Summer Polling Month Top 10

The weather may have been da pits but this was the sweatiest Summer of Love pre-election poll goosing month in recent Conservative Party history.

And if it wasn’t the steam coming off the overheated Tory news torquing machine it was the sweating in Liberal circles as one leader left and another arrived.

Along the way, the province got its first story where the reporter admitted he “broke” the story from a bar stool. 

Not surprisingly, that story wound up inspiring what became the top post here at Ye Olde Scribble Pile for the month of August.

Very much a surprise was the number two story. It is the tags “Soper Inquiry”, a series of posts that contain the first report by Judge Lloyd Soper in his 1979 inquiry into the leak of police reports into a fire at Elizabeth Towers.

One of the leading figures* in the inquiry – and the leaks – has a new book out, incidentally.  No word on whether he is offering Lysianne Gagnon a cut of the sales given that one of the columns in it seems curiously similar to Gagnon’s column on the first volume of a biography of Pierre Trudeau.  Your humble e-scribbler point out the similarities in 2006 in another post that was popular at the time.

Another surprise is the third place story for the month.  As part of the changed layout, your humble e-scribbler crated a page about the blog itself.  A lot of people found that interesting.

The rest of the top posts are predictable bag of political stuff from the Liberal leadership to Muskrat Falls.

1. If Rick Hillier really runs for the Liberal leadership…
2. Soper Inquiry
3. About SRBP
4. Sun TV/Fox News wannabe?  VOCM hits new low
5. NDP avoids straight answer on Muskrat Falls
6. The continued taberization of political reporting in Canada
7. Westcott packs it in
8. Changing the game
9. Court docket now online
10. Bloc NDP MP backs Tory Premier Dunderdale

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*Add word eaten by wonky Microsoft software

Jay Rosen on Political Reporting

The problem with horse-race reporting and an alternative approach.

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NL ratepayers to carry full cost of Muskrat Falls plus more #nlpoli

If there is anyone left who doesn’t understand who will pay for Muskrat Falls, let him or her read the joint review panel report:

The Panel notes that the main driver for the Muskrat Falls projected cash flow provided to the Panel comes from Nalcor’s projected Island domestic rates that continue to escalate by two percent per annum even after Project debt payout. There are also questions about the regulatory treatment of Muskrat Falls by the provincial Government and the Public Utilities Board. It is not clear how much of the overall Muskrat Falls cost would be permitted to be passed on to the Newfoundland rate payer and what the implications are for the ability of Muskrat Falls to generate a long-term revenue stream for the Province. [ Emphasis added p. 24]

If you use electricity in Newfoundland and Labrador, you will pay the entire cost of Muskrat Falls and its transmission lines to the island and tidy “return on equity” that actually will exceed the original forecast.

Not bad at all, if you aren’t one of the people who will be forced to pay for the project.

 

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Political Reporting 2011

As we slide into the fall general election’s open campaign period, some of you might find it interesting to ponder Jay Rosen’s recent post about the current state of political reporting in the United States and Australia.

This is more a thought post than anything else.  Your humble e-scribbler started chewing over some observations about politics and political reporting a while ago.  The ideas are still swirling around and sometimes it is useful to just post them as part of a thought-exercise in progress.

Rosen is a journalism prof at New York University.  He’s been blogging since 2003 about journalism, so yes, folks that makes him a very early adopter of the form.

Political reporting is off track, Rosen argues.

So this is my theme tonight: how did we get to the point where it seems entirely natural for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to describe political journalists appearing on its air as “the insiders?”  Don’t you think that’s a little strange? I do. Promoting journalists as insiders in front of the outsiders, the viewers, the electorate…. this is a clue to what’s broken about political coverage in the U.S. and Australia. Here’s how I would summarize it: Things are out of alignment. Journalists are identifying with the wrong people. Therefore the kind of work they are doing is not as useful as we need it to be.

Rather than suffer through a short-hand version of Rosen’s post, take a second a go read it for yourself.  It isn’t very long and Rosen does makes his points rather neatly.  If you’ve got the time, wander through some of the links he offers up at the end.

There are a bunch of ideas running through Rosen’s post and the links.

There are the three ideas Rosen holds as part of the problem he sees in current political reporting:

1. Politics as an inside game.

2. The cult of savviness.

3. The production of innocence.

Politics is an inside game and some reporters present themselves as insiders – as savvy – and as people who can get inside the deepest recesses of political campaigns and bring audiences an informed, accurate and detailed discussion about the strategy and tactics.

