without alienating one, both or others.

What it plays on are responses to certain prompts that each of us learns over time.  In its crudest form, this conditioned response we are talking about is the old example of teaching a dog to connect the ringing of a bell with food.  When the bell rings, the dog drools for the bowl of yummies it thinks is coming even if there is no food around.

Conditioned responses in humans bypass the parts of the brain involving conscious thought and effort. You’ll find that in any activity where seconds count or a moment of hesitation can have deadly consequences – like firefighting or some branches of the military - training usually works to build up a set of nearly automatic responses.  The training – the conditioning  - can be extremely effective.  After an incident, the individuals involved may not even remember what happened.

In politics, the people often remember exactly what is going on, but the disconnection from thought  - from critical analysis – is absolutely real.

Consider for example, anything connected to Quebec and Labrador hydro-electric power.  The responses are so strongly conditioned in huge numbers of people that they respond instinctively to any suggestion that some vague entity called “Quebec” is doing something evil:  people are ready to man the barricades.

There are two fine examples of conditioned response in the weekend Telegram. Two hard-nosed, hard-headed editors – neither of them lacking in the brains department – wrote on the same subject:  the Premier’s dog-whistle speech to the Board of Trade this past week.

Here’s Bob Wakeham:

So when Danny Williams lets Quebec have it square in the noggin for putting up still more obstacles to the Lower Churchill development, or continuing with its entrenchment on that disgraceful Upper Churchill contract, the Newfoundland sector of my skull calls for applause, while the journalistic neurons demand I let everyone know that the premier’s stance will play well in every nook and cranny of the province, that he’s abundantly aware that the we-against-them form of politicking will provide another feather in his cap of popularity.

Here’s Russell Wangersky:

But let’s get right to the nub of the argument.

Is it fair that a province with natural resources to sell — say, hydroelectricity or fish — should be held to ransom by another province because the producing province wants to get its product to a lucrative market? Should one province get to skim profits from the other, just because it can?

If you read both columns you will certainly have a very rich plate of ideas to devour.  Both make powerful points and both are conscious of the fact that politicians like the Premier use political issues to garner support.

But what we are talking about here is something a hair’s breadth below the surface of what both Wakeham and Wangersky are writing about.  Both writers accept that “Quebec” is “putting up still more obstacles”, to use Wakeham’s version or that “a province with natural resources to sell” is being “held ransom by another province” to take Wangersky’s.

In other words, even though they are conscious of the fact it is just a bell, they still accept the bell’s tinkling is tied to food.  They accept that what the Premier said last week about Quebec’s obstructionism was absolutely correct because, as we all know, that’s what Quebec and Labrador hydroelectricity is all about.

The point is not to slag off either Wakeham or Wangersky.  Take their columns, on this point, as evidence of just how deeply rooted, just how powerful is the basic political mythology about Labrador and Quebec built up over the course of 35 years of relentless effort by one politician after another. Even with mounds of evidence that the Premier’s latest tirade against the “Quebec” bogeyman is based on fiction, the two editors just carried on from the starting point of what every assumes to be true. 

On another level though, you can see the early stages of something else and that’s where the current administration needs to watch out.  Russell Wangersky ends his column with the warning that the story is getting boring to voters.  And Wakeham, who evidently loves Danny, despite wanting to needle the Old Man about his marital problems every now and again, knows full well that Danny the Politician is just blowing the whistle in order to put “another feather in his cap of popularity.”

Those acknowledgements mean that the conditioning is starting to lose its grip. As long as the current administration keeps blowing the same whistle, it’s really only a matter of time before fewer and fewer dogs drool on the carpet in anticipation of the Scoobie snacks that never ever show up. 

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Traffic Drivers, Unlove Boat Edition

1. Cruise ends abruptly in St. John’s
2. Process Stories or real insiders don’t gab
3. Cruise ship sale and passengers “not even an issue”: St. John’s mayor
4. Freedom from Information:  thousands of bucks for Premier’s speeches, redacted
5. Transparency and Accountability:  Speeches
6. Time to retire the old schtick
7. Court docket now online
8. Bury my lede at Muskrat Falls
9. Fiscal Discipline
10. Who speaks for cabinet?

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RBC lowers NL GDP forecast for 2010

Highlights of the latest RBC Economics forecast for Newfoundland and Labrador in 2010:

• Real GDP to grow at 3.3% for the year, down from the 4.1% forecast in June.
• Offshore oil production down 3.2% year-to-date to June.
• Non-residential capital construction to form basis of growth in medium term.
• Oil royalties expected to reach 40% of provincial government revenues in 2010, potentially supporting increase in public sector employment.  RBC states that public sector represents 30% of employment in the province.
• Real GDP growth of 3.3% forecast for 2011, up from previous forecast of 2.3%

And for the national comparison:

• Saskatchewan will lead the country in real GDP growth with 2010 and 2011. 
• NL is middle of the pack for 2010 and third in 2011 for GDP growth.
• NL has recovered less than 60% of the jobs lost since the recession.  Quebec has recovered 140% and Nova Scotia has recovered about 100%.

