Making the Most of Our Energy Resources, Part II – Oil and Gas in the Future

Without new oil and gas discoveries, the Newfoundland and Labrador petroleum industry will dry up within a couple of decades.  There hasn’t been a significant discovery in the offshore since the 1980s, with the exception of one find in the Orphan Basin.

The problem isn’t a lack of oil or gas.  The geological estimates back up the notion there is plenty more to find. The problem is no one is looking for it hard enough to find it. 

To give you a sense of how low exploration levels are now compared to a couple of decades ago, take a look at this slide.  It’s taken from Wade Locke’s recent presentation for the Harris Centre. 

Low exploration levels is one of the most important problems facing the oil and gas industry.  It’s not a new problem.  It’s not the only problem.  There are others, all of which centre on the basic challenge of how we can make the most of our oil and gas resources now and in the future.

Here are some basic ideas that can help us to get there.

For starters, Newfoundland and Labrador has to be an attractive place for investment, exploration and development. Oil and gas is a highly competitive industry, especially in the exploration sector.  There are only so many exploration dollars to go around.  There are only so many rigs to go around and there are plenty of places in the world where companies can find oil and gas, develop it, get it to market and make a lot of money.

Sending delegation after delegation to oil shows in places like Houston doesn’t produce a single new exploration well. What the local oil and gas industry needs is a stable, predictable environment.  That is something they haven’t had for a while.

One of the easiest things for the provincial government to do is set an offshore oil royalty regime and a gas royalty regime.  The provincial government had an oil royalty regime but the 2007 energy “plan”  to replace it with something else.  Not surprisingly for the current administration, there is no sign of a new oil royalty regime four years after they promised it.

Ditto a natural gas royalty regime. The current administration promised one in 2007 but they still haven’t delivered.  In fact, the provincial government has been working on development of a gas royalty regime for the past 14 years and still they haven’t managed to produce anything but a discussion that went nowhere.

With the royalty regime set, there’s no need for the provincial government to hold up any developments while it “negotiates” with a developer.  That’s the sort of thing one might expect in a banana republic.  It isn’t what happens in mature economies.

In the same way, the provincial government should set – or allow the offshore regulatory board to set – basic rules for local benefits.

The current administration held up the Hebron development and in the end settled for a royalty regime only marginally better than the generic regime. But any gains on so-called super royalties were offset by give-aways on the front end of the royalty structure and on local benefits in the form of research and development spending commitments.

Standard royalty and benefits regimes that work across a variety of price ranges and that work fairly for the resource owner  - i.e. taxpayers - and the developer will promote stable economic development.

The provincial and federal government should also implement a policy of merit-based appointments to the offshore regulatory board.  The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Regulatory Board is one of the most important agencies in the province. The most recent fiasco with efforts to stuff a former political staffer into a job she was unqualified for highlight the potential damage that politicians can do to an important official body.  At the very least, the provincial government should advertise for applicants for board appointments based on well publicized criteria. Board appointees should serve for fixed terms and each appointment should come with a publicly available expiry date. The offshore board is no place for political hacks and cronies.

While the offshore oil and gas industry is well developed, the oil and gas industry that lies exclusively within provincial jurisdiction is not.  As a way of encouraging development of a well-managed industry within the borders of the province, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should develop a regulatory board to administer lands, manage reservoirs, serve as a repository for information on oil and gas and generally serve as the focus of industry regulation from the three mile limit inward. 

The new oil and gas regulator should complement the work of the offshore board.  Naturally, the new board will assume some of the roles assigned to the old provincial petroleum directorate as well as ones that have grown up within the oil and gas division of the natural resources department. The new onshore regulatory board should also administer new, standard royalty and benefit regimes for any future developments.

Other elements of the 15 ideas (and more) also will apply to the oil industry.  For example, breaking up the energy company and either privatizing it or forcing it to function like other companies would break its strangle-hold on the local business environment.  This would inevitably allow for new life and energy in a sector that is rapidly becoming stagnant.

Without new life in the province’s energy industry,  the future looks bleak.  Staying on the current path is not a practical option. 

These are a few ideas to stimulate life and growth and to create a future for the province and its people that works.

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Like Momma always said…Part Deux und Trois

The only funnier thing than a guy up on assault charges claiming he is a wannabe Tory candidate are opposition party politicos who campaign for the incumbents.

In the past couple of weeks, comments coming from both parties have highlighted positive economic news.