Interesting concept.

Except that, with very few exceptions nationally and none locally, the reporters can never get inside, have never been inside. 

They only know what people who genuinely are inside will tell them. 

And given that none of the reporters have ever been inside a political campaign as a campaign participant, they can’t authoritatively discuss what is going on authoritatively based on experience..

And yet some reporters do it.

At the same time, the same reporters will insist they are merely observers who have no stake, or role in the politics and political process at all. 

That’s the innocence Rosen talks about.

Now Rosen has his own conclusions about how journalism ought to be done.  That’s all fine and good.

What savvy news consumers reading this might want to think about is that how the news gets reported to them can affect their perceptions about the political process generally and about the particular campaign.

While reporters are discussing strategies, tactics, how many candidates have been nominated or about a particular parties debt problems, there might well be other things they aren’t reporting.  Those other things could be as important or even more important to public perceptions of the campaign.

Rosen also offers a little graphic representation people can use to plot reporting.

And the way Rosen describes the four sectors:

Bottom left: Appearances rendered as fact. Example: the media stunt.

Top left: Phony arguments. Manufactured controversies. Sideshows.

Bottom right: Today’s new realities: get the facts. The actual news of politics.

Top right. Real arguments: Debates, legitimate controversies, important speeches.

Here’s one example from the local political scene to get you started.

Manufactured controversies:  Danny Williams and Quebec.  That one pretty much screams contrivance, right down to the complete misrepresentation of what the Quebec energy regulatory decided on Nalcor’s wheeling application and what the wheeling application was all about.

What would you put in the other sectors?

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Random Post in Latin: People Called Romans, They Go the House

 

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Uniting the Left: a reminder

So with the Liberal meeting in Ottawa, the idea of uniting the left is coming back around again.

Not surprisingly, Liberal leader Bob rare is pissing on the idea.
Now Bob’s reasoning may be somewhat different than the one your humble e-scribbler offered last June but the point still holds up:

Meanwhile over on the left, the New Democrats united with the other left wing party – the Bloc – and became the official opposition. Now they’ll basically face the same sort of question the Conservatives already addressed.  There’s no guarantee how they’ll answer it nor is there a correct answer.

… 

Do they head toward the centre, as other successful left-wing parties have done, or will they continue to embrace their ideological base and potentially kiss power good bye? 

Put another way:  Is Jack Layton going to emulate Tony Blair or Michael Foot?

And that’s really the point.  The left wing in the country is already united.  The Bloc and the NDP merged even if the Blocists weren’t willing partners to the political marriage.

Put another way, the Bloc NDP essentially pulls together the ideological left in the country.  At the same time, the NDP is well on its way to morphing from being a national party with representation in all the regions of the country to a party representing regional interests nationally.

Meanwhile, the Liberals remain a coalition party that has, historically, shifted ideologically from the centre left to centre right based on the dominant trends in the country.

So if Denis Coderre wants to frig off to join the Bloc NDP, he can certainly go ahead.

But since the ideological left is already united, why would the Liberals – a federalist party of the political centre that long ago rejected reactionary politics of the left and right – ever want to join with the Dippers or the Connies, for that matter?

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*  edit to eliminate repetition.

Muskrat Falls: lost opportunity

 

The claim: 

Nalcor stated in its final submission to the Panel that without the Project the Province would lose an opportunity to create long-term revenue to fund social programs. [Joint Review Panel, final report, Page 18]*

The reality:

Further, Nalcor indicated at the hearing, … that the shareholder [i.e. the provincial government] might forgo dividends so that not much of a revenue stream is expected from Muskrat Falls for distribution. [Page 24, Emphasis added]

The only ways the provincial government can make any money from Muskrat Falls is if it takes dividends from Nalcor, if it claims rent from the water lease, or if it taxes electricity production.

The provincial doesn’t take dividends from Nalcor at the moment.  Odds are it won’t if the provincial government carries on with the Muskrat Falls project.

So far there are no plans for electricity taxes.

And while the details of the water lease aren’t public, the provincial government could also simply let Nalcor have the water rights with a very small rental charge, if it imposes any rental at all.

So how – exactly – will Muskrat Falls create “long-term revenue to fund social programs”?

