“Mr. Williams can take credit for negotiating the deals that led to Voisey’s Bay…”
That’s a pretty tough trick since the deals that led to the development were signed before Danny Williams took office in 2003 and he had nothing to do with them.
John must have fact-checked with Rex Murphy who recently had Williams in office in the late 1990s.
And, as with the rest of Ibbitson’s safari – population and math - the remainder of this article is no more accurate.
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Think of it as a bit of a record.
Advance polls in Conception Bay East-Bell Island attracted 551 voters over the weekend. Turns out that this a record for by-elections since 1999.
There have been a few by-elections where the advance poll attracted more than 400 voters, but for the most part, there hasn’t been a heavy advance turn-out the rest of the 21 by-elections since 1999.
Even in the Danny by-election only 333 voters cast ballots at the advance poll.
And in usually safe Conservative seats – like say Ferryland – or where the Connies are expected to win handily, the turn-out in the advance polls has usually been low. Topsail earlier this year had only 169 advance poll votes. Ferryland was 135 and Cape St. Francis was 112.
So what does it mean?
Well, it could mean that change gonna come. There’s an old political wives tale that says a heavy turn-out usually means the incumbent or the incumbent party are about to take a heavy knock or the government party is likely to lose.
But when you look at the the rests in Port de Grave, there was a heavy turn out in the advance and the incumbent party – which was also the government party – won the seat. In Exploits (2005), the government party won.
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In a placed where open confrontation is suppressed, humour sometimes takes a cutting edge.
Take a look at this post over at thescope.ca and give a listen to a mock traditional song about Danny Williams.
Sounds wonderful, right?
Then look at the lyrics:
Sure he’s as good as God,
He bought back all the cod,
Now the money’s flowin’ free,
There’s a dollar in it all for you and me.…
I bought three new Skidoos but winter is dry and I got nowhere to go,
But I’m not worried cuz I knows next year Danny’s gonna bring back the snow.Now he’ll take care a ya,
He invented Hibernia,
He lines our pockets with the nickel and oil,
Sure he even knows the fella from Republic of Doyle.
Then take a look at any piece in the conventional media the past couple of days - local or mainland – and the realise that the people who wrote the equivalent of “He invented Hibernia” and “he brought back all the cod” weren’t making a joke.
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From the same column in which the safari journalist from Toronto proved he could not count, labradore finds another factual claim that is – to say the least of it – wrong.
This time it is the myth that half the population of the province lives in or near St. John’s.
Anyone care to guess where John got the crap in the column?
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For the past couple of decades, Rex Murphy has made a comfortable living by talking to mainlanders.
What appears to catch their ear, let us not forget, is his ability to speak in subordinate clauses. The crowd who watch his commentaries seem impressed by his use of words and sentences that, because they are lyrical, appear to be intelligent.
That is not to say they are ignorant but that Murphy is not only smart - he uses big words, after all - but his subordinate clauses sound smart.
At times, though, one must wonder if, after all this time, Rex continues to fool them into believing that what he says is true.
From time to time, Rex likes to talk about the place he comes from. Like the land from which any expatriate comes from, Rex’s Newfoundland is not so much a real place with which he is intimately familiar as it is a memory distorted by distance and emotion.
Take for example, the way he speaks about Williams’ patriotism. It is fashionable among a certain crowd to claim for Newfoundland and Labrador some sort of Brigadoonish fairy quality that suspends the laws of nature, time and man. None but Newfoundlanders, supposedly, can understand pride of place and origin.
This is, to put it crudely, nothing more than crap. It is exactly what Rex claims it isn’t. It is entirely a conceit, a fabrication, a convenient assumption that allows an otherwise ridiculous claim to appear plausible.
No successful premier could be unaware — and it is the key to those moments Thursday morning when with a trace of mist in his eye he spoke of Newfoundland’s future and the merits of her peoples. It is common to us all — this strange, sometimes extorted affection we Newfoundlanders have for our place. And therefore it was not odd that Mr. Williams could address the whole of the community, speak as he spoke, say even that “I love you all”; whereas it would be odd if, not perfectly impossible for, say, Dalton McGuinty were to attempt a like hail. The elements are not there, either in him or in Ontario.
Those words, hastily scrawled in Williams’ own hand across the bottom of the text from which he spoke, are as bizarre in St. John’s as they would be anywhere else in the country coming from a politician.
Danny Williams did nothing if he did not bring to local politics an intensely personal quality it seldom has had. it more typically manifest in what Murphy dismisses as a periodic excess. In truth, Williams never knew a cheap personal smear he would not make. He seldom spoke on any disagreement except in a disagreeable way. And just as surely as Williams was perpetually bitter toward anyone, he was also quick to claim a deep personal grievance if anyone expressed an opinion contrary to his own.
