Financials key to Lower Churchill

From 2006, an article by Craig Westcott that appeared originally in the now defunct Independent. 

Premier Kathy Dunderdale went to Ottawa today with her hand out looking for some federal financial aid to get the Danny Williams retirement project off the ground.

The key is still in the financials.

Let’s see what, if anything, she gets.

And then let’s see what that will cost us.

Growing interest:  Solving interest rate riddle critical to Lower Churchill project

At a Memorial University lecture hall one evening last week, Gilbert Bennett stood and gave a 45 minute talk on the challenges and opportunities of the Lower Churchill River hydroelectric project.

Then his real work began. For the next 45 minutes, people in the crowded lecture hall peppered the vice president of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro with questions.

They asked him about everything from the chances of getting redress on the infamous Upper Churchill deal to what kinds of benefits the Innu Nation members can expect from the project.

Then came one of the toughest questions to answer, but one that is critical to the viability of the $6-billion to $9-billion project that Hydro is hoping to have on stream by 2015.

“The surprise for me tonight,” said one man, “was that this project, to get off the ground, is going to take as much as 10 years. Interest rates are starting to rise. Isn’t there a risk in taking this project so far out?”

Bennett allowed there is. “I’m with you in that interest rates are going to be essential,” he admitted.

And that was putting it mildly.

<Growing interest>

As Bennett himself pointed out, there are a number of key factors that have to be resolved before the Lower Churchill hydro project can get sanctioned for construction. A land claim and impact benefits agreements must be negotiated with the Innu Nation. The federal and provincial governments have to agree on the form the environmental impact statement will take and who will head the review. And the province must decide who will develop the power plants at Gull Island and Muskrat Falls, who will get the power from them, how they will get it and how the whole thing will be financed.

“As you can see, we have a lot of work to do,” Bennett told the gathering.

But among all the challenges and risks, perhaps none is more important than the matter of interest rates. If the Upper Churchill was a boondoggle because of BRINCO's inability to negotiate a re-opener clause to cover inflation, the killer for any Lower Churchill project could be interest rates. And that’s because just like the man in the lecture room observed, this project is going to take a long time to develop.

“If you had the right contract, it doesn’t matter,” says Cyril Abery. “You’d have to build into the contract that the price you’re agreeing to (sell the power for) is based on certain interest rates and you’d have to have a clause that if interest rates went up, the price gets adjusted. Otherwise you could get screwed. There has to be re-openers in there. If they do that, there‘s no problem. But if they don‘t do that, yes, it is a problem, especially since today interest rates are low and they‘re probably going to go up.”

When it comes to interest rates and the Lower Churchill project, Abery knows what he’s talking about. From 1985 to 1991, he was the president and CEO of Newfoundland Hydro. He helped negotiate a Lower Churchill deal with Hydro Quebec in 1991 that Premier Clyde Wells ultimately rejected.

“He was nuts in my opinion,” says Abery. “It’s a long story, but the long and short of it is I thought he was nuts. I’m not so sure we haven’t got another one now.”

Abery wasn’t at Bennett’s lecture, but he well understands how interest rates could cripple the development.

So does another former Hydro president and CEO, Bill Wells. He headed the provincial Crown Corporation from 1995 until about a year and a half ago. Like Abery, he too tried hard to reach a development deal on the Lower Churchill.

The problem is that while interest rates may be low now, nobody knows what they will be in 15 years time, if the project is even completed by then. Nobody even knows what they will be next year. And once the project is sanctioned, the developer will be borrowing money every year until it gets built.

“You’re borrowing, borrowing, borrowing, spending, spending, spending (until 2015),” explains Wells. “Somebody’s got to lend you that and that interest cost during the period of construction, that just adds on to the principle because you’re not paying anything back. So at the end of the day you’ve got this lump sum of money that you owe and when you close out your financial agreement going forward for 30 years or 40 years financing, what you’re going to pay in interest is determined at that time, it’s not determined now. So interest rates in 2016, who knows? They may be up, they may be down. And one of the things is, who takes the risk on interest? That used to come up in previous negotiations. It‘s a critical factor.”