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Note:  the full report doesn’t appear to be online. The executive summary is available for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

*  Update:  The full report is online.  No fewer than three e-mails (including one comment) gave the link.

Dead Robots in Heat

So the old poll goosing habit dies hard.

There’s the robot poll goosing of the Question of the Day at Voice of the Cabinet Minister. Think about it:  such a habit, they’ve now automated the process.

And in its editorial on the last Monday in August, the Telegram editorialist reminds us all of another old poll goosing habit the provincial Conservatives have:

Cheers: to numbers and money. Maybe you like Lotto 6-49 or LottoMax. Here’s a set of monied numbers for you to choose from: 29, 30, 39, 23, 19, 32 and 43. Those are the weekly numbers of funding announcements (and announcements of pending funding announcements) made by the provincial government as it staggers along under the weight of its campaign cash backpack. This past week has marked the heaviest handouts to date, with money for everything from turbot to rock-climbing to airline subsidies. Premier Kathy Dunderdale pointed out recently that past governments made announcements right up to the start of the official campaign. “I’m not going to do that,” Dunderdale told reporters. “By the end of the month, these announcements will conclude.” Nice to know there is a scheduled end to the non-pre-election spending program.

Yes, friends, the government’s pollster is in the field in August and so it is time for the quarterly gush of money announcements all in an effort to ensure the governing Tories’ polling numbers stay up.

The intensity of the activity this summer, though, stands out.  It stands out because they Tories seem to be trying to prop up the last media poll before the fall election.  The party has been having an especially bad time since Danny Williams left them unexpectedly – and rather hurriedly – last December.

Kathy Dunderdale’s popularity numbers are low. They are slow low and the trending is such that any further drop would really start to shift public perceptions of the election outcome in October.  They might not be quite so willing to accept that the ruling Tories are guaranteed of a majority if Dunderdale’s numbers in August continue the downward slide.

The media might not be able to ignore the trending.

You see, even aside from the year long trending downward for the Tory polling numbers, the change in Liberal leader, the disastrous Muskrat Falls review report and/or or the orgy of coverage of Jack Layton’s funeral might cause a shift of its own.

Get that story  - that Dunderale is in trouble - running around in September and see what happens. That prospect likely frightens the living crap out of the Tory party campaign managers.

Heck, it would frighten any political insider no matter what the party.

And it will definitely scare the crap out of Kathy Dunderdale.  Her length of time as Premier is inversely proportional to the number of seats she loses in October.  The fewer she loses, the longer she can stay.

If she drops below 34 seats in total  – the magic number for some local politicos – you can expect Dunderdale to go within 18 months.

With that on the line, there’s no wonder that the Tory party poll goosing efforts are in some sort of manic overdrive this month.

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Rumpole and the Black Letter

Local barrister Averill Baker is threatening to sue the Crown prosecutors for persecution based on their recent application to have her tossed off a case for being in a conflict of interest.

The nature of the conflict of interest is complicated.  There may be much the public doesn’t know from court documents that earlier were sealed.

Ms. AB once represented the victim in a break-in her late client was alleged to have conducted.  In the course of the break-in and attempted robbery is alleged to have shot one of his alleged co-conspirators.

A conflict of another sort apparently broke out in the court room when the lawyers and the accused got together to hear the judge’s decision on the conflict of interest.

The accused, Philip Pynn, kept trying to interject.  The judge ordered him to clam up and when he didn’t, reminded the young fellow he could have the Sherriff’s officers gag him.

Bit extreme, but not something judges are known to do for people who aren’t disrupting proceedings.

In any event, the judge told Ms. AB she had to stand aside.

Ms. AB found it all troubling.  As CBC reports,

"This is a sad day," Baker said.

"I have lost one of my most important clients, as I say, he's been with our firm since 2005, and we were the victims of an attack by the Crown," said Baker.

One might think so.

Think that way, that is, unless one was familiar – as Ms. AB ought to be – with the way the courts have ruled on the business of conflict of interest.

The court standard is laid down in the decision on an application in R v. Brissett.

The Crown applies for a disqualifying order, on account of alleged conflict of interest, removing the Defendant’s two solicitors of record from defending him on charges of the first degree murder of Demar Ranglin and the attempted murder of Joseph Cunningham.  No date has been scheduled for the trial.