In that context, Williams profession of the most intense personal affection for a raft of people he did not know is doubly odd. Coupled with the understanding that Williams spent so much of his time massaging public opinion toward him and one starts to appreciate that his “I love you all” was as impersonal as the sign-off for a television show.
Make no mistake: there is an ease and a friendliness in Newfoundland and Labrador that allows one to pass a complete stranger on the street and exchange pleasantries. But what Williams’ scribbled words conveyed was more akin to what one might see on an American reality television show.
Murphy’s political obit for Danny Williams also contains some fairly obvious foolishness beyond those things. he writes, for example, that some “boost of assertive spirit, perhaps even a touch of overcompensation, did not go astray in Newfoundland during the latter part of the ’90s.”
Williams did not enter politics until couple of years later – he got the party leader’s job in April 2001 - as things were clearly on the upswing after a deep recession and the cod moratorium. Williams likes to claim the place was on the skids before he arrived but that, like many of the tales of Williams’ exploits are sheer fabrication. The gobs of cash he spent came entirely from energy deals signed before he took office in October 2003.
But when Rex writes stuff like this that you have to wonder:
Brian Peckford talked about it. Clyde Wells talked about it. Brian Tobin certainly talked about it. But it was Mr. Williams, belligerent and unwavering and finally triumphant Williams, who got it.
The “it” here is a deal to develop the Lower Churchill. Now mainlanders are a sometimes gullible lot but even they should be fooled by last week’s announcement. What Danny Williams announced was a vehicle for his resignation, not a way to build a hydro-electric power plant. Even the most lazy reading of a newspaper or a website about the event would show that up.
A few years ago, another Newfoundlander made a decent living by talking with Americans and exposing their abysmal knowledge of the world outside their borders. Unlike Rex’s version of the same idea, Rick Mercer knew that the name of the prime minister he used or the events he described to the gullible Yanks were made up.
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Kathy Dunderdale likes to claim that others don’t understand what is going on. Then she proceeds to demonstrate she doesn’t quite get it either.
It’s called the delusion of competence.
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An exceptional week led to an exceptional switch around in the traffic patterns. Interest in the Lower Churchill remains very high, although Danny Williams’ resignation created some interest in both your humble e-scribbler’s comments on this in the weeks leading up to his departure as well as interest in the current deputy premier.
Suitably, this week also marked the publication of an article that documented so much of what made Danny Williams’ persistent mythology. At the same time, readers also got to follow a real-time example of exactly the sort of manipulation the academics are talking about and that Bond Papers introduced you to in 2006.
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According to the Globe’s John Ibbitson:
Right now, though, Newfoundland’s 13th premier is still coping with the emotional fallout of Thursday’s announcement that he’s leaving his job.
13?
Smallwood, Moores, Peckford, Rideout, Wells, Tobin, Tulk, Grimes, and Williams.
Count ‘em.
Hint: it isn’t 13.
The rest of the column is just as accurate.
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A dragon calls it like he sees it.
Listen to the whole clip.
You won’t be disappointed.
Kevin O’Leary sees the legacy of Danny Williams’ tenure as Premier in terms of the damage Williams’ ranting and posturing did to the provincial economy.
Let the comments section now fill up with sock puppets and trolls.
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The Williams administration had a rough time in 2006.
On the heels of a massive spending scandal in the House of Assembly, word broke that one of Danny Williams’ patronage appointees had run afoul of the province’s Public Tender Act.
As the minister responsible for the agency where the problem took place, it was up to Kathy Dunderdale to explain it to the legislature and the public. Kathy had some difficulty getting the full story out the first time. She eventually told it a few days later but by that time, it was fairly obvious Dunderdale had misled the House.
In order to avoid making a very bad situation even worse, Danny Williams ordered his House leader to shut the House of Assembly earlier than planned.
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From the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board:
“The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) was notified on Friday, November 19th by officials at Husky Energy that the company was managing elevated levels of H2S (sour gas) in two of the storage tanks on board the Sea Rose FPSO. H2S levels were elevated in the tanks due to an inoperable circulating pump. As a precautionary measure, all non operating activities were shutdown and personnel returned to accommodations. Access to operating areas was restricted. Part of the process to manage the H2S levels involves venting.
Thirty-three workers whose duties require them to work on the deck, have been transported off the Sea Rose due to a lack of work activity. Fifty-three personnel remain on board.
The C-NLOPB is satisfied that Husky has taken prudent proactive precautions to manage the H2S levels. The C-NLOPB is continuing to monitor the situation and will be doing further follow-up with Husky Energy.”
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For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the political career of the woman about to become Newfoundland Labrador first woman first minister, here is the first in a series of flashbacks to some of her more embarrassing – but unfortunately typical – moments.