Wells says the province, or Hydro, could try at the outset of the construction project to get a lender to agree to a range of future interest rates, as some measure of protection, but that would cost a lot of money.

“Interest is a big factor and then it depends on how you’re financing it,” Wells says.

<Quebec again>

One of the ways the province is looking at raising money to build the project is on the strength of a power purchase agreement with a future customer of the power. That’s how BRINCO financed the Upper Churchill deal in the 1960s. Back then, the only customer BRINCO could get to sign a guarantee that it would buy the electricity was Hydro Quebec. With Ontario and some United States utilities facing the prospect of energy shortages, it may be easier to find other buyers this time around. There will be enough electricity from Lower Churchill to power 1.5 million homes.

But the power will still have to go through Quebec.

“You can’t get the power out of Labrador without going through Quebec,” says Abery.

Williams has raised the prospect of building a transmission line through the Maritimes.

Abery is sceptical.

“We always put that out there to make it sound like we had options,” Abery says. “But everybody in the business knows that’s foolishness. It sounds good in the newspaper. Joe Smallwood started that back in the 1960s calling it the Anglo-Saxon route. It was crazy then and it’s crazy now.”

Abery says any talk of a Maritimes route doesn’t fool Hydro Quebec.

“They just smile,” he says. “I mean you’re in the middle of Labrador. The only border we’ve got is with Quebec. So you’ve either got to sell it to Quebec, or go through Quebec. And there’s no reason you wouldn’t sell it to Quebec. Their money is just as good as anybody else’s money as long as you got enough of it.”

Abery says Newfoundland could sell the power to another customer, in Ontario say, and simply pay Hydro Quebec to wheel it across its transmission lines. The fee for doing it wouldn’t be unreasonable, he notes.

“But the farther you sell it, the more transmission lines you’ve got to build and the costlier it is,” he points out. “The simpler thing is to just sell it to Quebec and let them deal with it. But if you’re getting enough money out of Ontario, then sell it to them. If you’re getting enough money out of Manitoba, I suppose you’d sell it to them. But it would be expensive power. The further you go, the more expensive it is. Transmission lines are not cheap. And you lose energy on the transmission line. That’s why you can only go so far with the transmission line, otherwise there’s no energy at the end of it.”

Wells, meanwhile, sees one way around a purchase power contract with Hydro Quebec or any other customer as the main way of financing the project. But it’s one that didn’t get anywhere in the past.

“If the federal government said ‘We’ll back the project,’ well nobody is going to argue the federal government is going to go broke over (it),” says Wells.

Bennett says obtaining federal backing is an area the utility is going to explore very carefully. He notes Premier Williams raised the idea with all three parties during the last federal election. Stephen Harper, then the Conservative Party Leader, now the Prime Minister, said his party supported the idea of a project “in principle.”

Whether that includes a financial commitment remains to be seen.

- srbp -

The old hum on the Humber

Politicians running for the government party in Newfoundland and Labrador usually have a simple message;  vote for me or the district won’t see pavement again. 

Now they often get more sophisticated in the presentation these days:  Vaughn Granter, for example, is telling voters in Humber West that he will be their strong “voice” but the idea is basically the same.  Having someone in government will help to bring home all the pork you need.

In Granter’s case, his comments give new meaning to Squires-era political slogan about putting the “hum on the Humber”. 

After all, Humber West has been represented in the House of Assembly by more Premiers than any other district in the province.  Period.  If the good burghers of  Corner Brook are missing something it is not from a lack of patronage, pull, pork or anything else.  Face it: it’s doubtful that Vaughn could succeed where the likes of Joey, Frank, Clyde, Brian and Danny failed miserably.

That’s not all. Over most of the past 20 years Corner Brook has had not one but two senior cabinet ministers.  For the past seven alone, they’ve been pork-teamed by none other than a townie who never lived in Corner Brook for more than a couple of nights at the Glynmill in his life and local boy Tom Marshall.