To this point, Mr. Brissett has been represented by Mr. Stephen Bernstein and Mr. David McComb.  The prosecution submits that because Mr. McComb previously acted as counsel for Mr. Cunningham, his current counsel, both of whom practice in the same law firm, are in a conflict of interest position in purporting to defend Mr. Brissett in a trial where Mr. Cunningham is not only a principal Crown witness but also an alleged victim of one of the crimes charged.

As it turned out, the firm acted for the fellow so long ago that neither of the two partners could recall it.  But that’s as maybe, as far as the courts are concerned.

The court laid out the principles succinctly.

First,  there was the matter of the timing of the application.  The Crown must raise the conflict issue as soon as possible.  Incidentally, in the case with Ms. AB, they did so almost immediately after laying the charges against Pynn.

Second, was conflict and the duty of loyalty to the client.  That’s essentially the nub of the problem:  one cannot serve two interests simultaneously.

Third, there’s the duty to preserve client confidences.

Fourth, the duty of confidence continues – as the lawyers put it – after the retainer ends.

Fifth, the right to counsel of choice is not absolute. in other words, you don’t always get the lawyer you want, especially if he or she must be disqualified.

After going though the details of the case, the judgment posed a simple set of questions.

[75]…Would a fully informed reasonable observer seeing these circumstances of successive representation perceive any or all of the following:

(1) a realistic risk or possibility that confidential information secured by the law firm in its retainer by Cunningham would be used in the attempt to discredit Cunningham in Mr. Brissett’s trial?

(2) that Cunningham would likely hold the belief that a cross-examiner from the law firm which previously represented him was in a position to challenge aspects of his testimony based on knowledge originating in prior confidential communications made as a client of the firm?

(3) that Cunningham would be more likely to agree with leading questions and suggestions by a cross-examiner from the law firm that had represented him as a client for fear of disclosure of some confidential information divulged to the law firm when a client?

(4) that a lawyer from the firm which had Cunningham as a prior client might be less effective aggressively cross-examining Cunningham on behalf of Mr. Brissett on account of undue caution relating to the apparent use of confidential information previously obtained from the witness/prior client?

[76]     In my view, a reasonable member of the public would, on the record here, answer these questions affirmatively and, as a result, have significantly less confidence in the administration of criminal justice should counsel from the Robbins, Bernstein firm be permitted to cross-examine their prior client – the concept of undivided loyalty and public faith in the justice system would be significantly tarnished.

Even with what is in the public, it would seem that Ms. AB was in a pretty clear violation of the principles described in Brissett. The fellow she once represented would inevitably be called as a witness. 

Ms. AB would have to cross-examine him and – at that very point – she’d be caught with a conflict of interest, even if only in appearance.  If there was anything more involved that the public doesn’t know, the the conflict could well be more than just a matter of appearance.

Ms. AB can fulminate all she wants.  The black letter of the law would seem to be firmly against. That’s likely why, at an earlier hearing, she didn’t bother contesting the application. Initially she’d talked tough but in the end, she didn’t do anything.

If someone offers to bet on Ms. AB suing the Crown over the whole matter, then take the bet.

She’ll likely back off that one too.

Black letter, and all that.

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Robots in Dead Heat

As labradore notes, the latest question of the day online poll at Voice of the Cabinet Minister comes close to setting a record for vote totals.

It is second to another question about Muskrat Falls from last December.

Just so everyone is clear:

• Both the “Yes” and “No” votes are the result of someone deliberately dumping huge numbers of votes in here using computer programs.
• The governing Conservatives have been at this foolishness for years and used to get paid political staffers to sit there and manually click the button whatever way they wanted to see the vote go. It seems they’ve now deployed computers.
• Someone else has been auto-voting for the past three or four years likely just to frack with the Tory staffers.
• As labradore notes, VOCM disabled the “Yes” option over the weekend so that the people trying to push the vote against the government’s preferred answer to the question couldn’t get any more votes in.
• VOCM will report these results as if they were news.  Call-in hosts will use them to prompt calls, most likely without mentioning that the thing is complete bullshite.

 

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Random Post in Latin: rebellious edition

 

Sic semper tyrannis

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Nalcor Royalties: yet more information

•   Part 1:  Resource give-away
•   Part 2:  Nalcor Royalties – more information

Nalcor estimates the company will pay anticipated royalties to the provincial government totalling  $2.06 Billion dollars.

That’s from the second post in what has become a miniseries.