Liberal leader Yvonne Jones did it before she headed back to Labrador for a series of meetings. She issued a news release that mentioned how the Labrador economy is booming.

Then  provincial NDP president Dale Kirby tweeted a link to a Globe and Mail story about how well the provincial economy is doing in comparison to the rest of the Atlantic provinces.

Wonderful stuff.

Except that in both cases, Jones and Kirby wound up reinforcing the classic argument for staying the course and keeping the current government in power. Things are going well, say the incumbents. Don’t risk all the good times by changing horse in the middle of the stream of cash and jobs.

Opposition parties need to draw attention to things the incumbent party isn’t talking about. There are plenty of issues. Some of them are ones the incumbents just don’t give a frig about but opposition voters do.  Some are issues the incumbents haven’t figured out are potentially decisive. Others are ones the incumbents will scream blue murder about because they are sore issues.

But talking about how good things are under the current administration?

Not really a message that says vote for me, the leader of the party that didn’t deliver all this good stuff.

It’s good for them to be positive, you say.  Otherwise the opposition parties would be all negative.  No one likes it when you are negative.  More people would listen to the opposition parties if they weren't negative all the time.

Well, for starters if you think that way, then you are – without question  - an ardent supporter of whatever incumbent government we are talking about.  Either that or you make Pollyanna look like a suicide waiting to happen.

Only incumbent politicos and their staunch supporters dislike it when others talk about problems.  Face it:  problems exist all the time.  They may not be big problems but they do exist.  It’s natural for people to talk about them if for no other reason than they would like the incumbents to fix them.

But incumbents hate people talking about problems.  The longer the incumbents are in office the more they dislike problems.  The longer the incumbents are in office, you see, the more likely it is that they caused the problems.

Incumbents also know that problems energise the opposition supporters.  After all, talking about the problems at the time are what helped get the incumbents elected in the first place. 

It seems like ancient history these days, but those who can recall the period between 2001 and 2003 will remember Danny Williams talked relentlessly about problems.  He was angry.  He stayed angry even after the 2003 general election. In fact, Danny stayed angry right up to his last days in office.

Tories  - and Danny lovers - don’t see it that way, of course. They think he spoke the truth.  But that’s what one would expect Tories to say, just as Liberals would have said the same sorts of things the last time Liberals were in power.

And when the incumbents hissed at Danny that he was too negative, he just ignored them and carried on about his business.  Danny carried on because he knew what opposition politicians are supposed to do if they ever want to get back into a government office again.

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And Harry won't be running either

Conservative cabinet minister Harry Harding won't be seeking re-election in this fall's general election, according to media reports on MOnday..

Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians: NL NDP leader

The Newfoundland and Labrador local of the New Democratic Party wants taxpayers in her province to give Nova Scotians free tuition at Memorial University.

Sounds idiotic, doesn’t it?

But that’s exactly what she wants to do, at least if you follow the thrust of Lorraine Michael’s July 8th news release.

In the release the NDP leader said that “free tuition is essential to ensuring that all of Newfoundland and Labrador’s young people get equal access to education they will need for their own, and by extension, all our prosperity.”

Wonderful stuff.

Then she cites in study released by her party president Dale Kirby, wearing his education professor hat.

Kirby and his colleagues surveyed Memorial University students from Maritime Canada and asked them some questions about why they decided on studying at Memorial University. As the executive summary in the report notes, the number of Maritime students at Memorial went up “ten-fold’ in the past decade or so. And as the report also notes, there have been other reports, most notably by news media, in which Maritime students identified cost as one of the big reasons for them coming to Memorial. They can study at a comprehensive university that has a decent reputation overall(outstanding in some faculties) and they can do it cheaper than they could at Dalhousie or Acadia or University of New Brunswick.

They come here because the tuition is cheap, they said. 

So, reasons Michael, free education for Nova Scotians will benefit Newfoundland and Labrador.

She does not explain how. 

Odds are she can’t.

That’s not important, though. 

In the world of Conservative-style retail politics, all a political party has to do is offer this sort of cash incentive to win votes. It’s like the one about cutting taxes on gasoline or home-heating products.  None of those ideas make any sense except as a way of luring voters:  give us your vote and we’ll give you cash.

The foolishness of the free tuition idea is actually right there in Michael’s release. All you have to do is think about it for a second.

