Compare and contrast: election policy edition

Compare the New Democrat “policy” announcements on the fishery and shipbuilding, slipped out there last week with the Liberal one on health care and seniors, announced on Monday morning at a news conference.

The Liberal one wasn’t available online as of 1330 hours local time on Monday.  That’s not encouraging, given the announcement happened at 1000 hrs.

The Libs will need to sort this out to make sure their information is readily available.  Online media coverage of this announcement sucked.  Most didn’t have a story and the one that did appear covered only a small portion of a much larger announcement.

But this is not just a case of announcing a vague intention.  The Liberals announcement includes:

• a ministry of aging and seniors,
• an aging and seniors strategy that will also feature health and wellness promotion, respecting and celebrating seniors, supportive communities,  seniors’ financial security, employment and life transitioning,  secure housing options, and, caregiver assistance and support.
• a seniors’ advocate, similar to the child and youth advocate,
• a funding shift to rehab and other support to enable seniors to stay in their own communities longer, and
• better funding for long-term care and home care.

How this announcement plays with the public remains to be seen.  Just recall that health care is the single biggest issue for voters according to polls.  And don’t forget that seniors and seniors’ care is already a sensitive political issue. it will only get bigger in the years ahead.

From the sliding a sheet of paper department, a lot of this will look familiar to people who have been paying attention to any sort of policy announcements over the past decade.

That’s because many Conservative policies after 2003 just continued work that was already done or already in train under the Liberals.

From the superficial reporting department, consider that any media coverage of how many candidates the parties have nominated at this point is pretty much a pile of irrelevant bullshite. 

Update II:  Here’s the policy document in a version you can read and enjoy.

Caring for Our Seniors

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Update:  CBC has an online story that went live after this post first went up.  It is pretty vague on details despite the fact the Liberal announcement had tons of specifics.

What’s more interesting to see in the CBC comments section are the number of NDP astroturf (fake identities, likely all done by one or a small number of people) comments that criticise the announcement or claim – falsely  - that the ideas are NDP ones. 

You can expect a lot more of that sort of foolishness, especially if the NDP can’t come up with solid policy announcements of their own.

The July 2011 Traffic

Top 10 posts for July 2011, as decided by Bond Papers readers:

1. Trade talks with Europeans = “doing back-room deal with a bunch of serial rapists”
2. Forecasting the fall
3. Skinner makes false statement in letter to Telegram
4. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians:  NL NDP leader
5. Politicians and illness
6. Cross Sheila off your list
7. All three NL parties back Muskrat Falls project
8. Makes it official, then
9. I knew Marilyn Monroe
10. Definitely cabinet material

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Sliding a sheet of paper, NDP version

The New Democrats announced a couple of policy planks last week for the general election campaign.

Well,  sort of announced.  The party’s news release says that leader Lorraine Michael announced something but part of it sure doesn’t look like much of a clear, verifiable commitment:

“Government should have done more to ensure that this province would play a role in the federal government shipbuilding plans.”

In contrast, the NDP leader said, an NDP government will help its province’s own shipyards secure contracts with outside buyers, …

So what does that mean exactly?

Good question.

What Michael is talking about in that first sentence is the decision by a private sector company to withdraw from a federal government tender competition. She doesn’t explain what more the provincial government was supposed to do nor does she give any idea of what some mythical New Democrat government of the future might do to change the situation she doesn’t really describe in the first place.

We just get the comment that the provincial government should have done “more” and that a New Democrat government will “help”.

In the second part of the shipbuilding “policy”, Michael said that the New Democrats would “commit to building Newfoundland and Labrador ferries within the province.”  Of course that is actually nothing new:  the current Conservative administration committed to the same thing in 2003.  While it took them four or five years to sort it out, they have managed to build a couple of ferries at shipyards inside the province.

Now while the release said Michael talked about two policies, there’s no way to be sure if the two policies were about shipbuilding or if this counts as the second plank:

“The provincial government has to work with all the players – industry, the municipalities, the workers – to ensure that the fishery can diversify and thrive,…”

That’s not really a policy so much as a general statement. Unfortunately for voters, it doesn’t actually mean anything. One might wonder, for example, how a municipality could help top restore fish stocks since there isn’t a town in the country that has any responsibility for any part of the fishery.

Maybe Michael meant something else.

Maybe she did not know what she means.

Voters will likely have a hard time knowing what Michael and the New Democrats mean either.

But readers of these e-scribbles will know what it means:

Of course, that’s pretty much consistent with political parties that aren’t interested in drawing in new supporters based on a platform aimed at voter interests.  As your humble e-scribbler noted for NTV, you are going to have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper between the parties on major issues. The one thing they will all have in common is a commitment to spend gobs of public cash:  pork is the priority. Likewise, for all parties – but especially the current incumbent Tories, it will be yet more  paternalism.

Local political parties all practice a form of defensive politics that involves a combination of preaching to the people they already have while repeating whatever it is the other guys have been doing that worked before.

Expect more of the same.

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The Summer of Love 2011

Five years after your humble e-scribbler first wrote about it, the world pretty much accepts the notion that the governing Conservatives time their communications to coincide with polling done by their contract pollster. A couple of university professors have taken up the task of documenting the extent of the poll goosing and talk radio stacking activities.

Well, labradore posted a couple of reminders last week about just exactly how intense this can get.

First, he show a chart comparing the number of releases issued in the middle of summer.  Not surprisingly, 2011 showed the heaviest news release output on record.  That’s not surprising because it is an election year and the the incumbent Tories apparently are having some problems with popular support.

Second, labradore charted the number of media advisories issued by the provincial government, by month from 1996 onward. No one ever said this poll goosing thing was something the Tories invented.  It’s just that they do it more aggressively than the gang that went before.