Due diligence for dummies: In one of her first political problems, then provincial NDP leader Jack Harris ridiculed Dunderdale’s department for failing to discover a company getting government hand-outs had a few legal and labour relations issues. Dunderdale blubbered through an excuse but the truth is the information was readily available online for anyone with basic Internet skills.
Harris referred to google as “due diligence for dummies”.
D’oh!
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As the Globe and Mail editorial crowd display once again their profound and abiding ignorance of anything outside the small confines of their office and their skulls, let us notice on this American Thanksgiving that Danny Williams’ political successor can thank him for exactly nothing.
Williams announced last week not just his political obituary but the obituary of his successor.
His successor has only two choices.
The stupid choice is to carry forward with a deal that would, for example, allow Hydro-Quebec to scarf up 49% of the Lower Churchill and at the same time control all the export of power through Nova Scotia in a way that it cannot in Quebec. What’s more, the deal is a financial mess that promises to beggar the provincial coffers and the pocketbooks of the average Newfoundlander and Labradorian. Self-imposed desperation drove BRINCO to a disaster in 1969. So too has self-imposed desperation driven Danny Williams’ term sheet.
In the sensible choice, the deal dies. The only problem is that in killing it, one must go back to do the sort of deal that makes financial sense: wheeling the power through Quebec. On his way out, though, Williams has not only scorched the Earth across that border but sewn the ground with salt and infected it with a pestilence such that anyone going near it would catch the political equivalent of Ebola and AIDS in one.
People thought Brian Tobin shagged Roger Grimes on Voisey’s Bay and the Lower Churchill. At least Tobin left Grimes with a chance. Grimes wound up negotiating two deals, both of which will stand up to scrutiny for the tremendous benefits they did bring - in one case – and would have brought – in the other case - the latter being scuttled own by political conniving and perfidy.
No sir.
There are poisoned chalices and then there is the cup Danny Williams passed today.
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From Mashable:
On the social web, investigative journalists are tapping citizens to take part in the process by scouring documents and doing shoe-leather reporting in the community. This is advantageous because readers often know more than journalists do about a given subject, said Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University.
The rest of this article is well worth the few minutes it will take to read it. If you want to spot a media trend with huge implications, this is it.
h/t @prsarahevans
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Natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale is one busy minister these days. She’s turned up in several interviews since the Muskrat Falls announcement to respond to criticise of the announcement coming from Roger Grimes.
As in her interview with CBC Radio’s West Coast Morning Show, Dunderdale dismissed Grimes’ comments. She claimed he didn’t know what he was talking about when he talked about electricity prices going up dramatically if the provincial government’s proposal became a reality. The tone of her voice suggests a certain loathing for the former premier.
That’s typical of the Danny Williams crowd, by the way. They have a special and personal hatred for Grimes. So intense is the hatred that the Danny fans worked hard to vote in a recent CBC online poll and picked the one option that personally dismissed Roger Grimes as being irrelevant to the discussion just because he is Roger Grimes.
Funny thing, though, is that in every interview Kathy Dunderdale winds up explaining that electricity prices in the province would just about double. In her West Coast Morning Show interview she actually explained things such that you’d believe prices would go up even more than double.
Dunderdale claimed that electricity prices would increase an average of five percent each year from now until 2017. That’s the year Nalcor would supposedly bring Muskrat Falls on line. So electricity prices would be about 35% higher than they are now, according to Dunderdale.
At that point, as Dunderdale notes, Nalcor could start charging for the cost of power coming from Muskrat Falls. She’s already said that Muskrat Falls power would cost between 14.3 and 16.5 cents per kilowatt hour to produce. Add in a rate of return for both Nalcor and the electricity retailer and you are well on your way to electricity prices in the provinces being more than double what they are today.
Double the current price.
Guaranteed.
The provincial government thinks that they can justify their proposal because, as Dunderdale says, they have a projection that oil will be $120 by 2017 and could be as much as $200 a barrel within a decade. So much power on the island currently comes from oil generation that electricity prices will go up because oil will be this and that price along the way. After 2017, Dunderdale says, the increases from Muskrat Falls will be less than what they would be without it, all because of the price of oil.
Well, the truth is that electricity prices could be all those things, but then again, the world of the future could be completely different. That’s because those oil prices aren’t guaranteed. The number the provincial government has from its consultant is a guess. it may be an educated guess but it is still a guess, all the same.
The government’s guess is potentially as reliable as the forecasts in the middle of 2008 that oil would hit $200 a barrel by the end of that year and continue upward thereafter.
We all know what actually happened.