You see all those Maritime students frig off back to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Prince Edward island once they get their Memorial University degrees.  They only come here because they can get a decent university paid on the cheap.  They don’t spend four years at Memorial because they plan to settle in Hibb’s Hole once the drinking…err…studying is done.

And if lower tuition is already bringing in the mainland students in droves, then odds are free tuition will attract droves more. The university will have to hire more professors and build more classrooms and laboratories.

And who will pay for this?

Why the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, of course.

Now think about that a bit more.

In a province where the government is facing a pretty severe financial problem because of foolish spending, the New Democrats want to spend millions more to make university education free.  Then they’ll have to spend hundreds of millions more making the university larger to accommodate all the new students.

And where will thousands of those students come from?

Why Nova Scotia, of course, the most populous province in Atlantic Canada.

Now where else has Nova scotia cropped up lately?

Yes. 

Of course.

Lorraine Michael, Kathy Dunderdale, and Yvonne Jones want to spend billions on this Muskrat Falls project so they can ship cheap electrical power to Nova Scotians.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will pay the full cost of the power plus a profit for Nalcor and Nova Scotia-based Emera so that Nova Scotians get a break.

And this is how Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will gain a long-term benefit from their natural resources:  by selling discount electricity to Nova Scotians. 

That sounds an awful lot like this education scheme Lorraine and Dale have cooked up.

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Traffic that never flip flops

The weekly top 10 Bond Papers posts for the week of July 11 to 15, 2011, selected by you, the readers.

1. Forecasting the fall
2. All three NL parties back Muskrat project
3. A world of their own
4. Ahem
5. Political parties and debt:  the Kennedy perspective
6. You might know it as bribery, Ma’am
7. Cross yet another one off your list and Not much to see [tie]
8. Cross Sheila off your list
9. The Ballot Question:  October 2011
10. Did I say “yes” to Muskrat?  I meant “no”:  Jones

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Telly takes wind out of Muskrat

The Telegram editorial on Thursday linked the Muskrat Falls project with the recent announcement by Kruger Inc of a wind energy project in Quebec:

Power, apparently, is cheaper in Quebec. Hydro-Québec says its 2,000 megawatts of wind power are being purchased for an average cost of 8.7 cents a kilowatt hour. That's a huge difference - especially because we're also supposed to be selling power into North American markets.

But you have to wonder - if Hydro-Québec is bringing 2,000 megawatts of wind power on stream at 8.7 cents a kilowatt hour before Nalcor brings 824 megawatts of power on stream at 14.3 to 16.5 cents a kilowatt hour, who will be subsidizing the off-island sale of power of Muskrat Falls to make it competitive with power that costs a third less?

And just why is Muskrat Falls clearly the provincial government's only choice - and Nalcor the only possible supplier - to meet our energy needs again?

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Did I say yes to Muskrat? I meant “no”: Jones

Political decisions in Newfoundland and Labrador are apparently like the local weather at least as far as the current crop of party leaders in the province is concerned.

Wait a minute and everything changes.

Kathy Dunderdale set the standard for indecisiveness with her on-again, off-again subsidies for Danny Williams’ latest gaggle of professional jockstraps.

Now it’s Yvonne Jones’ turn.

In an interview with NTV’s Issues and Answers last week, Jones said that as Premier she’d hand over responsibility for deciding the fate of the Muskrat Falls to the Auditor General. 

And if he ruled the thing was good, then that was good enough for Jones.  She’d go along with it.  Jones sounded positively giddy at the thought of all the jobs and electricity to fuel develop in Labrador.  She claimed there’s 700 megawatts need for mining developments.  That’s pure crap, of course.

Well wait a minute, or in this case a couple of days, and Jones wants to scrap the deal now. That’s what she says in the latest news release from the Opposition Leader’s Office

The reason Jones changed her mind is an interview with Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin on CBC Radio.  Shumlin noted, among other things, the problems with the current projected prices for Muskrat Falls power. 

“If the power is too expensive for residents of the United States, how is it affordable for us, when Premier Dunderdale wants to charge us more for it than consumers outside the province,” Jones said. “Kathy Dunderdale is content to saddle this province with generations of debt for a project that doesn’t make financial sense.”

Quick!  Get the smelling salts.  Regular readers of this corner are swooning at this revelation. After all, it’s not like your humble e-scribbler hasn’t been pounding the drum about how uncompetitive the Muskrat Falls power is on the markets not just today but well into the future.