If this much isn’t clear by now make no mistake: Corner Brookers who might be persuaded by Granter’s truly pathetic appeal can rest easy on the future of their city.  Vote for Mark Watton.  If Tom Marshall, the province’s finance minister, cannot keep the provincial tax dollars flowing for the next 10 months, all by himself then it is only because there isn’t any space left to stuff another ounce of pork inside the Lewin Parkway anyway. 

If none of that makes voters in Corner Brook suck some air between their teeth, then let them consider the sad example of one David Brazil.  He’s the newly minted member of the provincial legislature who replaced the late Diane Whelan.  Brazil campaigned on improving the ferry service to Bell Island, a big voting block in the Conception bay East-Bell Island district.

On January 9, Brazil spoke to VOCM and pronounced himself pleased with his colleagues in government  Great job.  Bright future. VOCM’s disappeared the story but you can still find traces of it via google.

David Brazil won a by-election in Conception Bay East-Bell Island in December, and he feels the PC Party is well positioned. He says they have a good caucus ...

And now as his pal the transportation minister is cutting the service back, all Dave can do is smile and try to foist the blame on someone who had nothing to do with the decision. The best he could say is that the cuts were “unwelcome.”

Voters in Conception Bay East-Bell Island are discovering, likely much to their annoyance, that Dave is not their strong voice inside government.  Instead, he is yet another basenji, a dog that won’t bark.

Is there any reason to believe Vaughn Granter will do any better?  Not really.  There are plenty of decent people sitting on the Tory back benches but take all of them together, plus a buck and a half and you might get a decent cup of coffee somewhere.

Such is the fate of a backbencher in the current Tory administration.

Such will be Vaughn Granter’s fate if he’s elected.

Count on it.

Meanwhile, the people of the Straits-White Bay North voted against Danny Williams himself and look at what happened to them. Not only did they get a member of the legislature who kept the government under close and very public scrutiny, they also got a new health care centre that some would have had you believe would disappear unless there was another basenji sitting faithfully at the feet of Premier of the moment.

- srbp -

The sun whose rays…

- srbp -

The January Traffic 2011

Okay so if January comes in like a political nut-bar, it makes you wonder if it will go out in a straightjacket.

Like is this the most sane the year will be or is this like a tiny taste of the mania to come?

Maybe the traffic pattern for January will give us a clue.  The numbers are still running at more than 20,000 readers a month with close to 40,000 page loads.  There’s no shortage of interest in political commentary and that’s a decent thing for someone who writes a political blog.

See if you can find a pattern in what dominated the news based solely on the top 10 posts as selected by the readers:

1. Tory angst may be well founded
2. Connie leadership rigged?
3. Watton to carry Liberal banner in Humber West
4. Brad and circuses
5. Rick Hillier?  Tim Powers? No thanks, say NL Tories
6. Is anyone surprised?
7. Logically challenged Conservatives
8. Cabana candidacy causes Connie caucus consternation and Dunderball Run! [tie]
9. Fear and Loathing in the Caucus Room and Democratic Deficit [tie]
10. Coo-coo for Connie Puffs

- srbp -

A Hugh Shea for our time

In the most recent twist of an already bizarre tale, Brad Cabana has managed to turn what had been a fiasco inside a tragedy into a farce.

There is no other word for it, but farce:  a member of the federal Conservative party and wannabe leadership candidate for the provincial Conservatives expresses his fervent desire to perpetuate Dannyism in the province…and having been rejected by his own party now proposes to take that bag of ideological and other wares to the Liberal party.

Not to be left out of the play, some local Tory supporters – the most ardent of Danny-ite diehards among them - are claiming that this is proof that Cabana was just the tool of some dark Liberal or Harperite conspiracy in the first place.  The smallest problem with that thought is that they are deadly serious about the idea.

Some might put this down to being nothing more than another symptom of a political system still working through a great shock. Danny Williams’ hasty departure would certainly count as that shock.  And perhaps Cabana is nothing more than the usual local political gadfly or eccentric character with a rare opportunity to get more attention than he might otherwise.

