Voters in Newfoundland and Labrador who are worried about the current Tory administration’s plans to double the public debt and public electricity rates need worry no longer.
The project will go ahead as currently planned regardless of which party forms the government after the October general electricity.
Liberal Party leader Yvonne Jones, the last apparent hold-out among the three party leaders in the province, told NTV’s public affairs show Issues and Answers this weekend that she would accept independent reviews of the project that confirm it is the lowest cost alternative.
Jones said that rather than kill the deal, she’d send it to the province’s auditor general and the public utilities board for review. The ruling provincial Conservatives have already sent the project to the public utilities board. That conveniently wipes one of Jones’ options off the table.
That leaves Jones with the Auditor General. There’s basically nothing the AG could do with the project. The AG’s office lacks the in-house skills and expertise to make any assessment of the project.
NTV’s Michael Connors put the question to Jones bluntly, asking if she would approve the project if the independent reviews confirmed the project was the lowest cost alternative. Jones answered that “obviously” she would but that doubling rates told her it wasn’t the best way to go. Of course, if the reviews don’t back her up, Jones already committed to approving the project.
Why Jones has been criticising the megadebt project remains a mystery.
- srbp-
Political parties usually carry around debt. Some carry more than others. Some parties don’t carry any.
Is it an issue?
Maybe.
Just for the fun of it, consider this portion of a speech Jack Kennedy delivered to a Democratic Party fundraiser in 1962. It came on the first anniversary of his inaugural and a speech many regard as one of the finest inaugural speeches in American history.
Those familiar with Kennedy’s speech will recognise that he is delivering a parody of his own words to the Democrats and their supporters. Those unfamiliar with the original can find it here, at bartleby.com. There’s also a youtube video of the original television broadcast in colour.
- srbp -
But the federal election showed that there is great potential for pulling in new support.You can’t fault the NDP for running with the line they think a breakthrough is possible. That’s the sort of thing political parties are supposed to say especially running up to an election. People see where it’s coming from and they can judge the source for themselves. CBC reports other comments from a New Democratic candidate and from the party’s local president. Fair ‘nuff.
For instance, NDP candidates in the metro St. John's area pulled 9,467 votes in the 2007 election. By contrast, 50,069 people in the same pool of voters backed the NDP in May's federal election. St. John's East incumbent Jack Harris won his race by a landslide.
The eagle eyed nottawa picked up on something in a column by Michael Johansen at the Telegram.
It’s a reference to a cash payment due to the Innu of Labrador as part of the land claims deal they approved in a recent referendum. Johansen refers to it this way: “the Innu would be paid $2 million within days as compensation for damage caused to them by the original Churchill Falls development.”
Nottawa points out that:
Payments - particularly those to be made within days - to groups or individuals contingent on their voting a certain way are generally frowned upon. In most cases, they're outright illegal.
Would no one be troubled, or at least curious enough to enquire if in the next election, I went knocking on doors with a campaign slogan like "Ten Grand In The Hand"?
Now if you look at the terms of the draft agreement released in 2008, the compensation payment is $2.0 million annually until 2041. The payments start “upon ratification and execution of the” impacts and benefits agreement.
There’s no reference in the early draft to the money being compensation or anything of the sort.
“Compensation” came up in the news release the provincial government issued when it released the draft agreement. It’s in the quote from no less a person than Premier Danny Williams. He said the agreement included “redress on the upper Churchill hydroelectric development.”
A couple of paragraphs later, the magic word appears:
The agreement also provides compensation to the Labrador Innu for impacts associated with the Churchill Falls development. This settles the outstanding grievance of Innu Nation with respect to damages suffered to Innu lands and properties as a result of the flooding caused by the upper Churchill River development in the 1960s.
Now you wouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist to connect up the payment set out in the agreement and the references to compensation in the official government statements in 2008. From the comment you get what the intention of the payment is, even if the agreement itself doesn’t state what the money is for.
But whether the idea of connecting acceptance of an agreement on a wide range of issues with a payment to redress a grievance causes very serious legal problems is another matter entirely.
That matter is serious, as nottawa is suggesting.
It is so serious, in fact, that someone needs to clarify this, sooner rather than later.
- srbp -
You can tell the Tories are worried about their support in St. Barbe because they’ve scheduled not one, not two, but three announcements in the district starring health minister Jerome Kennedy on a day the provincial government is usually on holiday.
- srbp -
In an interview with The Coast, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter admits his government didn’t exercise due diligence before signing onto the Muskrat Falls project:
The Coast: Has the Nova Scotia government commissioned any cost comparison between Hydro Quebec and Lower Churchill?
The Premier: The costs with respect to the project, of course, have to be submitted as part of the financing for Nova Scotia Power. That analysis takes place in the same way as any other costs going into their rate requests.