In fact, there’s even a comment from Kathy Dunderdale  - from last fall - about the lack of American markets for the super expensive Muskrat power.

And if none of that rings a bell, don’t forget the Rhode Island memorandum of understanding.  Kathy Dunderdale told the legislature one story.  Turns out that, to paraphrase a famous politician, nothing Kathy said could be further from the truth:

As far as we can determine, there is no legislative hold up here in Rhode Island, it is more of a question of cost.  While the power generation is inexpensive, the cost of transmission adds to the final price. The possibility of purchasing power is still alive; it may be a topic of discussion at the conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers that is happening today. Interest in purchasing renewable energy remains. 

Yes folks, there you have it from 2009:  New England states are interested in buying energy from renewable sources but the damnable costs of transmission are a problem.

That post did not make the local media sit up and take notice.  It took two years and another governor for them to figure it out.

Anyway, scuttling the deal is Jones’ latest position. Once she gets a few phone calls from people who want jobs on the project or from business owners anxious to suck harder on the public debt tit, she’ll swing around again.

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Aquaculture centre opened three years behind schedule, more than 100% over budget

Premier Kathy Dunderdale opened an aquaculture centre in the south coast community of St. Alban’s on Thursday three years after it was supposed to be finished and at more than twice the original forecast price.

Former fisheries minister Tom Rideout announced the offices and laboratories in 2007.  He estimated the cost at $4.2 million.  It was supposed to be opened in 2008.

In a news release marking the opening, the provincial government reported the facility cost $8.8 million.

Danny Williams included the project as part of the provincial government’s “stimulus” package in 2009.  That was just one of the delayed and over budget Williams included as if they were brand new projects in response to the recession.

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Ahem

From the e-mail inbox this week came a gentle reminder from Kevin Kelly, editor at the Herald:

Just wanted to point out that in last week's Newfoundland Herald, (the one with Kiss on the cover), I did a story entitled "Headed for Disaster" discussing the province's spending habits, including how much money the government was spending on itself, as well as comparing govt. spending from 2004 to now. I also brought up the Muskrat Falls costs and comments from both sides of the issue.

Kevin didn’t like the reference in another post that only the Telegram was getting the message that provincial government deficits and Muskrat Falls debt weren’t a good mix.

Fair ‘nuff, Kevin. 

Just to make it clear though, your humble e-scribbler divides the local media scene into two piles.  The daily electronic and print gang go in one pile.  These are the gang who make up the press gallery in the House of Assembly and who have reporters covering the provincial political scene. They tend to break or report on hard political and economic news day-in and day-out.

The weeklies, monthlies and bi-weekly print outlets go in another pile, for a bunch of reasons.  This doesn’t mean they are less important, less influential or anything less in any way.  They just have a different focus.  It could be the local community, as in the Transcon weeklies.  It could be the local arts and entertainment scene.

Rather than skimp, here’s an extract from what the Herald ran in a piece titled “Headed for disaster?”

But here’s the thing. The provincial government is showing no signs of cutting its spending, even on itself.

The Tories have come under fire in recent budgets that included enormous revenues from the oil industry, but were matched by increases in spending and less worry on debt reduction.

Even with the looming financial crisis that could happen, the provincial government increased spending this year by 5 per cent, a trend that has continued over the past number of years.

“We have responded since being elected to office with expenditure levels that support a high level of programs and services, and we stimulated the economy during the recession,” stated Finance Minister Tom Marshall during his recent budget.

“Always, however, we were committed to spending within our means. During my consultations with the people of the province prior to this Budget, I was clear that, while strong expenditure growth was necessary during the catch-up and stimulus periods, more moderate expenditures are required in the future. Our net program expenses will grow by less than 5% in 2011-12, with much of this growth relating to wage increases previously negotiated.”

…

But there is still no arguing that it [Muskrat Falls] will cost a lot of money to get the project underway, and does the benefit outweigh the cost?

It’s one of many questions ahead for government as it deals with what could be a looming financial deficit.

Economist Wade Locke says the government has to make some tough decisions in the years ahead to deal with the upcoming debt crisis.

“There are three options you can do: you can borrow, you can raise taxes or you can cut expenditure,” he said. “All three have negative consequences for you, so what you need to think about is which of these options are the most effective way of dealing with your issues.”

It might need to start thinking way ahead, and perhaps cutting where it hurts most, itself.”