For Dunderdale though – and really for the current provincial government – these numbers are real. Listen to Dunderdale in that interview as she tells the host what oil prices will be next year. She speaks as if it is already 2011 and the prices are known. There’s something vaguely creepy about the way Dunderdale acts as if she and her colleagues can read the future.
It’s right up there with her other unsettling claim. By 2019, claimed Dunderdale, “we will have an energy deficit so we will have to ration energy or we will not be able to provide to ratepayers electricity when they need it.”
Energy rationing.
Maybe blackouts in some areas during the inter months – the peak demand times in this province – because the system can’t handle the demand.
Pretty scary stuff.
That’s the essence of the provincial government’s position: support this or else the place will be a wreck. Maybe super high electricity prices even worse than the super duper prices you are guaranteed to get under our plan for this super duper energy mega project.
Support this plan to jack up the public debt in the province with the horrendously high public debt already because, if not, you know, we’ll have to cut off your granny’s heat for a few hours in the winter time.
Fear.
It’s been a powerful political tool for the current administration, so it’s no surprise they are using it. They’ve thrived on mongering fear of outsiders. During the row last year over the government’s plan to sling power lines through a world heritage site, Danny Williams talked about the costs and possible cuts to health care.
Within the past couple of weeks he’s tossed out the view that the province might be descending into anarchy. Why? Because someone had a strong opinion that didn’t match is or something.
Only a week after the announcement and the provincial government is already resorting to fear as the major way of selling people on a giant electricity price increase and a gigantic hike in the public debt.
No surprise that fear and loathing are core elements of the Williams administration’s political arsenal. it’s just a bit surprising that they’ve turned up [this quickly] as the core of their efforts to convince people to get behind what Danny Williams has described as his crowning political achievement.
Sorta takes the shine off the tiara.
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* edited to add words for clarification and to correct typo
Open-line has little impact on the formation of big-picture public policy, but does have a strong effect on government behaviour, with political actors paying "considerable attention" to what is said on VOCM.
That has translated into partisan efforts to control the frequency, as it were - intense monitoring of open-line programs for rapid reaction to issues that may arise; promoting party positions through stacking the lines to suggest grassroots support; and using the airwaves to avoid answering difficult questions from other media outlets.Sadly, it isn’t available online unless you are a Telly subscriber.
Marland and Kerby found that the limited pool of callers to open line presents "a very serious credibility gap," with line-stacking so prevalent it is believed that the lines are monopolized by a pool of just 30 to 100 callers.
"The prevalence of political calls questions whether the openness and spirit of talk radio is supplanted by parties' efforts to control the shows' content," the MUN researchers note in their paper.There’s also a section on poll goosing, that is timing announcements and open line activity to coincide with CRA polling periods.
One respondent provided us with tabular data of efforts to influence the outcome, which involved hundreds of automated repeat votes that were critical of Williams, and which almost instantly provoked an apparently automated response supporting the premier. This occurred only during the workday and not in the evening (one minister told us that party staff‘go crazy’ clicking during the day).[Note: Marland and Kerby here are referring to political staff working in government offices]The one thing they really don’t make clear is that the level of this sort of activity since October 2003 dwarfs anything that went before. Some people may like to think otherwise, just as some people like to deny this sort of stuff goes on at all. The evidence speaks loudly for itself, however.
"If we had to pay for it ourselves it would be safe to say the rates in Newfoundland would double," Marshall said.Turns out that Fortis headman Stan Marshall might have been in tune with a higher celestial power even if he was 12 years ahead of the rest of the world.
"If there's a real ice storm it will have to be rebuilt and I hope somebody's going to pay for that," Marshall said.
Marshall said the line simply does not make economic sense.
"If someone offered you the transmission line or $2 billion, you'd take the $2 billion," he said, but added there are political and long- term factors others might want to consider.
"I don't know what the political agenda is here and what the
government is trying to achieve," he said.
Ontario’s new energy plan will see the province’s electricity rates double, but in 20 years, not seven.
[Globe and Mail] This is the government’s second attempt to chart a long-term plan. While the latest version is broadly similar to the document released in 2007, it differs in one key respect: costs for building new power systems are estimated to be 45 per cent higher.
As a result, residential electricity prices will climb to $228 a month by 2030 for the average consumer who uses 800 kilowatt hours a month. This compares with $114 today.
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Williams announced his resignation - actually that he would not seek a third term in 2011 - in comments made to VOCM and then repeated in subsequent year-end interviews.The prospect of his resignation came up earlier this year. The Western Star – the province’s second daily newspaper suggested the Premier should consider resigning. He didn’t take well to the idea in April, but Williams was in a decidedly different mood with Debbie Cooper.
Williams' resignation, likely to come in 2009 or 2010 after a decision on the Lower Churchill, comes at the end of a year of continued set-backs for the premier who has been in equal measures petulant and posturing.