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Mayor dismisses impact on passengers; world cruise pax owed more than quarter million

While obviously out-of-touch St. John’s mayor Dennis “Doc” O’Keefe can blithely dismiss the impact of a recent cruise cancellation on the passengers affected, the passengers themselves tell a different story.

Here’s how local radio station VOCM reported O’Keefe’s comments in a story headlined “Cruise ship passengers never stranded”:

The Mayor of St. John's says the people reportedly left "stranded" in the capital city after the Cruise Boat they were traveling on was sold were taken care of by the cruise company. Dennis O'Keefe says given the situation, it all went pretty smoothly. O'Keefe says most passengers on board the ship were due to disembark and fly home. He says three or four passengers were supposed to continue on a world cruise. O'Keefe says these people were either given hotel rooms or sent home by the cruise company.

Evidently, Doc never heard of the Myers, the elderly couple from New Mexico who were already in Doc’s fair city when they found out they would have to pony up for unexpected hotel rooms and airfares to back home. Their efforts to contact the company were apparently fruitless in the first few days after the cruise line shut down.

Then there are the other passengers, scheduled on the circumnavigation.  As the Seattle Times reported:

Tammy Hinshaw, of Michigan, was aboard the ship on a series of cruises around the world. After a three-week break, she and her partner were scheduled for many more weeks of cruising beginning Oct. 3 — for which they paid Cruise West 10 days ago.

"Two other passengers were scheduled to be on board until Feb. 3, and one passenger was scheduled to arrive Oct. 3 and remain on board until Feb. 3," Hinshaw said. "To give you an idea of how much money is at stake, Cruise West owes these five passengers (including myself and my partner) well over a quarter of a million dollars."

Henshaw and her partner are out $50,000 and they’ve received no answers to their e-mails to the company. They paid by cheque based on Cruise West’s guarantee of a two percent discount for people who paid in cash.  As the Times reported:

"In retrospect it was an incredibly dumb thing to do ... but many of the other passengers who are owed substantial amounts of money also paid by check, for the same reason," Hinshaw said. She and her partner did not purchase travel insurance because of its high price, and they didn't know of Cruise West's financial woes.

The Times also reported the cruise company laid off 65 employees this past week.

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Fiscal Discipline

If you want to get a sense of where Newfoundland and Labrador fits on the spending landscape across Canada, take a gander at a comparison of program spending by each provincial government and the federal government on a per capita basis, in 2005 and in 2010.

This basically shows what each government spends – on average for each person  – to deliver government programs and services.

Newfoundland and Labrador was the highest spending province per person in 2005, but it was not out in front by nearly the same margin as it is in 2010. Newfoundland and Labrador went from spending $8,572 per person in 2005 to spending $13,300 in 2010.

No other province spends as much. 

Alberta spends about $3,000 per person less.

Newfoundland and Labrador spends $5,377 per person more than Quebec and yet, according to Premier Danny Williams, “Quebec pours its money into huge tax subsidies for its companies, the best childcare programs in the country and massive electricity subsidies for its people valued at 7 billion dollars.”

Apparently, they are that much better at spending money that they can deliver all that on only $200 more per person than Danny Williams spent in his second year in office.  In fact, they are so good – according to Danny Williams - they actually get all those bennies spending less money per person than Danny Williams has in any year he has been Premier so far. 

That is, of course, with the exception of that one year where they bested him by a mere 200 bucks a head.

Makes you wonder where exactly is Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial childcare program then?

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NALCOR issues update on Parsons Pond

News release as issued:

Nalcor Energy – Oil and Gas update on Parsons Pond drilling program

September 9, 2010, St. John’s, NL - Nalcor Energy – Oil and Gas (Nalcor) announced today it spud the second well of its Parsons Pond Drilling Program, Nalcor et al Finnegan.

This is the second well of a three-well onshore exploration drilling program. The program is providing valuable information which will enable Nalcor and its partners to further assess the petroleum potential in this area. “We expect this program will incent further exploration and advance the development of the basin,” said Jim Keating, VP [vice-president] Oil and Gas, Nalcor Energy.

The first well of the program, Nalcor et al Seamus, spud on February 16, 2010, reached the planned total drilling depth of 3,160 metres in May 2010 and is scheduled for further testing this fall.

Nalcor Energy has an average of 67 per cent gross working interest in three onshore exploration permits on the island’s west coast.  In addition to Nalcor Energy Oil and Gas Inc., there are four other  partners with varying holdings in the three permits: Leprechaun Resources Ltd.; Deer Lake Oil and Gas Inc.; Investcan Energy Corporation; and Vulcan Minerals Inc. 