The Coast: But have you compared Hydro Quebec power with Lower Churchill...
The Premier: I haven’t asked the department whether or not they’ve done that work.
Dexter also showed his ignorance of geography. He told The Coast that he expected the Muskrat Falls power would be cheaper than power from Quebec because it is farther from Nova Scotia than the Labrador power.
Of course, the reason the Nova Scotian government didn’t have to compare costs is because Emera will get the power from Labrador for free.
- srbp -
The Telegram editorialists are finally putting it all together, at least when it comes to the provincial government’s energy company, the Muskrat Falls project and taxpayers:
It looks a lot like the province would prefer all its eggs in one basket. Or, more to the point, the province not only wants to run an energy warehouse, but actually wants to own it all as well. In its own way, that handcuffs consumers in this province. Because one company will decide the most effective way to produce and supply our power. We’ll just pay for it.
Monopoly control is exactly the premise of the Conservative’s energy plan released just before the last provincial election. Very few people read it and there’s never been much debate about it. But make no mistake: the heart of the plan is about strangling any alternative to whatever Nalcor wants to do.
It’s about absolute control.
And it’s about talking about wind energy while deliberately preventing any wind energy development outside of some very small token projects.
The reason is simple: wind, small hydro and conservation would basically make the Muskrat Falls megadebt project utterly irrelevant.
The Telegram editorial notes that the Nova Scotia energy regulator just set a rate for private wind generating projects selling power into the provincial grid. The rate is 13.9 cents per kilowatt hour. As the Telegram reminds everyone, that’s below the 14.3 cents Muskrat Falls is forecast to cost; and that’s if - by some extraordinary miracle - the thing doesn’t go over budget.
Who pays the extra cost?
Why the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, of course.
Full freight, plus profit. Emera gets a share of the transmission cash inside the province as well.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotians will get a giant chunk of Muskrat Falls power for free; if you want to take the $1.2 billion Emera will spend on a transmission line as payment for the power (it really isn’t), then the price they would pay comes out to be something like 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour. If Emera wants more power than the stuff they get for free, they will pay about 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour for the extras.
Pretty sweet.
Well, except if you live in Newfoundland and Labrador.
- srbp -
This was an amazing week in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.
Summer arrived with a vengeance, traffic at the humble e-scribbles is back up and the theme this week seems to be cock-ups.
Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner starred in a couple of posts this week, although one of the incidents wasn’t his fault.
In at the number two spot is noob Bloc NDP member of parliament Ryan Cleary in what is likely to be the first of many appearances in the parliamentary year-end gag reel. He’s getting attention for his poor choice of words. It should be because the comments were a load of malarkey.
For those who want some humour with the Saturday morning Internet browsing, the title of this post is a play on Cleary’s inappropriate language (see the Number 10 post) See if you can figure it out.
Number three is a wannabe provincial Conservative candidate who is accused of chucking an electric drill at the cops in an incident that also involved an RV.
And on it goes.
- srbp -
.
The guy who did such a bang-up job of looking after the Hurricane Igor disaster is now the guy leading the fight against moose-vehicle collisions.
Anyone care to wager on the prospects for success on that one?
- srbp -
Noob Bloc NDP member of parliament Ryan Cleary is apparently getting some criticism.
Here’s the way Voice of the Cabinet Minister reported Cleary’s comments on one of the radio station’s call-in shows:
New Democrat MP Ryan Cleary is defending his use of the term "serial rapist" in describing foreign fishing fleets in a recent blog post. Cleary's blog Fishermen's Road often condemns the mistakes made in the offshore fishery. Earlier this week, Cleary accused European nations of "having fished out/raped" the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.
The post has raised a few eyebrows, particularly among women's groups, who feel the language diminishes the impact of sexual assault. Today, Cleary defended his use of the term "serial rapist" by referring to an article he wrote in 2006 that used the same term. That article, he said, was nominated for an Atlantic Journalism Award.
Now that’s sort of right but it does need a little clarification.
Cleary’s post actually made a bunch of incorrect statements about a trade deal but used the fishery as the centrepiece of his rant. As for the rapist comment, what Cleary actually said was:
Canada is doing a back-room deal with a group of serial rapists.
In a subsequent post, Cleary defended his use of the term saying he did the same thing in 2006 in a column at the old Spindependent that wound up getting nominated for an award. That wasn’t a justification for the factual errors just the use of the word rapist in the relation to European nations and the fishery on the Grand Banks.
Cleary defence consist of two basic points:
Sounds a bit like the exchange in the movie the King’s Speech, reproduced below via IMDb:
Lionel Logue: [as George "Berty" is lighting up a cigarette] Please don't do that.
King George VI: I'm sorry?