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Triumph of the Brand Will

From one of the most successful political brands of modern times comes the secret of branding.

Forget what you learned in school.

Brand is not about qualities, values or indeed even anything real or tangible.

The secret for us now is the same with any marketing brand — whether it's Apple or Nike with the swoosh — having a brand and having a logo, it's about what you wrap around it, it's about what you make people believe it is and what it stands for,

“It’s about what you make people believe it is…”

Brand is an act of will.

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The Traffic: 25–29 July 2011

1. Turd buffing
2. Politicians and illness
3. Nalcor ignores natural gas, local studies back cheaper alternative to Muskrat Falls
4. An endorsement that rings a little hollow
5. Follow the money
6. Paternalism in pictures
7. Nutbar Factor 6 and The Politics of Perpetual Panic
8. Where isn’t the democracy in that?
9. Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir
10. The Politics of Public Spending

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Politicians and illness

A day or so after Jack Layton told the country about his latest health crisis, CBC Radio’s noon-time show opened their phone lines so people could call in to talk about Jack Layton and his struggle with cancer.

Regular host Ramona Dearing chatted with Nancy Riche.  They were respectful and serious, as one might expect.  Some people called in to say nice about nice things about Jack.

And then after about five or six calls something very odd happened.

Well, actually didn’t happen.

No one called in to attack Ramona and the Ceeb for daring to discuss Layton’s personal business.  No one insulted and abused people for calling in to wish Jack a speedy recovery.

And that lack of abuse quickly spread to other media.

That is worth noting for a couple reasons. 

First of all, it puts paid to the excuse offered by long-standing apologists for the narcissist who used to be the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador that the shitstorm of anti-media commentary in the wake of Danny’s heart surgery was just a spontaneous outpouring of disdain for reporters who had gone just a bit too far.  It was a very focused and pretty obviously organized bit of political theatre by a crowd known for their amateur dramatics.

Second of all, what Layton did and what happened afterward are what we have come to expect in this country of politicians.  We expect them to be frank and disclose illnesses that could affect their work.  Layton really didn’t have much choice in this case.  His cancer seems to be serious enough that the treatment will take him off the job for weeks.  The telling bit is that while might have successfully hidden his prostate cancer, Layton chose not to do so.  That is the key part:  he did the right thing.

We, the voters, showed that we can do the right thing, as well and act in a mature and responsible way.  Ultimately, we can lay aside partisanship in order to show some common decency and a touch of humanity.

Not everyone can do that, of course.  Just this past week, an articulate and thoughtful woman decided to try her hand at politics.  Pam Pardy Ghent announced she wants the Liberal nomination in Bellevue district.

Since coming back to Newfoundland and Labrador with her family, Pam’s been a reporter and a commentator. *

She also took a provincial government appointment to a board. That one ended rather sadly when she made a Facebook comment that the narcissist’s coterie decided was a bit much.

Pam would be a fine candidate regardless of what party she opted to run for. But there are still a few admirers of the Old Narcissist who just couldn’t resist reminding us of how much the province has matured since last December.*  They ran her down to the dirt online – anonymously, of course – mentioning only the one pathetic episode that came after her facetious comment bout the narcissist’s wedding tackle.

Incidentally, have a bit of fun and read one of the more popular posts from 2010 on how the Old Narcissist might finally leave office.  it is one thing that your humble e-scribbler raised the issue at all.  It is another that some people took issue with it.  One commenter of the anonymous variety – he uses a fake name - insisted Hisself would sail in triumph through an easy victory in October 2011.  Another who uses his own name and who is a fine fellow, couldn’t believe the Old Man would use Muskrat Falls as his legacy. 

But to get back to the state of the world these days, note the fact that the childish anonymous comments don’t happen as often as they used to.  Once upon a time, not so very long ago, you could hardly read anything political without Hisself’s legion of anonymous arseholes – there is no polite word for them  - spewing their bile everywhere.

Not so any more.

And that is a very good sign that the political disease that once gripped this province is fading fast. Regardless of which party comes out on top in the fall, we will hopefully see some healthy political maturity.

So to Pam, good luck in the fall election.

And to Jack, fight hard knowing that you are in the thoughts and prayers of millions of Canadians.

There is always a reason for hope.

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* edit for sentence structure and readability

Where isn’t the democracy in that?

Robert Doyle spoke to reporters recently on behalf of some independent drug store owners in the province.
Doyle complained about a change to regulations for the provincial government’s prescription drug program that required a drug store owner to give 120 days notice before withdrawing from the program. CBC quoted Doyle:

Robert Doyle, spokesperson of the Independent Pharmacy Owners association, said the move seems a little heavy-handed.
"Pharmacies could have to go to court and if found guilty, up to a $2,000 fine and six months in jail. So he's looking at putting a criminal offence against pharmacy owners," Doyle said.
…
Where’s the democracy?

Where indeed.

There is nothing in any provincial law that forces drug stores to accept payment from the provincial prescription drug plan. Under section 16, a drug store can ask for a provider number and get one.

The drug stores had to decide to accept payment from the plan in the first place.

But that’s not all.

Under the regulations approved on July 25, drug stores can legally withdraw from the program without any penalty. All they have to do is give 120 days written notice, post a sign in the drug store and send out letters to any patients they’ve served within the past 12 months.  That might sound like a bit of work but given that the drug stores should have contact information on file, it isn't half as hard as it looks.

If they do all that then – on Day 121 -  they aren’t accepting direct payment any more.

Period.

But not exactly.

Under subsection 4 of the regulations, the minister can “waive or shorten” the notice period. Any drug store owner who is seriously pissed off enough that he or she doesn’t want to accept direct payment from the provincial drug program can easily write and ask the minister for the period to be shortened or suspended entirely.

In other words, anyone who wants out can get out today, right now, no waiting.

None of them will ask for a waiver.