Nalcor followed up with some further information on how much oil they estimate is involved and how much they estimate the gross revenues will be.

Here’s the verbatim paragraph from Nalcor’s e-mail:

Nalcor Energy's total anticipated royalty payments of at $2.06 Billion dollars is included in a total projected gross revenue of $7.58 Billion.  These revenues are expressed in nominal terms meaning they are the sum of un- discounted cash flows.  The calculation uses the "PIRA Brent Reference" pricing issued November 2010.  Each project has a different oil price project owing to its differences in crude quality.  As an approximation, $92/bbl [$92 per barrel] in 2010 [dollars] can be used escalated thereafter. Total Nalcor Energy reserve volumes used for the calculation was 52.8 million barrels (proven and probable).

Nalcor may not have to pay any royalties from Hebron even though Nalcor’s projection assumes it will.

Under the Hebron financial agreement, the provincial government can exempt Nalcor from paying any royalties at all on its 4.9% interest.

The escalation is two percent per year.

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Paving the way

Paving and asphalt companies in the province gave $52, 575 in political contributions to the provincial Conservatives between 2004 and 2009, according to figures available from the province’s Chief Electoral Officer.

But the same companies gave a mere $500 to the provincial Liberal Party and not a penny to the New Democratic Party.

By contrast between 1996 and 2003, paving companies gave $52,565 to the provincial Liberals.

But unlike their tight-fisted way with the opposition after 2004, the companies gave $35,150 to the province’s Conservatives while they were in opposition. 

They gave nothing to the New Democratic Party.

What’s also noticeable when you chart the donations by party and year is the second dramatic shift after the Conservatives came back to power in late 2003.

The biggest donation periods before 2004 were in the election years of 1996, 1999 and 2003. In other years, the total politically donations dropped off dramatically.

But under the Conservatives, spiked in the 2007 election, but they also stayed relatively high in 2006 and 2009.  They jumped again in 2009 to almost $15,000. 

Road paving and politics became an issue last week when former Conservative Brad Cabana publicly recounted what he said were comments made by tourism minister Terry French at last fall’s provincial Conservative Party convention.  Cabana told a local talk show audience that French suggested Tory party volunteers hit up local paving companies for campaign donations.

French called the same show and said that he did not remember saying any such thing.  He also called Cabana a scumbag and a political prostitute.

After that episode, your humble e-scribbler scanned the official election contributions records available from the Chief Electoral Office for records of donations by any companies with the words “paving” or “asphalt” in the company name.

Other companies may be involved in the road paving business.  They may or may not have made political contributions in the period for which records are readily available.

While the information above doesn’t support or refute Cabana’s contention, the pattern of the contributions and the changes after the Conservatives came to office are curious.

This isn’t the first time someone has drawn a connection between provincial road paving and politics.  labradore has blogged extensively on the pattern of paving contracts and road construction work that has tended to favour Conservative districts over Liberal ones since 2004.

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Random Post in Latin: Coat of Arms edition

 

Quaerite Prime Regum Dei

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JFK’s speech on religion and politics

Religion played a huge role in the 1960 presidential election.

Specifically, Republicans questioned how John Kennedy would govern, given that he was a practicing Roman Catholic.   A group of 150 Protestant ministers and laymen publicly opposed the idea of a Roman Catholic president.  In a public statement, the group  -including Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale – stated that, among other things, they felt it "is inconceivable that a Roman Catholic President would not be under extreme pressure by the hierarchy of his church to accede to its policies with respect to foreign relations.”

While the Republicans did not use the religion issue as part of the national campaign, the issue continued to dog Kennedy throughout the race.

A speech to Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960, right,  proved to be Kennedy’s definitive statement on the subject.

The campaign used film of the speech in television advertising and ran it repeatedly throughout the fall of 1960, especially in areas where there was a heavy Roman catholic population.

In her definitive study of presidential advertising, Kathleen Hall Jamieson demonstrates that the Democrats used Kennedy’s speech both defensively and offensively.  They used it to rebut the Republican attacks and at the same time tried to motivate Roman Catholic voters.

National Public radio produced a transcript of the entire speech.  As Jamieson notes, some consider this to be Kennedy’s best speech. At the opening, Kennedy lists what he considers to be the real issues of the campaign.  