There might be something to that.

Then again, if that is the case, we may well have yet more proof that the province’s political culture is in a precarious state.

Forty years ago, as Joe Smallwood’s political empire crumbled around him, even the most ossified corner boy could rhyme off four or five potential premiers from the Liberal or Progressive Conservatives.  Most of the prospects had served in Smallwood’s cabinet at one time or another.  And there were the colourful characters thrust into the limelight at different times over the course of 1971 and 1972 as they changed parties and plotted and planned. 

These days, the most addled patient in a methadone program couldn’t name a single politician, most likely, let alone a brace.

And as for the others, let’s just say that as the province seems to be missing the broad range of political talent it once produced, so too is it short the rest of the spectrum.

Brad Cabana is no Hugh Shea.

Not by a long shot.

- srbp -

Strings and all

Frank Moores was the second premier to hold office in Newfoundland and Labrador after Confederation.  He led the Progressive Conservative Party to victory in the 1972 provincial general election, defeating Joe Smallwood and ending Smallwood’s 23 year reign.

That was no mean feat and Moores didn’t do it single-handedly. He led a large group of people who organised themselves in a political party that was distinctly  different from Smallwood’s Liberals.  Until the late 1960s, the Liberal party had no district associations, for example.  Smallwood maintained a hand-picked fixer in every district who handled all the party business.  Smallwood himself picked candidates and until the 1969 convention, there’d been no leadership debate of any kind.

Moores won the Tory leadership at a convention held in May 1970.  A group of influential Conservatives, including Danny Williams’ mother and father spearheaded a drive to get Moores back from Ottawa where he sat as a member of parliament.

Now, in itself, that’s fascinating in light of the political outlooks of provincial Conservatives like Chick Cholock.  Ross Wiseman’s executive assistant wrote an e-mail to Brad Cabana, the Tory leadership hopeful back in late December.  Cholock wrote – you may recall – that “in an ideal world there will not be a leadership challenge.”  As Cholock saw it, a leadership battle “always hurt the party for years.  Any Party at all…”.

In the 1970 leadership convention, the Tories had a handful of candidates.  The list included Herb Kitchen, John Carter, Walter Carter and Hugh Shea.  Moores won handily and there was a minor controversy but for the most part, the party managed to sort out the difficulties and carry on.  Almost a decade later, the party held another leadership convention and managed to avoid any lasting controversy. The Tories stayed in power for another decade.

That hardly sounds like a series of unmitigated disasters, does it?

In the 40 years since Moores’ convention victory, the provincial Conservatives have certainly changed.  They’ve become – in essence – a fairly typical local political party for Newfoundland and Labrador.  Now, as before Confederation, the parties aren’t programmatic. They don’t have ideologies or set agendas.

And, at least as far as the province’s Conservatives have shown over the past few weeks, they certainly aren’t driven by grass-roots members.  They are most certainly not, as Danny Williams described them last year, a Reform-based Conservative party.  The Reformers believed very firmly that political parties ought to be directed by their members.  Policy used to get set at regular conventions.  District organizations picked candidates.  The party constitution laid down clear and unmistakeable rules and people paid attention to the rules.

No one could mistake the difference between that approach to politics compared to the provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador.  Sure the party has a constitution and bunch of people have titles.  But even the rules about something as crucial as membership aren’t clearly spelled out in the party’s fundamental document. And when it comes to deciding what those rules mean, only the insiders get to decide who the insiders can be.

In that sense, you could say that the local Tories aren’t democratic.  Now before anyone goes off the handle, understand that is not the description offered up by your humble e-scribbler.  A Tory supporter posted a comment on Twitter last week that said exactly that:  “a political party is not a democratic institution.”  Open Line host Randy Simms said exactly the same thing last week as well.

While you can disagree about what democracy means exactly, it is rather striking that two politically aware and presumably politically astute people in the province could state that political parties are not democratic organizations.  They weren’t troubled by the idea, apparently.  They didn’t find it odd.  In fact, it would seem that they found it perfectly natural for a political party to be run by an inner cabal accountable only to themselves.