None of them will issue the 120 day notice now required.

That’s because this dispute isn’t about democracy any more than it is about rural versus urban this or that.

It’s about money.

Everything else is nonsense.

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Follow the money

Anyone who wants to understand the current racket between the provincial government and some drug store owners need only follow the money.

It is the local version of something that started in Ontario in 2010. CBC has a decent background note that explains the issue.

And if you want to understand why the pharmacy owners caved in so quickly and abandoned their threat to stop accepting direct payment from the provincial government drug program?

Well, see if you can find out how much of their drug sales come from the provincial government’s drug programs for seniors and low income Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

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Turd Buffing

Russell Wangersky’s column on Tuesday discussed some of Nalcor’s efforts to deal with criticism of the Muskrat Falls project. He notes the company letters to the editor and interviews efforts are respectful and low key but…

The problem is, the letter-writers keep coming at the issue from different directions, barbarians storming the Nalcor castle from the front and back, above and beneath, and that leaves the Nalcor responses — “Muskrat Falls is the best of the two major options we considered” — looking stilted and formulaic.

Not only that, but as in many bureaucracies, it takes a while for Nalcor to respond. 

When it answers a letter-writer five days after the letter appeared in the paper, that’s a major rear-guard action. 

It’s not helped by the fact that the responses are seamless but remarkably similar — a variety of people write or respond on Nalcor’s behalf, and magically, they all sound exactly the same. 

The mantra’s getting stale. 

It’s not always on point, either.

That pretty much sums it up.

If Nalcor is having a problem with its public communications – and they are – the problem isn’t with the people in the corporate communications shop.  The public relations gang at Nalcor are among the most professional bunch you will find anywhere.  Your humble e-scribbler has known some of them for years and has gotten to know the others by firing off e-mails to ask questions about a bunch of different Nalcor projects. They know their stuff.
The problem is higher up the corporate food chain.

Take, for example, the idea that Muskrat Falls will double the price of electricity in the province. Your humble e-scribbler reached that conclusion early on by taking what then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said in an interview and doing a bit of simple math.

Her replacement called VOCM’s Open Line show on Tuesday to deny that, among other things. Shawn Skinner said simply that it wasn’t true.

And that was it.

He didn’t point to a brochure mailed out to every household.  Skinner didn’t point everyone to a website, nor did he say that anyone can find the rights of it somewhere else.

He just said that it wasn’t true.

Yep and the cheque’s in the mail, I’ll respect you in the morning, we never expropriated the Abitibi mill and I’m from Ottawa and I am here to help.

Take as another example the idea that Muskrat Falls is the lowest cost way of getting the electricity Nalcor says we will need within five years.  Never mind that the demand forecasts don’t say what they claim they say or that five years comes before Muskrat would come on the grid.

Nope.

Let's just look at the lowest cost claim.  Kathy Dunderdale, Shawn Skinner, Ed Martin and Nalcor veep Gil Bennett all say the same thing.  They are on message.

But they don’t produce a single shred of evidence to back the claim.

They either didn’t look for the lowest cost option  or they don't have the information [they claim they have];  that is, the information [they have] contradicts their claims.

Those are the only two reasons for not releasing even the teensiest shred of evidence to support two essential bits of the Muskrat Falls story.  They are the essential bits, just to be clear, because they affect consumers directly and they are key bits of Nalcor’s rationale for building the project:  it’s the cheapest and it will help keep your electricity prices down.

The technical term in the public relations community for a project like Muskrat Falls is turd.

As in you cannot buff a turd.  No matter what you do the thing will still be dull, ugly and smelly.

If you want to know why this thing is being rammed ahead at full speed despite the lack of convincing evidence to support building the enormous debt load on taxpayers, just consider what Fortis chief executive Stan Marshall said about projects involving government:

“Governments … their agenda can be very, very  different than a private enterprise.”

Muskrat Falls is not about providing low cost electricity to Newfoundlanders.  It isn’t about having electricity to sell at a profit to mainlanders. Nor is it about thumbing our collective nose at Quebec.  And it certainly is not about replacing the thermal generating plant at Holyrood.

Muskrat Falls is the crassest of crass, cynical political ploys. 

Danny Williams desperately needed  to leave politics saying that he had succeeded where everyone else had failed.

Williams spent five years desperately, secretly, trying to get Hydro-Quebec to take an ownership stake in the project.

No matter what he offered, they didn’t want it.

He flipped his lid.

He tried Emera.

They thought the price was too steep. They didn’t trust him.

So Williams sweetened the pot:  Newfoundlanders would carry the full cost, plus a guaranteed profit no matter what.  Nova Scotia would get electricity at a big discount plus Emera could get a piece of the transmission pie inside Newfoundland.

Emera couldn’t refuse.

Williams left.

His chosen successor took over.  Williams’ legacy now became the Tory bid for re-election.  Tons of pork to spread around now and maybe in one more election. Think of it as a giant pile of dog crap turd in a paper bag on Confederation Building’s front steps and set to burst into flames a decade from now, by the time people stomped out the flames, Dunderdale and her crowd would be long pensioned off to Florida.

You can’t buff a turd, but if you stick to the message track you can force other people scrape it off their shoes long after you are gone.

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Paternalism in Pictures

People are talking about fire trucks, paving and other forms of patronage doled out by the provincial Conservatives for Election 2011.

The always acidic labradore has it in pictures, over time.

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Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir

While some people may be excited about the fact that all three party leaders in the province are on Da Twitter, a close look at how political parties in newfoundland and Labrador are using, or not using social media, shows that there is a lot less here than meets the eye.