Lionel Logue: I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
King George VI: My physicians say it relaxes the throat.
Lionel Logue: They're idiots.
King George VI: They've all been knighted.
Lionel Logue: Makes it official then.
There you have it.
Of course, the comments in the post are still idiotic, but that’s another story.
- srbp -
But that doesn’t mean natural resources minister Shawn Skinner escaped completely unscathed from his episode on Backtalk on Wednesday.
Here’s the latest version of a story about comments Skinner made on VO’s afternoon call-in show. The head on the story was “Retraction”:
The following story appeared on the web in a manner which left the impression that a minister was speaking about the C-NLOPB, when, in fact, he only referenced Nalcor in his call to VOCM Backtalk.
The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. On VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy, a caller said the provincially-owned utility would not allow an audit. However, Natural Resources Minister Shawn Skinner told the show that claim was untrue.
While the auditor general has complained that he was unable to get the information he wanted from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, he has never expressed any concerns about Nalcor or its predecessor, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.
There.
That’s clearer.
Not.
Here’s the actual “following story” that this supposedly replaces, although you’ll notice that in the version above, there actually isn’t the bit of the “following story” that it replaces.
The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The A.G. complained recently that he was unable to obtain the information he was looking for.
However, the minister of natural resources, Shawn Skinner, replied on VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy that that claim is untrue. He said there is a provision for the auditor general to review commercially sensitive information.
What we actually have here is an entirely new version of Skinner’s comments.
In the new version, the caller was talking about Nalcor, not the offshore board. So Skinner didn’t throw the AG under any sort of bus. VO made the mistake. That was one of the possibilities in the earlier post and, frankly, it makes more sense given the very friendly relationship between the AG and the current administration.
All the same, if you look at what Skinner was actually talking about, he did wind up raising a rather uncomfortable issue of another sort. Skinner just reminds us all of changes that Skinner and his colleagues made to the Energy Corporation Act in 2008 that effectively hid Nalcor from any meaningful public scrutiny and independent oversight.
That’s so much better.
- srbp -
Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner threw outgoing Auditor General John Noseworthy under the bus on Wednesday as he contradicted the AG’s claim he can’t get access to some of the offshore regulatory board’s records.
Voice of the Cabinet Minister ran a story based on Skinner’s comments with the afternoon call-in show’s new host Pete Soucy. Here’s the whole thing in case the disappear it:
The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The A.G. complained recently that he was unable to obtain the information he was looking for.
However, the minister of natural resources, Shawn Skinner, replied on VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy that that claim is untrue. He said there is a provision for the auditor general to review commercially sensitive information.
That’s pretty odd considering Noseworthy has been very friendly to the current administration on so many occasions. Even the timing of his initial attack on the offshore board in 2008 could be seen as a way to help the incumbent Conservatives out in their efforts to put negotiating pressure on the oil companies or to poke at the guy who embarrassed Danny Williams so badly in Williams’ bizarro struggle to make Andy Wells the board boss.
So what gives?
Well, it could be the rumour Noseworthy will be running for the Liberals in the fall. There doesn’t appear to be any substance to it at the moment but the rumour is strong. Maybe Skinner wanted to start a pre-emptive strike on Noseworthy’s credibility.
And – as with the bullshit about Dean MacDonald being a long-time Liberal – rumours have a way of being accepted unquestioningly as fact by some in this town, if enough people repeat the same fairy tale often enough. well, that or if the right people say so.
That doesn’t mean Noseworthy won’t run in the fall. It just means there are no signs at the moment – even behind the scenes – that Noseworthy will be a candidate. Now odds are that the opposition parties are both falling over themselves to get Noseworthy as a candidate just because someone said the guy would be a good catch. See those rumours at work again?
But there’s a difference between that and the idea Skinner is about to announce or that he is already locked in. If Skinner was trying to undermine Noseworthy, he was acting on the basis of shite intel.
That isn’t the only plausible explanation for Skinner’s comment. Now this is Voice of the Cabinet Minister after all, so there is a possibility they just misunderstood what Skinner said.
And, it could also be that Skinner is just wrong, again.
After all, it isn’t like he has never said things that are patently, obviously and demonstrably false before.
Who knows? Lots of strange things are turning up in the news these days as the political world slowly twists itself in a whole new bunch of shapes.
- srbp -
Jim Baker, incumbent Conservative in Labrador west announced today he won’t be seeking re-election in the fall.
Baker claims he made the decision in 2007. Odds are you’d have a very, very hard time finding anyone who voted for Baker or the Pavement Putin who can recall that they announced their intentions before polling day in 2007.
More importantly, though, Baker is another sign that the December deal is crumbling. Back then, all the incumbents would have sworn on a stack of His Speeches that they’d run again.
Now?
They are walking to the exit, one by one.