And, as it seems comments online, provincial Conservative supporters seem to think every political party operates this way.  They don’t, but that is another matter.

What’s really striking is the way Frank Moores viewed political parties 40 years ago. You can find this quote in Janice Wells’ recent biography of the former premier:

Political parties are what people make them.  We’ve got to get people involved who don’t even recognise the need that they be involved in their own welfare, their own future, who perhaps after twenty-one [sic] years don’t even realize they have that right, and we have to get our best people involved, our best academics, artists, businessmen, educators.  I want these people to become totally involved in the work that faces us, and to know that they won’t be manipulated like puppets but will have major roles to play in reviving the province.

Political parties are indeed what people make of them.  In some bizarre twist, the people who make up the provincial Conservative Party in the early years of the 21st century have managed to turn Frank Moores’ party into something he most likely wouldn’t recognize.

- srbp -

PIFO: Newly mined minister in trouble in district

Derrick Dalley?

Appointed to cabinet to boost his chances of re-election and then delivers pork to his own district?

Liberace gay.

The Tory back-room boys reject Cabana.

And now this.

So many shocks in a row.

Call it a penetrating insight into the frackin’ obvious but still fun to point out, just as your humble e-scribbler did the day they swore him into cabinet.

- srbp -

Binary politics

Okay so finance minister Jim Flaherty says there’s a 50-50 chance of a federal election this spring over the budget.

And about 25 years ago, Gwynne Dyer predicted there was a 50-50 chance we’d get out of the 1980s without a nuclear war.

For those who aren’t into the really out-there, mind-bending conceptualising and thinkerising, let’s make it simple:  there’s a 50-50 chance of anything.  It either will happen or it won’t.

What bullshit artists count on when they pour out this pseudo-analytical crap is that there are only 10 types of people in the world who understand binary:  those who do and those who don’t.

Get it?

- srbp -

Traffic for small buildings, the last week of January 2011

1. Coo-coo for Connie Puffs
2. Irresponsible Government League:  free-wheeling in Dunderdale’s department
3. Connie Leadership 2011:  a small but apparently overlooked point
4. One sign of the political Apocalypse
5. The same old excuses
6. Unsound public finances:  Tom Marshall’s travesty
7. Watton to carry Liberal banner in Humber West
8. A country apart?  More like a world apart
9. No wind, please.  We’re Nalcor.
10. Stelmach bails

Trivia bonus question for people who get the humourous reference in the title:  Two Conservatives with last names referring to small buildings. Name ‘em.

- srbp -

Breaking news and breaking wind

Loyola Sullivan thinking about running as a federal Conservative. [Update: CBC online story]

News in 2011?*

Try 2008.

Tom Rideout eyeing a Conservative nod.

News in 2011?*

Try 2008.

Unless they’ve made the official announcement – Jerry Byrne did -  it is still just  as much a case of scuttlebutt as it was in 2008.

- srbp -

Addendum:  John Hickey looking at a federal run?  Posted here in December:

Of the crew listed above, John Hickey has had his five best years to fatten up the pension and there’d be no real reason for him stick around anyway.  Future premiers might be less inclined to keep him in cabinet.  Doesn’t matter, though, since Hickey’s apparently got his sights on going federal in the next federal election.

Don’t forget Tommy Osborne, too, in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, another perennial favourite.

* Date fixed

How to be a Tory

The bunker team that ruled on Brad Cabana’s appeal of his rejected leadership bid made a fascinating – and most likely inadvertent – description of what standards they used to determine who might be considered a member of the provincial Conservative Party.

You can hear this in a debrief CBC Provincial Affairs reporter David Cochrane did with the St. John’s Morning Show’s Jeff Gilhooley on Friday morning.

Cochrane reported that the Conservative appeals team found that only three of the names on Cabana’s nomination forms were considered to be party members.  They came to the conclusion after scouring membership lists from district associations, youth groups and other affiliated organizations as described in the party constitution.