NTV aired two stories last week about social media and the upcoming provincial election.  Your humble e-scribbler is in both, along with local blogger and former candidate Stephen Eli Harris.  The first piece – here – started from the news that Kathy Dunderdale is the first Premier to use Twitter. The second one – here – built off the fact that the provincial government’s energy corporation is also using Twitter as part of its campaign to gain support for its Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Do a quick Internet search and you will find plenty of commentary and analysis on the Obama campaign and social media.  Some of the more interesting assessments compare how the republican and Democrat campaigns in 2008 differed.  The Republicans preached to the choir.  That is they used social media as a way of speaking to people who were already committed Republicans or who were leaning heavily that way.

The Democrats used social media as a way of tapping into a large pool of swing voters, alienated voters and independents. The used social media to draw potential voters to core materials and give them plenty of options to take action in support of the campaign.

Both strategies are built around the basic point that social media offer some pretty potent ways to reach voters who are now tuned in a great many places besides television, radio and the local newspaper.

In the upcoming provincial election, you will see that the Conservatives have a heavy Twitter presence. The New Democrats are using it and some Liberals have discovered that it exists.

The more important thing to notice is the content.  The Conservatives tend to spout their talking points or spit out meaningless pap about getting a haircut. The New Democrats tend to retweet campaign news from the party president or leader.  In short, they are packaged, plastic and preaching to the choir. 

One exception that stands out: Jerome Kennedy, with this tweet:

"the harmonies of new floods", "the thunder of insentient seas", "eternal pathways of fire"- E.J. Pratt's "Newfoundland". Required reading.

The dunderdale2011.ca website doesn’t have any sign of an effort to attract supporters, engage them and turn them into activists.  Sure, there’s a “Get Involved” button but it takes you to some sterile text:

There are many ways you can get involved in our Party.

In the lead-up to the general election campaign in October 2011, you may choose to volunteer with your local district association in support of your Progressive Conservative candidate.

You may wish to serve with Young Progressive Conservatives, the Progressive Conservative Women’s Caucus or the provincial campaign.

If you wish to get involved as a volunteer, please contact our Party office:  blah blah blah

This is not about pulling people in and turning them into activists.  This is a website about pushing information out, most likely to people who are already converts.  And if you think about it in light of the leadership controversy earlier this year,  that’s basically the way the party runs.

Ditto for  the NDP website.  For starters it’s just a sub-page from the national NDP site.  The buttons that look like ways to get involved are just e-mail forms to fill out so somebody can contact you later.  The Twitter button takes you to the leader’s feed.  As this is written on Monday evening, the last update was 24 hours earlier.

They’ve got a map of where they have candidates for the election.  That’s right above a list of nominated candidates:  14 as of July 25. The individual candidate web pages are pretty bare.  There’s not much there beyond some basic biographical information.

Ditto ditto the Liberal website.  it hasn’t been updated in a couple of months.  if you click the “where we stand” button you will find the party constitution.  No sign of a platform or policies. The news page is up-to-date with releases as recently as Monday. 

That’s the one clue on this website that there’s an election on.  There is a link to something called candidate nominations but it is a pdf of candidate profiles and pictures.  It’s out of date, to boot.

Of course, that’s pretty much consistent with political parties that aren’t interested in drawing in new supporters based on a platform aimed at voter interests.  As your humble e-scribbler noted for NTV, you are going to have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper between the parties on major issues. The one thing they will all have in common is a commitment to spend gobs of public cash:  pork is the priority. Likewise, for all parties – but especially the current incumbent Tories, it will be yet more  paternalism.

Local political parties all practice a form of defensive politics that involves a combination of preaching to the people they already have while repeating whatever it is the other guys have been doing that worked before.  The more aggressive forms of the defence – like the Tories in 2007 – also use heavy doses of Republican-style attack politics to suppress the opponents.  It can work spectacularly well.

Well, sort of.  The 2007 Tories won a landslide of seats but they actually didn’t get any more votes.  What they managed to do was demoralise the Liberals whose lacklustre campaign couldn’t draw anyone out.  The Liberal vote collapsed and that made it easy for the Tories to pick up seats.

But the Tories actually got fewer votes in 2007 than they did in 2003.

That isn’t what you may think if you only listened to the superficial media reports that did nothing more than repeat the intensive hype coming from the Tory camp.

The current Tory strategy is essentially a pledge for more of the same. For the campaign, that seems to mean yet more of the same but without the small-minded, vicious personal attacks that were Danny Williams’ stock in trade.

Other than that, there’s nothing really new in their campaign at all. Social media could let voters see real people and let that personality energise the campaign. Instead, they get some cross between Max Headroom and Johnny Cab.

Don’t be surprised if the parties have to struggle to get their voters to the polls.  The Tories are almost certain to face that problem. The other two parties don’t stand much of a chance at pulling new voters to their cause and they too will work to get the same people to the polls again.  Some individual campaigns might stand out but at the provincial level, the campaigns are pretty much brain dead.

And growth isn’t really what they are doing even if, as with the New Democrats, they are claiming that miracles are about to happen.  Consider that for all the hype, the Dippers only have 14 candidates in place.  That’s roughly the same number as the Liberals. None of them has a name or a profile outside of their own community or in some cases outside their own household.

For parties trying to take down an incumbent government, social media should be the tool of choice. What’s so interesting about the current election campaign and social media is that neither political party in the province is doing anything but using the new, revolutionary tools, to spit out more of the same old anti-revolutionary crap.

At this point, that’s the story of social media and the 2011 election.

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An endorsement that rings a little hollow

It is always funny listening to Cynthia Downy endorsing anyone for political office.  Not so long ago she was running for Stephen Harper and saying all the things about Stephen Harper she now says about Kathy Dunderdale.

The Politics of Perpetual Panic

Danny Williams’ legacy in Newfoundland and Labrador will be one thing:  the politics of panic. The old drama queen was always in a panic over something or other that was the gravest threat to something or other since the time of the last great upset to end all tirades.