He then turns to a series of statements of his own views, that flow from this introduction:

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

The structure of the speech -  a series of paragraphs starting with “I believe…” deliberately mimics the structure of any statement of faith.  Kennedy continues to recite the articles of his own political faith including the separation of church and state, that effective places his critics in the position of doing the very thing they attack Kennedy on. 

He finishes his statement of political faith with words every member of his audience would know:

But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.

You can find the video of the speech on youtube:

JFK on religion and politics

These days, Kennedy’s campaign could not rely on broadcasting the speech in five minute and the full 10 minute airings as part of their ad campaign. 

This is a short speech.

The words are compelling and Kennedy delivers it reasonably well.

The subject was highly controversial in a way that few mi9ght appreciate these days.

But the audience has changed.

Modern audiences simply won’t sit still for a talking head that goes on about any subject for nearly 11 minutes.

They definitely would find Kennedy’s speech itself taxing.  The sentences are much longer than the short statements that modern audiences are used to hearing. While it suits the immediate audience, the speech demands that people be familiar with the subject and with a great deal of history, including more recent events at the time.

Still, there are quotable bits likely crafted to make them fit with a potential series of short spots:

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

The first sentence doesn’t stand on its own, however. 

You’d have to hear the list of real issues to get the full effect.

While Kennedy runs them off effectively enough, the transcript would have great visual impact if the issues came not as a series of clauses separated by semi-colons but as a bulleted list:

I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election:

• the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida;
• the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power;
• the hungry children I saw in West Virginia;
• the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills;
• the families forced to give up their farms;
• an  America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

Still, each one is expressed simply enough.  The last point relies on the repetition of the word “too” – “too many slums”,  “too few schools,” “too late” to space.

All the same, the speech is extraordinarily well written both for its time and for today.

It reflects the input of Kennedy’s political staff – like ted Sorensen – and undoubtedly the campaigns advertising staff as well.

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Muskrat Falls: what an independent review really looks like

The provincial Liberals included a handy table with their Friday news release on the joint federal/provincial environmental panel’s report on Muskrat Falls.

The chart compares what the environmental panel said would be a thorough, independent review of the province’s energy needs and what the Conservatives are setting up through the public utilities board.

 

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MF Traffic Report

Turns out the MF deal is a mf, at least for the political fortunes of the gang who cooked up the scheme to ship discount power to Nova Scotia paid for entirely by the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The week that an environmental panel demolished the foundation for Danny Williams’ retirement scheme and Kathy Dunderdale’s bid for the history books, here’s what the readers of the Sir Robert Bond Papers picked as their top 10 posts:

1. NDP avoids straight answer on Muskrat Falls
2. A monstrous abuse continues
3. Subsidizing subsidized industry…somewhere else
4. Joint environmental panel slams Muskrat Falls
5. The Power of Confusion:  the Three Amigos Update
6. Layton’s Legacy
7. Venus in Furs:  Muskrat Falls edition
8. Bury my lede at Muskrat Falls and Random Post in Latin:  ALF edition
9. Misleading the House:  recall the whole power recall story
10. Muskrat falls fails joint federal/provincial environmental review

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Three MF Amigos split up #nlpoli

Liberal leader Kevin Aylward may have personally been waffling about Muskrat Falls a week or so ago, but his position has shifted:

An Aylward led government would immediately halt all spending on this project and establish a truly independent analysis to look at all options for meeting domestic energy demands.  The review currently before the Public Utilities Board is not a true independent review.  It is limited in scope and resources and is designed to provide government and Nalcor with a predetermined result.

That’s the last paragraph in a short, simple news release that Aylward issued Friday.

That leaves just Kathy Dunderdale and Lorraine Michael of the NDP struggling with their positions.

Michael is still talking about getting more information but her fundamental problem of privately supporting an unpopular deal remains.

In a news release Friday, Michael said:

NDP Leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi) said the government’s release of the Report of the Joint Review Panel into the Muskrat Falls project may be a step towards the transparency she has been asking for, but it raises more questions about the project.

She said the provincial government should stop “pouring money into the project” and that “[w]e need to have a broadbased [sic]independent analysis.” It appears, though, that Michael is still limiting herself to a discussion of developing Muskrat Falls, as the Conservatives and Nova Scotia new Democrats are proposing as opposed to looking primarily at options to meet domestic energy needs.