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Pesticide ban regulation not even written yet

While everyone may think the provincial has banned the cosmetic use of pesticides, a quick check with the province’s environment department confirmed this afternoon that not only haven’t they gazetted the regulation needed for the ban, they haven’t even written it yet.

That’s not what the news release would have you believe.

The headline reads:

“Ban implemented on cosmetic pesticides for lawn care”

Note the past tense of the verb, suggesting this is something was already done.

The provincial government actually announced on Thursday that it will  - that is, at some undefined point in the future  - write a regulation, send it for approval and have it gazetted to bring it into force.

But until then:  nada.

Without a regulation putting the ban in effect, there’s no other legal way the provincial government can ban the cosmetic use of pesticides.

No reg.

No ban.

This isn’t the first time the provincial government had problems with pesticide regulations.

In February 2004, then-environment minister Tom Osborne announced a consultation into new pesticide regulations to replace pesticide regulations introduced in 2003 by the Liberals.

In September 2005, he announced the new regs would be implemented shortly thereafter.

They were introduced in April 2007, just in time for the provincial election.

Plenty of people have been fooled.

None of them did a simple bit of homework.

News media took the announcement of government’s intention to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides and ran it as if the ban was done. Both of the province’s opposition parties issued news releases praising the provincial government for listening to people and doing what’s right. 

 

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Labour crunch coming

Only the naive or the demented would portray the looming labour crunch in the province as a “tremendous opportunity”.

A report released on Wednesday by the provincial human resources department forecasts that by 2020  - less than a decade from now - there will be 70,000 vacant jobs in the province.  They will be in all sectors of the economy.  They will be in all areas of the province.

The primary cause of the vacancies will be retirements. Only 10% of the vacancies will come from employment growth, that is from new job creation.

This is not an opportunity of any sort.  Newfoundland and Labrador will face a labour shortage at the same time as the rest of North America will go through the same problem. Many of the jobs will remain vacant because there won’t be anyone to fill the positions. Some other provinces, notably Quebec, will face a far worse situation.

This is a situation that the provincial government, labour unions and businesses have seen coming for more than a decade. So far, they have done nothing about it except talk about it.  Now the problem is here.

It represents a very real financial problem for the provincial government.  As baby boomers retire, some costs like health care will increase dramatically.  At the same time,  revenue sources will drop off as there are fewer people working to produce taxes and other sources of government revenue. Increasing the number people drawing a government paycheque may look good  for votes in the short-term, but when you look at the big picture, you can see just exactly how grossly irresponsible the current administration has been for the past seven years.

Regular readers of these scribbles will be very familiar with the implications of the looming labour crunch. Unsound financial management by the current administration promises to make the problem much worse than it would have been if people in responsible government positions had acted instead of talking before now.  The Muskrat Falls megadebt project looks even stupid in this context than it does standing on its own.

Only the naive or the demented would look on this as anything positive.

Government, labour unions and business leaders have seen this coming and they’ve done nothing about it except talk.

On Wednesday, they carried on as if nothing happened.

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The Ballot Question: October 2011

Here’s the question for voters to decide in this fall’s general election as the party leaders themselves have defined it.

If you want:

• guaranteed high electricity prices in Newfoundland and Labrador (roughly double current rates),
• at least double the current provincial debt, and,
• subsidised electricity exports to Nova Scotia and anywhere else in northeastern North America…

then vote:

Progressive Conservative

 

or

Liberal

 

or

New Democratic

 

No matter what you chose,  you get Muskrat Falls.

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Public sector job growth outpaces private in NL

From labradore:

In the five years since the recent-historic low, in early 2006, of about 55,600 public-sector employees, the public-sector labour force has increased by about 11,500 or over 20%. As a share of total employment, the public sector has grown from 26% to 30%.

The twelve-month average ending in June 2011 was 67,100 — an increase of 4100, or 6.5%, from the same period twelve months earlier. This represented an increase of over half a percentage point in the public sector's overall share of the employed labour force.

Then there are the pretty charts showing the public sector employment, federal, provincial and municipal, in thousands of people:

and the private sector:

 

So when you have digested the full impact of that little bit of information, consider what the Muskrat Falls project is really all about: the megadebt will be worth it because it will “bring significant employment and income to the residents and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

 

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Related:

• The Fragile Economy;  … and two steps back
• The Fragile Economy:  hard numbers

Not much to see

The Telegram’s Russell Wangersky looked ahead to the fall election and didn’t like what he saw.

Wangersky’s assessment is brutal but it is accurate.