Just like their role-model who seemed to spend almost every second of his seven years in office pissed-off, ticked-off or just plain old angry, the gaggle of politicians who came to office around him can’t function without something bunching their undies in the cracks of their arses.

His chosen successor, Kathy Dunderdale, is due the title of Chief Knicker Knotter.  Evidently running the Telly 10 caused the spandex to ride up Premier Kathy Dunderdale.  She could not wait to catch her breath after the race to let the world know that privatizing search and rescue service is just “not on.”

As the Telegram reported, Dunderdale told reporters that:

“As soon as I heard the speculation Ottawa might be considering that, we contacted the Prime Minister’s Office immediately and said again to them the health and safety is the number one priority in this province. It’s an issue to which we’re highly sensitive, we’re still very, very upset over the Marine Sub-Centre, and we’re not letting that go. So please do not exacerbate this any further.  And, before you have any consideration at all about changing the way you do this business, you come to Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and you talk to the people involved in this industry before you take any moves whatsoever.”

Leaping is not confined to one particular political stripe.

Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms spent a bunch of time late last week telling any reporter who would listen that any move to privatize search and rescue would mean the death of gander and the squadron there.

Not to be outdone, Bloc NDP defence critic Jack Harris said that search and rescue is a core defence function.  He would defend the virtue of the sainted men and women of the Canadian Forces.  Too bad that Harris spent time after the Cougar 491 tragedy trying to pin responsibility for the deaths on 103 Squadron in Gander.  “Off-station” they were, according to Harris even though that – even at the time – completely false. 

And when most people caught onto his initial bullshite, Harris shifted to another bunch of foolishness about response times.

By now, savvy readers picked up the key word in Dunderdale’s warning. 

Go back and read it again if you need to.

Right there at the beginning.

“Speculation.”

Yes.

Speculation.

You see, this all started from a story about the federal government’s ongoing struggle to find a replacement for the 40 year old Buffalo aircraft that fly in western Canada long after they should have been retired. In that context, National Defence wants to discuss all options, including contracting out instead of purchasing and operating the aircraft themselves:

The Conservative plan to purchase new fixed-wing search-and-rescue planes has been stalled for years. The government is now trying to kick-start the program, which is estimated to cost $3 billion.

On Wednesday, the government informed companies that it would hold consultations on the project.

The session will include discussion on potential procurement approaches for a fixed-wing search-and-rescue project, including Alternate Service Delivery options, the government noted in its message to companies.

All we have is speculation.

Supposition.

Imagination.

There’s nothing concrete.

And yes politicians from Kathy Dunderdale to Jack Harris are attacking the speculation with everything they’ve got.

Only morons react to speculation.  That used to be one of the first things they taught you in politician school. 

After all, if people like Jack Harris knew anything about search and rescue themselves (Hint:  he knows jack], they would at least consider the possibility that contracting out for fixed wing search and rescue support could actually improve search and rescue service in the country.

Maybe contracted fixed-wing SAR flights coupled with military SAR helicopters would give better coverage at the same overall cost. Maybe, contracting out a bit of the work would let the federal government expand the number of fixed wing SAR aircraft such that the east coast would get dedicated SAR aircraft.  Right now, Hercules based on Greenwood do SAR in addition to doing transport duties.  That’s far from ideal.

Incidentally, your humble e-scribbler discussed some ideas for improving SAR in 2009 when the ghouls and panic puppies were working themselves into a lather about this on another occasion.

But notice that in that sentence about considering, your humble e-scribbler used the “could”.  Conditional language.  That’s because without knowing for sure what the cost and other implications might be,  there’s no way of knowing whether contracting out search and rescue would be good or bad.

And maybe, as the Ottawa Citizen story notes, the air force folks will raise enough of a stink themselves that this idea will die quietly. The again , they might go along with it.

After all a whole bunch of people got their knickers in a bunch almost 30 years ago when the Canadian Forces retired the old Tracker aircraft.  The federal fisheries department contracted out the surveillance flights and got better coverage with a new aircraft.  Meanwhile, the Canadian Forces continued to patrol offshore.  The two work quite well together with the military concentrating on Canada’s military security needs while fisheries looks after the civilian things.

SAR is a lot like that, actually.  It’s a civilian thing that should be handled, at the very least,  by the coast guard not the military. Farming it out to the private sector might not be a bad idea, if it improves the service  - shorter launch  times there Jack Harris? - without increasing costs.

Might even be better if the service came from a company based in Newfoundland and Labrador.  Maybe Jack Harris should check with the folks at Provincial Aerospace.  After all, they operate from his own riding.

Of course, folks like defence critic Jack Harris should know that.

He and his ilk don’t care about those sorts of issues because, like other politicians of the Danny Williams era, it is more important to be in a perpetual panic than to know what is actually going on.

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Nalcor ignores natural gas, local studies back cheaper alternative to Muskrat Falls project

The provincial government’s energy corporation didn’t study natural gas as an alternative to using Muskrat Falls to replace the Holyrood generating plant according to the company’s final written submission to the environmental panel reviewing the project.

Nalcor dismissed natural gas as “purely hypothetical” since the major oil companies have not identified a “viable business case” (p. 20). The company cited testimony given to the environmental panel to justify its decision.

But information given to the panel in testimony at a hearing into the project in St. John’s on August 4 didn’t come from the major offshore companies.  Some of the information came as hearsay comments from two private consultants interested in developing a natural gas storage facility near Stephenville and from Nalcor’s own vice president Gilbert Bennett.

Neither Bennett nor the consultants could cite specific information.  Neither told the panel, either,  that assessing development of offshore natural gas is hampered because the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador still hasn’t developed a natural gas royalty regime, despite commitments to do so in 1997 and again in the provincial energy plan issued in 2007.

That’s the same plan that committed the provincial government to developing the Lower Churchill.