Meanwhile, Kathy Dunderdale and the Conservatives are ploughing ahead. Dunderdale seemed to be confused about the panel’s rejection of the premises on which she is pursuing the megadebt project.  According to CBC,

"We're on the same path," Dunderdale told reporters in St. John's Thursday. "We're not misaligned. We absolutely agree."

“We” is apparently the provincial government and the panel.

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner, left,  told a radio call-in audience on Friday that the joint federal/provincial review panel report was just more wonderful and informative information in a decades long and ongoing process of study, review and information gathering in which no decisions have been taken or will be taken any time soon.

Of course, that just makes it all the more embarrassing that the provincial government’s energy corporation couldn’t supply the review panel with simple, straightforward explanations of the reasons why it wants to pursue the project and what the implications will be.

After two years of review and months of public hearing’s and after giving Nalcor a second chance to correct deficiencies in its presentation, the panel concluded:

Need, Purpose and Rationale

… the Panel concluded that Nalcor had not demonstrated the justification of the Project as a whole in energy and economic terms, and that there are outstanding questions related to both Muskrat Falls and Gull Island regarding their ability to deliver the projected long term financial benefits to the Province, even if other sanctioning requirements were met. The Panel therefore recommended that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador carry out separate formal financial reviews before sanctioning either Muskrat Falls or Gull Island to confirm whether the component being considered for sanction would in fact deliver the projected long-term financial benefits. [Page 3, Emphasis added]

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Random Post (Not) in Latin: no garters, no glory edition

 

Honi soit qui mal y pense

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Muskrat Falls fails joint federal/provincial environmental review #nlpoli

… if the recommended economic and alternatives studies show that there are alternative ways of meeting the electricity demands of the Island over the medium term in a manner that is economically viable and environmentally and socially responsible, the Muskrat Falls portion of the Project should likely not be permitted to proceed for purposes of meeting Island demand.

Joint Fed/Prov Environmental Review Panel for  the Lower Churchill Project

The official news release said that both the federal and provincial governments would “take the time required to review the Joint Review Panel’s findings” on the provincial Conservatives’ plan to develop hydro-electric power on the lower part of the Churchill River. 

Then, “after consulting with Aboriginal groups", …the “governments’ responses to the Joint Review Panel report will then be made public.”

The report of the five-member federal/provincial environmental review turned out to be so bad Kathy Dunderdale’s dream election project that neither she nor environment minister Ross Wiseman could wait.

The report appeared at 2:20 pm.

Wiseman issued a note to reporters at 2:25 pm telling them he’d be available for a scrum at 2:45 pm.

No sooner were reporters back in their offices than another note arrived  - at 3:25 pm - telling them Kathy Herself would speak with them back at Confederation Building at 3:45 pm.  Apparently, Dunderdale left them cooling their jets for another 20 minutes beyond that before she showed up to crap on the panel and, at the same time, claim that their rejection of her election campaign centrepiece was no biggie.

Dunderdale said that in her review she could not find where the panel specifically found a problem with Nalcor’s proposal.

The simple answer is:  everywhere, on the major issues of economic viability, need and export markets.

For example, the report dismisses Nalcor’s claim that Muskrat is the only viable (i.e. low-cost) way of meeting the island’s energy needs. They recommend instead that the whole thing be reviewed by an independent organization.

There’s nothing in the report regular readers of these e-scribbles haven’t heard in one form or another already. 

What makes the joint review panel’s report so devastating for the Dunderdale project is that the five members have studied the entire project since 2008. That includes a round of intensive public hearings that only concluded earlier this year.  The panel received hundreds of letters and submissions from experts and from concerned citizens.  Nalcor even got the chance to add information after it was warned in January 2010 that its submissions failed across the board to provide any justification for the project.

The joint review is the first and so far only independent review that has been or will be conducted of the project. Nalcor has hired its own consultants but they cannot be considered independent. 

The province’s public utilities commission will be paying for an appraisal of the project but the parameters for that appraisal review have been carefully set by Nalcor and the provincial government to produce the result Nalcor wants.

The report also destroys the New Democratic Party’s election position on Muskrat Falls that was based in part on the argument the project was economically viable.

New Liberal leader Kevin Aylward will hold a news conference at noon to discuss the report.  This will be his first major test having so far given only weak comments about the controversial plan that will double the public debt and dramatically increase provincial electricity rates while providing subsidised power to Nova Scotia and other export destinations.

The joint review panel released an executive summary on Wednesday that details the conclusions they reached in the full report.