Sounds good and official so far, right?

And then Cochrane started listing the three.

The first one he described was a person who may have – note the conditional language – put up a few signs during an election campaign.

Hold the phone.

That’s it?

May possibly have been vaguely recalled to have helped out on a sign crew. 

Okay.

So how many signs do you theoretically have to stick in the ground? 

Is it one? 

A dozen?

Do the signs have to be in the ground or could you have been seen holding one lovingly at some point?

Do you actually have to have done it or is it a function of someone else’s efforts?  After all, maybe this was back in the 1990s when every Tory householder included a sign.  Junior sticks it in the window to piss Dad the Dipper off and presto the whole family is down in some registry of known Tories kept in someone’s basement?

Maybe the whole membership process isn’t even that specific.

Maybe you only have to look like someone who might have erected a sign: Yes, by. That fellow looks like a guy who helped me out years ago.  He’s a member then.

After all, as Cochrane related the tale, the Tories weren’t even sure this guy or gal actually wielded the hammer or got the splinters from holding the two by two. They thought he may have.

And while they weren’t even 100% certain of that they were prepared to say that the person was a member in order to meet the clear and stringent requirements set down in the Tory party constitution.

We know this is such a document since coronation chairman Shawn Skinner – with no real or perceived conflict of interest whatsoever, surely – duly blessed the outcome.

Now that sign guy doesn’t sound like someone whose name wound up on an actual membership list. After all, the party  doesn’t really have membership lists as such since the party doesn’t have members, as such. There are no cards or dues or any formal way of identifying as a member of the party.

In fact, the party considers every person in the district over the age of 18 years to be a member for the purposes of voting in nomination contests.  And under the party constitution only members can vote.

So basically before Cochrane even got that far in this tale, the story totally demolished the bit before it. If the Tories had actual membership lists to scour, they wouldn’t have had to be beggar someone’s failing memory of a sign crew that could have gone off with a van and the dozen bear and a few dozen signs at any time back to 1972, at least.

And if they really had some sort of membership lists with rules that are clear, widely known and fairly applied, they wouldn’t be crediting Cabana with finding a possible Tory sign jockey.

In case you'd forgotten, the same people who are living this tale of membership stupidity are the same people who control about seven billion a year in public money.

it would all be hysterically funny if that were not true.

- srbp -

Connie Leadership 2011: a simple but apparently overlooked point

So now the Conservatives’ appeal team have tossed a decision out of the bunker that says Brad Cabana had only three names they recognised as members of the party.

Appeal denied!

Never saw that coming.

Liberace was gay and now this.

Anyway, while this Cabana-gate fiasco has been dragging on and on, the Conservatives held a nomination to select a by-election candidate.

The requirement to vote in the nomination – as widely reported – was that the person had to be over the age of 18 years and resident in the district.  Bring along a couple of pieces of identification and they let you vote.

Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that such an approach means the party actually recognises any person resident in the district and over the age of 18 years to be, by default, a member of the Conservative party.  If they required someone to sign a statement that they supported the aims of the party, then that’s only a minor additional wrinkle.

And what does the party constitution say about voting in a district nomination fight?  That’s really important because the Conservatives down the bunker are using the party constitution to claim Brad’s list of names doesn’t qualify.

Article 12, Section 6 of the Progressive Conservative Party constitution reads:

Eligible voters entitled to vote for a person to be elected as the Party Candidate are those persons who are members of the District Association, ordinarily resident in the Electoral District at the date of the Nominating Meeting and who are not less than eighteen (18) years of age either at the date of the nominating meeting or at the date of the election, if the date of the election has been set…

read that first bit again.

“Eligible voters”, that is, those people “entitled to vote for a person to be elected as the Party Candidate” in a by-election or general election are… “persons who are members of the District Association”.

Sounds simple.

The people who can vote are members of the District Association.

Okay.

So how can you tell who are member of the association?

Well, look at the official party announcement.