The other source Nalcor cited to dismiss natural gas is testimony by NOIA president Bob Cadigan at the same April hearing. 

The panel was interested in the prospect of using natural gas from the offshore just for Holyrood and not for export. And when asked by the environmental assessment panel for specifics on a natural gas development, Cadigan didn’t have any information about the viability of natural gas as a replacement for Muskrat Falls of any sort. 

Instead, he relied on the project proponents and their assessments:

And in terms of that feasibility,  I think -- you know, I believe that the province and Nalcor have looked at a global -- from a global  perspective or high level at the opportunities available, and I would be surprised if it was an economically viable source to replace electric 18 generation from Holyrood [p. 141]

NOIA is comprised of supply and service companies for which Muskrat Falls represents a very lucrative business opportunity.

What none of the project boosters talked about were studies done within the past decade on offshore gas development.

A 2005 discussion paper prepared for NOIA by Dr. Stephen Bruneau looked at six options for getting additional electricity for the island grid. Bruneau concluded that development of only 60% of the known gas reserves at Hibernia, White Rose and Terra Nova would give enough natural gas to power a Holyrood size generating plant at full capacity, 365 days a year for over a century.  That would displace 500,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Bruneau estimated the cost of a pipeline to bring the gas ashore to be $300 million. Another $400 million would build a natural gas generating plant, with another $112.5 million needed to build a short on-land pipeline and build natural gas handling facilities at sea.  Total cost would be less than $1.0 billion.

Nalcor estimates the Muskrat Falls project will cost  at least $6.2 billion, with the resulting electricity costs at least 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour.

In contrast, Bruneau estimated the cost of electricity from a Holyrood natural gas plant at five cents a kilowatt hour.  Surplus gas could be converted to liquid natural gas and stored, according to Bruneau, or exported to the American market:

Associated gas transferred to the Island via pipeline is economical and is a wise choice for Newfoundland and Labrador energy strategy. It
will result in lower electricity prices, improved environmental stewardship, will attract major industry including LNG export opportunities, and, is economical to begin IMMEDIATELY.

Bruneau’s conclusions are supported by a 2001 study for the provincial energy department that looked at the feasibility of piping natural gas and gas liquids from the offshore using a pipeline. That study concluded, among other things, that the resources examined by the study could be developed economically even in a low price environment.

 

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Rumpole and Food for Thought

The Mighty Ceeb is at it again with another story that distorts the information they started with.

“Severe crime soaring in N.L.” screams the website headline. The second paragraph:

Statistics Canada reported that while reports of crime across the country are declining, Newfoundland and Labrador reported significant increases in crime. Violent crime in the province was up by 13 per cent in 2010, and up by 29 per cent in St. John's, the most significant increase in any Canadian city.

But wait.

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary chief Bob Johnson points out that two murders in the capital region compared to none the year before will skew the statistics if that’s all you count on.

Some might blame Stats Can.

Nice try, but take a look at the table and see the numbers.

Sure the province went up on the combined set of measures Statistics Canada calls an index. But the province is still below the national average.  The violent crime severity index at 70.2 is lower than larger provinces and less than half the numbers for Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Here’s the original Stat Can table.  Click on it and you should get a larger version:

Stat Can issues regular news releases on crime statistics.  As such, anyone using the figures can make easy comparisons rather than just rely on the year over year change Statistics Canada used this time. you can find the crime severity index for Nl for 2007, for example:  61.8. 

At the end of a simple search and few comparisons and you can see Chief Johnson is pretty much spot on.  And in relative terms, the provincial score on these crime indices is below the national average and significantly better than in other parts of Canada.

Consider, too, that these figures don’t look at the rate of solved crimes.  That is, there’s no measurement here of how many of these crimes didn’t wind up with an arrest and/or conviction.   When miscreants can get away with their crime, odds are – one would suspect – that crime becomes attractive.

And if that doesn’t persuade, consider these words rom the police chief.  They are an accurate reflection of reality in the province’s booming capital city:

Johnston pointed out that in the case of the murders, the victims and the people charged knew each other. Apart from convenience store clerks, most citizens of St. John's — and Newfoundland and Labrador — are not likely to encounter serious or violent crimes close up.

"Even though the numbers are going up, violent crime in St. John's hasn't been spilling out into the streets where ordinary people, innocent bystanders, would be affected," said Johnston.

None of that is reflected in the CBC’s headline.

But then again, if it didn’t bleed, it wouldn’t lead.

If it bleeds, it leads?  Now where did you last hear that line used as a criticism of a media outlet?

Hmmm.

Food for thought.

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The Politics of Public Spending

Check the local media for the past week and you’ll see a sudden bunch of stories about the series of fire truck announcements provincial politicians of the Tory persuasion are making across the province.

Voice of the Cabinet Minister’s got one.

CBC’s got one.

Apparently there have been 19 announcements or unveilings of new fire trucks, with three more to come.

Municipal affairs minister Fairity O’Brien insists this is just routine stuff and has nothing to do with the provincial election coming in October.

Now ordinarily that would be such a nose puller of a line that one would involuntarily scream “bullshit” at the top of one’s lungs. 

Except that it is Fairity O’Brien. 

In fairitiness to Fairity, the guy who probably can’t remember the name of the  district St. Anthony is in and who bullshitted about planning and emergency response likely does not know that what he said about the fire truck and the truth are two different things.

So let’s just say he has a particularly virulent case of pinochiosis.

And that he’s more full of shite than usual on top of that, besides.

The announcements are all about politics and the upcoming election.  Even Fairity knows it.  As Geoff Meeker pointed out, here’s what Fairity said in his rambling answer to a question on an open line call-in show about the pork announcements.  After denying they were political, O’Brien said:

okay, so the question here in my district is, and I am only speaking for myself, do you want four more years of what you’ve just experienced in the last eight, or do you want to sit in the Opposition, or whatever it may be…

Now sending such an incredibly weak minister as O’Brien out to defend blatant pork-barrel politics is a sign of arrogance or cynicism.  Take your pick which it is; either way is bad.