Here are some highlights, with some comments from your humble e-scribbler in square brackets:

Need, Purpose and Rationale

… the Panel concluded that Nalcor had not demonstrated the justification of the Project as a whole in energy and economic terms, and that there are outstanding questions related to both Muskrat Falls and Gull Island regarding their ability to deliver the projected long term financial benefits to the Province, even if other sanctioning requirements were met. The Panel therefore recommended that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador carry out separate formal financial reviews before sanctioning either Muskrat Falls or Gull Island to confirm whether the component being considered for sanction would in fact deliver the projected long-term financial benefits. [Page 3, Emphasis added]

[Note:  Megaproject proponents over-estimate benefits.]

Alternatives to the Project

… the Panel concluded that Nalcor’s analysis, showing Muskrat Falls to be the best and least-cost way to meet domestic demand requirements, was inadequate and recommended a new, independent analysis based on economic, energy and environmental considerations. The analysis would address domestic demand projections, conservation and demand management,
alternate on-Island energy sources, the role of power from Churchill Falls, Nalcor’s cost estimates and assumptions with respect to its no-Project thermal option, the possible use of offshore gas as a fuel for the Holyrood thermal generating facility, cash flow projections for Muskrat Falls, and the implications for the province’s ratepayers and regulatory systems. [Page 3, Emphasis added]

[Note:  This basically states that the panel flatly rejected Nalcor’s claims about Muskrat as the only viable way to meet projected needs in the province. Since that’s the core argument Nalcor and government have advanced for the project,  it leaves the entire government/Nalcor position without any foundation.

The panel gave a laundry list of things that Nalcor’s presentation should have included but didn’t.  Regular readers will know already that Nalcor simply didn’t bother to study natural gas alternatives even though preliminary work suggests it is a cheaper, viable alternative to meet energy needs in the province.]

Alternative Means – Construction Sequence and Pace, and Reservoir Preparation

…The Panel concluded that for reservoir preparation purposes, the two reservoirs [Gull Island and Muskrat Falls] should be considered differently because of their different characteristics. The Panel recommended applying the ‘full clearing’ option to the Muskrat Falls reservoir because it would be technically and economically feasible and would not negatively affect the construction schedule. [Page 4]

[Note:  This recommendation relates to the Nalcor plan to build one reservoir and then another at some underdetermined later point.  The Panel recommended applying lessons from one project to another.  The most significant implication of the recommendation cited here is that Nalcor would have to spend an additional $200 million to clear cut the reservoir.  This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the release of potentially harmful by-products from rotting wood in flood zones created by the dam[s]].

Atmospheric Environment

The Panel concluded that with appropriate mitigation, including use of best available technology, air pollution and noise would be localized and temporary in nature. While the exact markets for much of the power are not yet known, the power produced by the Project would very
likely displace more greenhouse gas emissions than the Project would cause. Moreover, the Panel recommended that Nalcor make all reasonable efforts to ensure that power from the Project would be used (a) to back-up wind power and other intermittent renewable sources of
energy, (b) to displace energy from high greenhouse gas emission sources, and (c) not to displace conservation and demand management or power from renewable sources. [Page 4]

[Note: “While the exact markets for much of the power are not yet known…”.  That pretty much says it all.  They don’t exist yet.  But when and if they do, odds are the whole Lower Churchill will do some nice green things.   Note that last bulleted recommendation. Conservation and demand management are two parts of a strategy that could help meet the island’s energy needs without Muskrat Falls.]

Economic Impacts

… the Panel concluded that considerable uncertainty exists regarding the Project’s ability to deliver financial benefits to the Province in the order of magnitude projected by Nalcor. There are also questions as to how any such benefits might be distributed by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Concluding Thoughts on the Final Project Decision

The Panel concluded that if the recommended economic and alternatives studies show that there are alternative ways of meeting the electricity demands of the Island over the medium term in a manner that is economically viable and environmentally and socially responsible, the
Muskrat Falls portion of the Project should likely not be permitted to proceed for purposes of meeting Island demand.

If market access for Gull Island were resolved based on reasonable transmission costs and the Gull Island facility were to be developed first, or a joint sanction decision were to be made, the  Panel believed the situation would be different. The Gull Island facility would produce more
power at a lower unit cost and therefore would offer much greater potential to provide lower cost power to Newfoundland and Labrador and generate revenues for the Province.

- srbp -