Baker’s an interesting one though because he only has a few years in office. He won first in a by-election in 2007 and then got re-elected in the October 2007 general election. In other words, Baker doesn’t appear to be eligible for a pension.
- srbp -
The headline:
“Financing Announcement for Foreigners to NL This Afternoon”
The little script story had less objectionable language in it that was much closer to what the official media advisory said.
Even immigrants would have had a much friendlier ring to it than “foreigners”.
- srbp -
In an announcement that had absolutely no ties whatsoever to the current election campaign, the provincial government today tossed $5.0 million into a variety of efforts that are supposed to reduce the number moose-vehicle accidents in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The provincial government will spend $1.0 million on the traditional make-work job of clearing alders and other scrub from the sides of provincial roads. this time though it will be clearing alders and scrub specifically to reduce moose accidents.
Out of the hundreds of kilometres of paved highway in the province, the government will build protective fencing on 15 of those kilometres as part of an experiment to see if it might keep moose from wandering onto roads where they get hit by cars and trucks. As one perceptive tweet comment had it, though, no one has explained how the government will measure the success of their efforts to reduce something that happens at random.
Kinda makes the experiment silly, but as we noted, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact moose accidents are a political issue the government has ignored until now when it is – purely coincidentally – an election year.
There are other reliable indicators, though.
You can tell the provincial government is serious about this project because they spending the same amount of money cutting down on moose accidents that they spend subsidizing production of the CBC series Republic of Doyle.
You can tell the announcement had nothing to do with an election because both opposition party leaders couldn’t wait to praise the ruling Tories for making this splendid announcement.
- srbp -
"It's a gaffe to have dealt with that sporadically," the MP for Beauport-Limoilou near Quebec City said. "It was an electioneering announcement that only added fuel to the fire."Cote believes the solution will be to push the federal government to provide the same sorts of benefits to other provinces.
Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner is writing more letters to the editor of the Telegram these days that the former Open Line hydro queen sends tweets.
The government must have polling showing that the Muskrat Falls project isn’t going over well among the great unwashed.
In his latest epistle to the unclean, Skinner writes:
Hydro must comply with legislation and regulations that require it to ensure sufficient electricity is available at all times. If supply is required to meet demand, then the Electrical Power Control Act states that this new generation must come from the least-cost source.
That would be great.
It would be peachy, if it only it were true.
But it isn’t true.
Now there’s no way of knowing if Skinner didn’t realise the letter had at least one false statement in it or the person who drafted the letter didn’t keep current with current events so this is not a lie.
But there is absolutely no doubt that what Shawn wrote to the Telegram’s editor is not true.
It is false.
It is incorrect.
Newfoundland and Labrador Regulation 92/00 exempts the Lower Churchill project from the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994:
Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is exempt from the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994 and the Public Utilities Act for all aspects of its activities pertaining to the Labrador Hydro Project as defined in section 2 [of the regulation].
Section 2 describes the entire project, including Muskrat Falls and the power line to Soldier’s Pond.
The whole issue got huge discussion during a recent sitting of the legislature. It’s been in Shawn’s briefing notes for months. Your humble e-scribbler discussed it at length in the following posts:
Muskrat Falls power does not have to be the cheapest power. In fact, the entire project financing only works because consumers will be forced by law to pay for the whole thing plus a profit while export customers will get it for gigantic discounts.
So if Shawn is so obviously, blatantly, totally wrong about such a fundamental issue as this, how many other things is he wrong about?
Or to be more accurate…
If this sort of blatantly false statement can wind up in public with the minister’s name on it, how much other stuff from Nalcor and the provincial government on Muskrat is also false?
- srbp -
A man arrested for allegedly assaulting police officers with an electric drill says he plans to seek the Provincial Conservative nomination in Port de Grave district during this fall’s provincial election.
Here’s a chunk of the story from Voice Of the Cabinet Minister before it is disappeared:
The man accused of assaulting a police officer with a drill over the weekend will be juggling a number of events over the coming weeks. Garry Drover, 49, intends to seek the PC nomination in the district of Port de Grave for the October election.
Drover appeared in provincial court this morning and was released on several conditions, including keeping the peace and abstaining from the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Initially, he was ordered not to enter any establishment that sells alcohol, but he requested that that condition be revoked, as he has a number of campaign rallies already scheduled to take place in bars and pubs.
Drover says at the time of the weekend incident that got him arrested, he was preparing a camper for his campaign. He says he and a friend were testing the sound system when they were pulled over by the police. Drover told reporters after he was released that he does not believe the charges he's facing will affect his campaign, since he is innocent until proven guilty. He insists he did not intend to break the law.
Campaign rallies scheduled in bars and pubs?
There’s never a dull moment in local politics.
- srbp -