O’Brien threat, however is one thing:  stupid.  Were Fairity and his colleagues to punish a district for voting for an opposition member, they would only be cutting their own political throats. Ask the Tories from the 1980s what that sort of political extortion netted them. 

Better yet, ask the Tories on the Great Northern Peninsula what even the mere perception of a political vendetta – the air ambulance decision – has netted them since the Tories lost the Straits and White Bay North by-election.

Not much of any good would come back the answer.

If Kathy Dunderdale wanted to send a stupid message to voters about patronage and voting, then she evidently picked the right fellow.  Fairity O’Brien did a fine job for her.

The Tories might have a bigger problem.  They might be faced with an electorate that knows full well this is all about pork and that realises they win pork no matter what way they vote. He who lives by the hock might wind up dying by the hock, so to speak.

All three political parties in the province will be running campaigns this fall built around delivering ever increasing amounts of pork in exchange for votes.  All three political parties agree that the provincial economy is going gangbusters.  So basically there’d be no legitimate reason to justify cutting back any spending.

The choice for voters this fall is not between fire trucks and no fire trucks. It is over how many fire trucks they want. 

Or a search and rescue centre.

Or an offshore supply base.

If you want to see naked electoral pork-barrelling in action, don’t look at fire trucks.

That’s old hat.  The first election fire truck announcements came in 2007.

Look instead at Bay Bulls.

The provincial and federal governments held separate announcements this week to give cash to the same project.  They held separate announcements so the provincial minister – in trouble in his own district – could get some free advertising for himself without the original tree hugging federal cabinet minister horning in.

Federal cash of $1.0 million for an expansion to Pennecon’s offshore supply base at Bay Bulls met the investment criteria for a provincial program.  Now the province will kick another half million.

$1.5 million in public money for a project estimated to cost no more than $2.1 million in total.

The job haul? 

Maybe 15. 

$100,000 per job.

The Tories hand out millions of taxpayer dollars to private businesses, often free of charge  The Newfoundland and Labrador NDP want to give Nova Scotians a free university education. The Liberals and the New Democrats want to give rich people in the province a break on their Hummer fill-ups and cut the cost of heating their luxury homes. Next thing you know the Liberals will resurrect that God-forsaken Stunnel idea just to mark themselves as the stupidest of stupid political parties.

But seriously: the Tories ran in 2007 on the argument that the Liberals would bankrupt the province by spending like drunken sailors.

They simply can’t make the argument any more. No one will believe it is possible to bankrupt the place after Fairity and his buddies spent the last four years spending on anything and everything imaginable.  And they really will find it hard to accept that money is tight if every political party in the province wants to double electricity rates in the province and double the public debt at the same time through this insane Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Happy days are indeed here again, b’ys.

The only thing missing is the Fonz.

Now that you are squirming a bit, think about what might happen if at the same time people had three parties offering variations on a pork-flavoured platform, they also realised that neither of the leaders would be in their jobs four years from now.

And then wonder what all that might mean in an election where there is nothing to chose from and turn-out might drop by 20%, mostly consisting of Tory voters.

After all, that’s what happened in 2007.  Liberal vote collapsed.  Tory vote declined and the same New Democrats turned out in 2007 that had turned out in 2003.

It could give new meaning to the politics of public spending.

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Traffic in the heat of the Summer of Love 2011

Fire trucks, Twitter and a 60 year old who dropped a hundred pounds in six months wanting a job today she didn’t want six months ago.

Must be the Summer of Love 2011.

All that is fodder for another post.  For now let’s just check out the 10 stories most Bond Papers readers were pondering last week.

1. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians;  NL NDP leader
2. Like Momma always said…Part Deux und Trois
3. From the Earth to the moon
4. And Harry won’t be running either
5. Rumpole and the Cardinal Rule
6. Nurturing a democratic revolution
7. Bullshit then or now?  Nalcor boss changes story on Muskrat megadebt project and natural gas
8. Making the Most of our Energy Resources – Oil and Gas in the Future
9. Former Tory fin min not giving up fight against Muskrat
10. Containing Ottawa’s Skyrocketing Power Bill

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Containing Ottawa’s Skyrocketing Power Bill

by Tom Adams and Brian Lee Crowley

[Note:  the authors prepared the following commentary to coincide with the recent energy ministers meeting.  It has appeared in other publications across the country.]

Federal taxpayers are exposed to an explosion of liabilities to fund provincial electricity misadventures, the worst of which are undermining Canada’s international trading reputation. A federal-provincial energy conference in Kananaskis, Alberta running until July 19th threatens to up the ante.

Last week, Texas energy titan T. Boone Pickens launched a $775-million
NAFTA challenge alleging the Ontario government has discriminated against his privately owned wind energy company. Pickens is demanding that the federal government pay up.

The federal government is also defending protectionist elements of Ontario’s controversial Green Energy Act against a challenge Japan has launched with the support of the United States and European Union at the World Trade Organization.

Ontario is not the only province with electricity initiatives undermining Canada’s trading reputation and sending the bill to Ottawa.

Last August, a NAFTA dispute panel obliged federal taxpayers to pay the industrial firm Abitibi-Bowater $130 million after the government of Newfoundland and Labrador confiscated electricity generation assets. Far from holding the Newfoundland government responsible for shafting federal taxpayers, Prime Minister Stephen Harper instead promised loan guarantees for submarine transmission connections
required by a Labrador power megaproject with very dubious economics.