It merely refers to “voters”, as in:

“Voting will be held on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in two locations; they are:

• Corner Brook - Elks Club
• Gallants - Town Hall

Voters are reminded to have two pieces of I.D., one of which must include a street address and picture.”

And in that case as in every nomination since 2003, the Conservatives have allowed anyone with an address in the district and matching identification to vote.

Only members of the district association can vote and members means anyone living in the district over the age of 18 and possessing some valid identification.

So how exactly can a party that – by repeated practice – accepts anyone living in a district over the age of 18 years claim that a list of 73 people over 18 years of age and living in the province actually contains 70 names that are not members of the Conservative party?

Sounds like the party has the same legal geniuses on this cases as the ones employed in the AbitibiBowater expropriation, the 1969 contract litigation and the Ruelokke thing.

A clause that says the tribunal decision is binding on both parties actually says a judge can’t rule on the decision.

That one got laughed out of the courthouse and all the way down Duckworth Street.

Uh huh.

Next think the Legal Genius(es) will try and insist that a judge has no jurisdiction over a corporation registered in the province and operating under the Companies Act.

There are judges on Duckworth Street already drawing lots to see which of their numbers get to sort out that little legal turd and the turd-wrangler who gets to lay in in front of his or her bench.

- srbp -

Connie Leadership 2011: Tweet of the Week

…how is it not democratic. [?] A political party is not a democratic institution. Decisions are made by members.

Seen in the twitter-verse from an ardent Conservative supporter in Newfoundland and Labrador in a discussion on the never-ending saga of the Conservative efforts to keep Brad Cabana from upsetting their carefully laid back-room plans.

 

- srbp -

The Double-Dippity-Do

While teachers may be the largest group of people the Auditor General found to be double dipping, the problem isn’t confined to them.

Auditor General John Noseworthy found 60 pensioners drawing salaries from government departments and the House of Assembly in 2009. And while he didn’t check to see if any of the politicians were double-dipping, Noseworthy did find that the pols liked to hire double-dippers:

For 2009, departments indicated that 10 of the 60 (2008 - 7 of the 47)  rehired pensioners were political appointments such as secretaries to a  member of the House of Assembly or research assistants and, as such, Cabinet approval would not be expected.

Cabinet approval might not have been needed but the provincial government’s finance rules should at least be instructive in the legislature especially in the wake of Chief Justice Derek Green’s report on the 1996-2006 slush fund scandal.

This chart from the AG report shows the distribution of double-dippers making more than $25,000 per year, by department:


There’s no indication of what a “private MHA” is in that entry for the education department.

The child and youth advocate appears to be the retired judge appointed to replace Darlene Neville. No surprise there as the province’s justice minister blessed the double-dipper in the House of Assembly in early 2010. Your humble e-scribbler also raised the point around the same time along with the note that the judge’s salary was actually way higher than that of the person he replaced.

Talk about big stamps.

Then there’s the numbers by salary and pension amount:


The problems here are way beyond the idea that people are drawing a pension and collecting a new salary at the same time.  That’s a gigantic one, in itself, but this is an old issue and one that government policy has clearly addressed since 1993, at least.  People aren’t supposed to be collecting a pension and drawing a salary from what is, in essence, the same pot of cash.

The policy is clear on this, but as Noseworthy points out, the policy is honoured more in the breach than in the observance.  At the same time, departments aren’t properly documenting the hiring and the re-hiring.

What there seems to be in this case, as with the ATV issue, is a chronic management problem. responsibility for the problems has to start at the top and that’s the only place that can set both the tone and the general management approach to fix it.

- srbp -

The same old excuses

Seems like the last time double-dipping was a public controversy, proponents of the scheme used exactly the same excuse:  people won’t take the jobs for the money that’s offered.

Wasn’t true then and, given the Auditor General’s report, it still isn’t true.

Maybe the teacher’s association needs to rethink its ancient talking points.

- srbp -

Tentative deal in Voisey’s strike

As reported by CBC.

As reported by the Telegram.

- srbp -

Coo-coo for Connie Puffs

yes, those busy little political beavers in the Confederation Building are still obsessing over certain questions on VOCM’s question of the day.