The Liberals:  “When someone who isn't looking for the leader's job is bigger news than the person who's already holding it, you've got big problems.”

The NDP:  “Unremittingly hopeful but doomed to disappointment….Don't bet the family fortune on renting floats to the victory parade.”

The Conservatives:  “Right now, they are an all-encompassing government that stresses the need for belt-tightening (while spending more), reducing debt (while increasing it) and telling people that we have to live within our means (all the while living beyond their own).”

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A world of their own

Kathy Dunderdale showed up in the province again to talk about the wonderful reception her Muskrat Falls megadebt project got from the New England governors.

Two things stood out right off the bat from Dunderdale’s scrum. 

First, there was her reference to Yvonne Jones as if the Liberal leader hadn’t already drunk the freshie.  Jones supports the project for the same reason Dunderdale does:  “significant employment and income to the residents and businesses of Newfoundland and Labrador”.

That those short-term jobs will come at such a terrible price -  doubling electricity rates and doubling the public debt  - won’t bother the placeholders one bit;  none of the province’s political parties are concerned about such triflings when then can buy votes with public money.

Second was Dunderdale’s response to a question about comments by Connecticut Governor Dannel Molloy about the need for timely discussion between Canadian province’s and New England states about importing Canadian electricity.  He also noted the need for improved transmission infrastructure to move the power along.

Dunderdale reminded the reporters at her scrum that Molloy was a newbie, only in office since January.  Then she carried on with the usual song and dance about how hydro is the answer to everyone’s prayers.

The fundamental problems with Muskrat Falls still remain.  Nottawa reminded everyone of the basic problem in a post that ran on Tuesday.  Connecticut’s current retail price for electricity is 40% below Muskrat Falls’ projected cost price. 

What he forgot to add was the transmission cost. That’s also something Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin  was talking about when he told reporters during the recent New England Governor’s and Eastern Canadian Premiers’ conference that:

… the most pressing question that needs to be resolved is how to get Canadian power to northern U.S. markets without boosting transmission capacity.

"There is no universal plan to get it there," Shumlin said.

Muskrat power will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 14 to 16 cents per kilowatt hour to produce.  Then it has to roll through a couple of Canadian province’s and three or four American states.  In every one of those jurisdictions there will be at least one transmission charge whacked on top. 

That’s what Shumlin was talking about.  Even if by some hysterical development 16 cents a kilowatt hour became cheap electricity in New England, adding another 50% on top of that to move it around just prices the juice out of the market altogether.

Well, that and the fact that people in his state and elsewhere in New England just don’t want new hydro lines slung across their states.  New Hampshire opposition to a new line is just one example.

As you listen to Dunderdale, Jones, Michael and other politicians ramble on about Muskrat Falls you just get the sense they are in some sort of bizarre alternate universe.  They are out of touch with reality and news media keep repeating their comments as if they were rational.

The Telegram, alone among local media outlets, is finally getting the message. Its editorial on Saturday and again on Tuesday laid out the naked truth about Muskrat Falls and the provincial government’s enormous debt. The others, like VOCM, just continue to enable the delusions.

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Cross yet another one off your list

Intergovernmental affairs minister Dave Denine won't be seeking re-election this fall, according to media reports.  So much for the claim last December that all Tory incumbents were seeking re-election in the fall.

Update:  Voice of the Cabinet Minister and the Ceeb all have stories on Denine's departure.  Here's a post where your humble e-scribbler mentioned that Denine wasn't running again.

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All three NL parties back Muskrat project

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. 

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The placeholder election

No matter what the outcome, all three political parties in the province will have new leaders before the 2015 contest.

In December, the Tories decided to postpone their leadership fight until after the October general election.  Kathy Dunderdale took over the job in the first place on the understanding it would be a temporary thing.  The shift in December had more to do with internal party politics than Dunderdale’s sudden discovery she had some goals to accomplish.  [Hint:  she didn’t].

Dunderdale is pushing 60 as it is.  If she’s elected in the fall, she will be the oldest person ever elected Premier since Confederation, beating out Danny Williams by eight years. This is not a two term Premier, no matter how you look at it.

The only real question is whether the Tories will have the leadership quickly or wait until year three-ish.  Anything before October 2014 triggers an election under Danny Williams’ changes to the Elections Act.  How long she stays is really up the ambitious men and women within her caucus who have parked their campaign until after the fall vote.