With the subsidy offer, Harper effectively rewarded Newfoundland’s government and further impaired Canada’s trade reputation in an unsuccessful bid to win seats on the Rock (although the Conservatives did pick up a seat in Labrador).

Newfoundland justifies its power scheme on the basis that provincial power costs are going to soar anyway, eventually making pricey Labrador power relatively cheap by comparison. Most of the new Labrador power, however, is earmarked for the Maritimes and potentially New England. Unlike Newfoundland, those markets have access to North America’s glut of natural gas, a key factor driving down average power rates across the U.S.

Any subsidies to Labrador power are likely to attract yet more trade complaints from generators in New England, particularly those now selling significant amounts of power into the Maritimes. International competitors of export industries in Atlantic Canada may also complain.

The Newfoundland government estimates that a federal subsidy for the Labrador power project in the form of a loan guarantee will cut local power costs by 6 or 7 per cent. Likely cost over-runs could push the value of the federal guarantee much higher.

The Kananaskis meeting provides a platform for provincial governments and lobby groups to push the federal government deeper into provincial electricity matters. Many, including the governments of Ontario and Newfoundland & Labrador, have demanded federal subsidies to interprovincial transmission projects. Ontario also demands federal subsidies for its nuclear expansion ambitions.

The federal track record in the electricity business is dubious, as illustrated by its recent cut-the-losses exit from nuclear power development and marketing. Even if the federal record in the electricity business was solid, using the federal spending power to buy its way into provincial energy affairs now will annoy our trading partners, promote inefficiency and create jurisdictional confusion.

The federal government should focus its electricity sector involvement first on its core constitutional responsibility for interprovincial trade and commerce. The best way to make Labrador power truly competitive against abundant natural gas is to avoid hugely expensive long distance submarine transmission and to instead achieve the best possible economies of scale with more affordable transmission over land.

To reach markets in Ontario or the U.S. Northeast, Labrador power must transit Quebec, which has its own electricity export ambitions. If those provinces cannot negotiate a mutually agreeable solution, the federal government should act to ensure the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of interprovincial trade. Ontario and Newfoundland should not require Quebec’s approval to move electricity any more than Alberta needs Saskatchewan’s permission to move natural gas to Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

Naturally, Quebec does not welcome another big hydro-power competitor, particularly while market prices are low. However, to maintain its access to electricity markets in the United States, Quebec already accepts the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s non-negotiable rules compelling them to open their market to electricity imports. The constitutional powers that the U.S. relies upon to promote highly successful inter-state trading are similar to our own federal
government’s constitutional authority, which Ottawa has always been reluctant to exercise in the electricity sector.

Canadians too should be entitled to an open national electricity system, where no province can hold its neighbours hostage and Canadians can buy and sell power freely. The federal government should keep federal tax dollars out of the electricity sector. Any subsidies to the sector create unfairness to taxpayers across the county and harm Canada's trading reputation, vital to our long term economic interests. Instead Ottawa should use its legitimate powers to create an open national electricity market that treats everyone transparently and fairly.

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Tom Adams is an independent energy and environmental advisor. He has held a variety of senior responsibilities including Executive Director of Energy Probe from 1996 until September 2007, membership on the Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator Board of Directors, and membership on the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Energy Board of Management. His guest columns have appeared in many major Canadian newspapers. He has been a media commentator for 20 years and a lecturer in energy studies at University of Toronto. He has presented expert testimony before many regulatory tribunals in Canada on a wide variety of energy subjects. He has made presentations to Legislative Committees in Ontario and New Brunswick, academic, regulatory and trade conferences, the Atomic Energy Control Board, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Brian Lee Crowley has headed up the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) in Ottawa since its inception in March of 2010, but he has a long and distinguished record in the think tank world. He was the founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) in Halifax, one of the country’s leading regional think tanks. He is a former Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC and is a Senior Fellow at the Galen Institute in Washington. In addition, he advises several think tanks in Canada, France and Nigeria.

Crowley’s published numerous books include two bestsellers: Fearful Symmetry: the fall and rise of Canada’s founding values (2009) and MLI’s first book, The Canadian Century; Moving Out of America’s Shadow, which he co-authored with Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis.

Crowley twice won the Sir Antony Fisher Award for excellence in think tank publications. From 2006-08 Crowley was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist with the federal Department of Finance. He has also headed the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), taught politics, economics and philosophy at various universities in Canada and Europe.

Crowley is a frequent commentator on political and economic issues across all media. He holds degrees from McGill and the London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the latter.

Bullshit then or now? Nalcor boss changes story on natural gas and Muskrat megadebt project

Ed Martin dismisses the idea that natural gas might be a sensible replacement for burning Bunker C at Holyrood.

Here’s the whole story from VOCM in the event they disappear it:

Nalcor has considered - and rejected - the use of liquefied natural gas at the Holyrood generating station as an alternative to Bunker C oil. Because of the current and projected cost of oil, Newfoundland and Labrador's energy corporation has decided to develop Muskrat Falls hydroelectric power on the Lower Churchill River.

Nalcor CEO Ed Martin, speaking on VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms on Tuesday, said the corporation would have to construct a plant to liquefy the natural gas, which is a very costly venture. The other alternative is to tap in to the international market for natural gas and have tankers, which are supplying markets abroad, offload material for Holyrood.

But from the that was then, this is now file, Martin didn’t always think that way.

A mere seven months ago, Martin sang a very different tune.

Back then, turning natural gas to electricity was one of the great opportunities that lay in building a line from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia. The Telegram covered Martin’s speech to the Board of Trade

Many of those opportunities flow from the Maritime link connecting the island portion of the province with the rest of the North American electrical grid.

One example: the possibility of generating electricity from natural gas, also known as gas-to-wire. It’s also an alternative to building pipelines to export natural gas.

So the question is:  was Ed Martin bullshitting in December or is he bullshitting now?

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