They learned their Danny-lessons well.

The latest question to get goosifed was one about the Conservative leadership race and the back-room deal Brad Cabana is fighting to bust wide open.

10,616 clicks, 80% of which went in the “no” column for a question asking if Brad should be allowed to run for the Tory leadership.

Now in all likelihood the past practice holds, which means that tax dollars in some government office got spent paying some staffer or bunch of staffers to bust up a computer mouse casting these “votes”.

But aside from displaying a pretty shagged set of priorities, this little display does illustrate the lengths to which the back-room boys over at Connie headquarters are prepared to fight off any attempts at bringing modern democratic ideas inside the Bunker that Danny Built. Hisself’s legacy is apparently too precious to throw away on such frivolities at fair voting, open membership and debate free from intimidation and afternoon visits from executive  assistants.

It’s a pretty sad commentary on how far the once mighty and respected party has fallen lately. The only thing sadder would be the plants clogging up comments sections defending the party’s anti-democratic bent.

- srbp -

Coincidence?

Auditor General criticises a department.

Minister got shuffled in a surprise move in January.

Bear in mind that the provincial government knew the contents of the Auditor General’s report long before the public did.

Department of Child Youth and Family Services: 

As a result of issues with the delivery and monitoring of the [long-term protection] LTP component of the [protective intervention program] PIP we determined that there was an increased risk that harm may occur to children.

Kathy Dunderdale suddenly shuffled Joan Burke, who had headed the new department from its creation two years ago, back to head the education department.

Meanwhile in another part of the report …

- srbp -

Irresponsible Government League: free-wheeling in Dunderdale’s department

From the Auditor General’s most recent report on the provincial government’s handling of public funds, released on Wednesday:

As at 19 March 2010, the EMS identified that 56 (12.0%) of the 465 recreational vehicles were missing.  We also found that 49 of the 56 missing recreational vehicles were assigned to the Department of Natural Resources.  

We note that the 2006 Report referred to 80 missing recreational vehicles and indicated that "To have this number of machines unaccounted [for] is unacceptable and increased monitoring of both ATVs and snow machines is strongly recommended.” The Report noted that 67 of the 80 missing recreational vehicles were assigned to the Department of Natural  Resources and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Yes folks, Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s former department lost 49 snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles and that accounted for 87.5% of the government’s inventory of missing ATVs.

How do you lose a snowmobile or a quad?

Well, sez the purist, the vehicles aren’t really lost. It’s just that the department officials don’t know where they are.

For those of us paying the bills, that lousy record keeping and the poor management practices that go with it still pay for all that waste in government.

Meanwhile, 49 somebodies may well have sweet rides courtesy of your tax dollars.

- srbp -

Same and different: Alberta and NL Conservatives’ leadership issues

Alberta premier Ed Stelmach is leaving politics in the face of a revolt within his caucus, according to the Globe and Mail.

Kyle Fawcett, a first-term MLA from Calgary and one of the more fiscally conservative in his party, acknowledged there were cracks in Mr. Stelmach’s cabinet.

“I do think that there was a bit of an issue in caucus,” he said. “There were some challenges around, obviously, this upcoming budget, and some promises that had been made. And I think the Premier saw that as an obstacle that maybe he didn’t want to tackle at this point in his life of public service.”

The unexpected news on Tuesday makes for some interesting comparisons with events in Newfoundland and Labrador over the past couple of months.

Danny Williams left politics unexpectedly in early December.  

Unlike Stelmach, Williams wasn’t facing any obvious internal political problems although he did drop hints of difficulties within his caucus.

Like Williams, Stelmach left politics with the accusation that the opposition parties would employ American-style political attacks in the upcoming provincial general election. Unlike Williams, Stelmach wasn’t a hypocrite in making such a comment.  Williams used Republican-style politics for his entire political career.

While the Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador cooked up a backroom deal to avoid a leadership contest, their Alberta brothers and sisters can look to a quick contest among several cabinet ministers that could be over by the end of March.

- srbp -