Nalcor Energy – Oil and Gas is also a working interest partner in the White Rose Growth Project, Hibernia Southern Extension and Hebron offshore projects.

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Media Contact:  Dawn Dalley, Manager, Corporate Communications  t.709.737.1315   c.709.727.7715  e. ddalley@nalcorenergy.com

Cruise ship sale and passengers “not even an issue”: St. John’s mayor

According to King 5 News, Milo Myers and his wife are out at least US$12,000 for a planned cruise on the Spirit of Oceanus from St. Pierre to Halifax that won’t happen.    Seattle-based Cruise West is currently restructuring.  The company sold Spirit of Oceanus and the cruise ended abruptly in St. John’s on September 8.

The couple flew to St. John’s in advance of boarding, spent a couple of days in the capital city and planned a short flight to St. Pierre to meet the ship there.  Instead, the Myers, who both live in New New Mexico, will also be out the cost of new airline flights home and a hotel stop in Seattle.

According to the news report, the company hasn’t returned Myers’ calls.

While news media like USAToday  can’t get any information on Cruise West, St. John’s mayor Dennis “Doc” O’Keefe seems to have turned into a spokesperson for the cruise line.  O’Keefe even seems to be dismissing any concerns about the fate of passengers affected by the cancellation.

He spoke to the St. John’s daily newspaper The Telegram:  

St. John’s Mayor Dennis O’Keefe said there were 70 people aboard the Spirit of Oceanus when it docked, and only four or five of those were involved in the full world cruise. He said they were the only ones having their trip cut short.

For the rest, St. John’s was the end of their original itinerary, O’Keefe said.

He said the cruise line was looking after those passengers.

The ship was originally scheduled to proceed to St-Pierre and pick up another 70-100 people, but that port of call is off now.

Those passengers were to travel to St-Pierre from elsewhere to board the ship, but were notified well in advance of the cancellation, O’Keefe said.

“It’s not even an issue,” he said.

That’s much more than the company itself is saying. 

A statement issued on September 8 said only that the company ended the trip at a scheduled port of debarkation. The company recommended that passengers affected by the cancellation of cruises should contact their insurance company, their credit card company or send an e-mail to the companies general information e-mail address.

The Spirit of Oceanus is registered in Nassau.

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A relentless gift for unintentional self-parody: TOS

A sitcom about nothing:

"Are you Master of your Domain?"

A certain blogger:

• Masters of our Domain:  province lowers royalty for Hebron pre-payout phase (2007)
• Masters of our Domain: Danny Legacy Option wins Lower Churchill Contract (2006)

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Budget Speech 2008:

We are standing tall as powerful contributors to the federation – as masters of our own domain, stronger and more secure than we have ever been before…

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A relentless gift for unintentional self-parody II

A well-known politician, in a recent speech:

Never standing still, never going backwards and never giving ground to anyone.

A well-known Internet prank:

Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down, Never gonna run around and desert you, …

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Time to retire the old schtick

On a certain level, you can’t blame Danny Williams for saying the same stuff over and over.

After all, audiences like today’s gathering at the Board of Trade keep lapping it up.  They turned out in force, chuckling and applauding in all the right places as if they knew the script by heart.

As the scrum video shows, local reporters from the province’s two television networks never tire of asking him the same old questions over and over, getting the same old answers over and over,  and then passing them yet again to the audience at home as if they heard it for the first time.  

But while some people never seem to tire of re-runs, there are likely an ever-increasing number of people in the province for whom the province’s political news is starting to look like watching some borscht-belt comedian on a 1970s American talk show.  Decades ago, the guy had one joke that sort of worked, yet the host thinks the old codger is a comedic genius.  So he flies the guy back from Florida to inflict him on his audience over and over again.  In the two channel universe of the 1970s or even the 13 channel cable world of the 1980s, audiences didn’t really have much choice.

Just to make sure you have a clear picture in your head, though, think Bobby Bittman from The Sammy Maudlin Show.

Then think of a parody of Bobby Bittman on The Sammy Maudlin Show.

Now you are getting close to the reality that is Wednesday’s vintage Danny Williams speech.  Take an endless recitation of how much money government spent on this that or the other.  Rattle off supposed triumphs. Talk of a new attitude of “confidence, courage, maturity and integrity”. Cliches and pat phrases interspersed with random quotations from Bartlett’s.  As formulaic as The Ropers.

The result is jarring even beyond the idea that merely spending increasing amounts of cash is the only measure of success, that running massive deficits displays “fiscal discipline” or that calling Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney “a very powerful individual” is not trite.  With all the bravado and self-praise thrown liberally around as well, one has a speech that reeks of insecurity, fear, and childishness.

For Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the speech was surely embarrassing. What else could it be when anyone  - let alone the Premier of a province – speaks of noble virtues, promises to “take no prisoners” in a political war with Quebec over the Lower Churchill, then immediately afterward quotes Mohandas Ghandi and yet remains completely oblivious to the stupidity of doing so in such a context.

On one level no one could blame any politician for doing what appears to work politically, but on another level,  the Premier’s performance at the Board of Trade was also a sign of an administration that has – to put it plainly - run out of ideas.

That lack of ideas is hurting the province.  The Premier has neither the markets nor the money to erect his $14 billion wet dream.  If he did, then Danny Williams would be building it instead of talking about it.  In the meantime, his obsession blocks out any development of wind or other energy power in the meantime.  That – as strange as it seems – is the government’s energy policy.

What’s more, the opportunity that does exist south of the border is being squandered in imaginary political squabbles.  Neil Leblanc just finished his appointment as Canadian consul in Boston.  As he noted in a recent interview, the northeastern United States is a ripe a lucrative market. 

But, Leblanc noted, it is not good enough for Canadians to say simply that we are here so “Come buy from us”.  In other words, it is not enough to say we have the most phantasmagoric undeveloped green energy planet in all Creation.  Canadian provinces cannot sit and wait for business to fall into their laps. The New England states themselves are also building new energy sources.  Other American states are already building new generation and transmission facilities to supply the eastern seaboard.

"There is time for the Atlantic provinces and Quebec to put their best foot forward. We have a lot of natural resources here, which we can hopefully take advantage of," he said. "It's a win-win situation if we can do it."

It could be a win-win situation.

Unfortunately, as long as Danny Williams uses the same speech over and over again, the best foot is not going forward. 

Far from it.

It’s time for the old schtick to retire.

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Related: 

• Bury my lede at Muskrat Falls
• The Old Man, Old Habits and Old Chestnuts
• Reach for the Screech
• Five years of secret talks on Lower Churchill;  the Dunderdale audio

A relentless gift for unintentional self-parody

A well-known politician, in a recent speech:

Never standing still, never going backwards and never giving ground to anyone.

A well-known cartoon character (fake politician):

…we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward,and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

- srbp -

Cruise ends abruptly in St. John’s

Passengers on a 335 day circumnavigation of the globe that began in March got a surprise on Tuesday as they arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland only to be told the cruise was ending early.

They were put ashore with no word of a refund.

Cruise West, the Seattle-based company that owned the 120 passenger Spirit of Oceanus, seen at right in an online stock photo, sold the vessel overnight.  The company is in the midst of restructuring.  The new owners did not plan to continue the cruise. 

One passenger from the world cruise e-mailed a message to the Seattle Times saying:

“Cruise West's flagship, the 'Spirit of Oceanus,' has been sold to an unnamed party and the passengers (including myself) are being put ashore at St. John's, Newfoundland. No word yet on refunds”

A similar e-mail sent to the website cruisecritic.com included this information:

"So far, we know very little; all we've been told is that the ship has been sold and the around-the-world cruise is over, as of tomorrow morning."

Spirit of Oceanus is currently secured pier side in St. John’s harbour inside a security fence.

- srbp -

Transparency and Accountability: speeches

We live in a funny country.

The Clerk of the Privy Council – Canada’s top federal public servant – posts copies of his speeches to the Internet and broadcasts the fact via Twitter.

Meanwhile, a politician who got elected on a platform of openness, transparency and accountability, wants to charge somebody thousands upon thousands – it started at $10K and has dropped downward – for copies of his public speeches.

And – if that weren’t enough – the politician then bitches publicly about the fact somebody wants copies of his speeches.

Come to think of it, the country isn’t funny.

Some of the people in it are.

Hysterically funny.

- srbp -

The Not-So-Great Escape

Police and news media described two men who escaped from provincial prison on Tuesday as “violent”  or as having convictions for offences involving violence.

All media report that someone – presumably provincial prison guards - a small white car acting suspiciously near the prison.  As one spokesperson described to CBC Radio’s mid-day show, the suspicious activity involved driving around an area that is basically deserted except for the prison.

If provincial prison officials noticed the car, did they call the local police detachment before they discovered the escape?

And if VOCM is correct, the pair escaped by slipping under a fence. Apparently no one ever heard of burying the bottom part of the fence below ground level in order to frustrate the mile-like behaviour of some criminals.

That’s interesting because a 2008 report on the province’s prisons noted the province’s prison system suffered from weak security, aging infrastructure  and management problems. A CBC news story on the report includes a link to a copy of the entire report, complete with the faulty redactions of the version originally release by the provincial justice department.  The blacked out sections can be read by anyone with basic computer skills.

- srbp -