Over in the Liberal camp, Yvonne Jones’ only hope of hanging onto her current job is if she wins the next election. Even then, her tenure would depend heavily on her having a clean bill of health.  Otherwise, the length of time she stays on as leader is in inverse proportion to the magnitude of her defeat. The only factor that could push her out more quickly would be a recurrence of Jones’ cancer.

There there is the 68-year old New Democratic Party leader, Lorraine Michael. While her party keeps torquing the idea of some massive break-through in the general election, Michael likely won’t be around long afterward to enjoy it, even if it does happen. 

Politics is gruelling.  Look at the toll the stress has taken on Kathy Dunderdale already, despite the fairly obvious makeover she’s undergone in a very short space of time.  And Dunderdale is nine years younger than Michael. 

This is Lorraine’s last trip to the polls. Just as well to start the pool now on who will replace her.

No matter how you slice it,  this election will be about marking time;  it’s a placeholder election with the real contest coming at some point within the next four years

It will be interesting to see how this issue – one that affects all three parties equally – factors into the campaign and to the final vote.

- srbp -

Political parties and debt: the Kennedy perspective

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 -

Forecasting the fall

Pick up a sharpened pencil.

Now take a clean, white sheet of paper from the computer printer.

Close your eyes and make a small round mark on the paper with the pencil.

Look at the black dot.

You can’t real tell much about it, can you?  Unless you knew the story, a person looking at the dot couldn’t even tell you how exactly it got there beyond the fairly obvious point that someone likely made it. If a pencil had been able to roll off a nearby shelf onto the page, for example, you couldn’t even say decisively that a person had made the mark deliberately or accidentally.

So it’s a dot on a piece of paper.  Someone  - apparently - used a pencil because there’s a fairly obvious difference between a pen mark and a pencil mark.

But beyond that, everything about the dot, including its position on the page really only comes from adding some other details. 

For example, you can describe the dot’s position in relation to the edges of the paper.

You can assign a grid system to the paper and say the dot is in one of four quarters or describe its location in relation to one of the corners. But is the corner on the top of the page, the bottom, the left or right?  You can’t tell that because it depends on how you lay the sheet of paper on the table and how you lay it in relation to you.

Context.

You have to put the dot and the paper in a context in order to give it meaning.

In politics, the context is sometimes called a frame, as in a picture frame.  Photographs only let you see what was in front of the lens.  They don’t give you the wider context.  You have to supply the context – or frame – as a way to help people see the picture as you think it should be seen. People can take the frame out of their own knowledge or experience or someone can supply the frame.

Now if the frame is factual – here is a black dot on a page – then there isn’t much you can say about it.
But when the frame is gets further and further from fact – like saying that the dot could represent a trend  - you have pretty much entered the world of bullshit.

With that frame in mind, take a gander at a recent CBC story about a potential new Democratic Party surge in the October general election.

One point – the NDP win in St. John’s South-Mount Pearl during the recent federal election  - becomes the possible harbinger of a much larger break through for the NDP.

But the federal election showed that there is great potential for pulling in new support.
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.

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.

That bit about the vote result turns up in both the online version and the Here and Now television story.  It’s apparently of CBC information that lends some support to the NDP line.

But it is a completely misleading frame.

Really far from not fair ‘nuff.

For starters, it compares two completely different election results.  One was federal.  One was provincial. That’s a big difference in local politics.  Then there are the many differences in issues and personalities, that is, in the stuff that drives vote choices. 

Then consider that the snippet only gives the NDP result.  It doesn’t tell you what happened with other parties.

The CBC data dot doesn’t tell you about any provincial elections held in the area since 2007.  If they did, CBC would have had to report that Jack Harris scored a huge victory in the 2008 federal election but that he and his team couldn’t translate that into anything at all in a couple of recent provincial by-elections. 

The provincial Tories turned out for their team in a provincial contest, despite voting for Jack Harris federally.

Add more information and the frame in this story doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny, as your humble e-scribbler noted a couple of months ago.

As it is, the fall election is likely to bring a few new twists people haven’t anticipated. Does this story herald other changes outside politics directly? Maybe this story is a one-off.  Maybe it’s a new form of free-time political broadcasting.  Maybe it’s another version of Faux News North in which torque replaces information.

One thing's for sure:  if this is the type of reporting that carries on into the fall, forecasting this fall election could be a lot more entertaining that anyone might have thought a few short weeks ago.

- srbp -