The Politics of Cynicism: even worse than thought edition #nlpoli

If they accidentally accumulate enough credits to a form a government after the next election, the provincial New Democrats will keep taxing small business income at 14%.

What the provincial party announced last week was a very small reduction in the rate that applies only on the first $500,000 of business income.

So what was dishonestly torqued as a 25% reduction (a one percentage point reduction from four percent to three percent)  solely to make the policy appear to be much more significant that it was is actually even worse for what the release did not include.

Just to add to the crass manipulation the New Democrats engaged in last week, consider New Democrat candidate Gerry Rogers’ words at  the news conference announcing the NDP’s small business policy. 

Here’s the version from the Telegram:

“Absolutely, it’s important for the NDP to be seen as pro-business,” Rogers said.

“I think the NDP is clearly pro-business, pro-development, but only in as much as it’s good for all the people of the country.”

Yes, important “to be seen as”.

But not as important to actually be, it seems.

People wonder how the New Democrats would pay for the cut.  truth is they wouldn’t have to.  If the local economy grows at the optimistic rates forecast by some people – and business income grows along with it -  small business will fork over as much or more when they pay 14% on amounts over $500,000.

So what would a real small business policy look like?

Well, if tax cuts are your thing, you could increase the amount of income covered by the lowest rate.  Apply the four percent rate to the first $750,000 or even first million of small business income.

That would be a real tax cut, not the charade the Dippers offered last week.

Reduce red tape.  Don’t just engage in the charade the Tories did over the past seven years.  Seriously reduce the weight of unnecessary regulation.  The fishery is probably one of the finest examples of an industry almost breaking down under the weight of completely useless paperwork and restrictions.

The current system reduces thousands of people in the province to little better than wage slavery and perpetual dependence on government hand-outs to make a very meagre living.  Your humble e-scribbler highlighted that idea, among others,  a few months ago:

The third idea is for the provincial government to abolish processing licenses with the elaborate red tape restrictions that go with it.  The current system helps to keep too many people and too many plants working in an industry featuring low wages, limited capital for investment and with no prospect that new workers will enter the industry to keep it going.

The Dippers couldn’t do that, of course, since it would seriously shag up the fisheries union on which the NDP depends for so much support.  Since the provincial NDP is basically the political arm of the province’s unions, with a few other people along for the ride, there’s no way they could make a meaningful change to help everyday  people every day, whether they are workers or small business owners.

But the NDP will issue news releases that make it seem like they would to something.

Because, after all, it is important for politicians to be seen to be [insert the phony value of the moment here].

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BNL and BBT at ComiCon 2010

The Big Bang Theory Labour Day marathon is about to start!

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Looking beyond normal

labradore wasted no time in converting the numbers from Friday’s editorial in the Telegram into a chart to show the number of money announcements issued by the provincial government in each week in August for the past four years.

The Telegram editorial uses these numbers to refute Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s claim that:

“There’s nothing going on here now that hasn’t gone on every year since we’ve brought down a budget, no matter who formed the government,..”

She made the comment.  They counted the news releases.  Way more, finds the Telegram, so therefore “liar, liar pants on fire.”

Or words to that effect.

In defence of Kathy Dunderdale, there is nothing that her provincial Conservatives did in August 2011 that is different in kind from anything the provincial Conservatives did in any other one of the four polling months each year since 2004..

The fact that there are more money announcements in 2011 is really much ado about nothing.  Sure the whole thing is so outrageous in August 2011 that the local media couldn’t ignore it any more, but other than that this is just another Tory poll-goosing month.

And the fact this is an election year doesn’t really make the Dunderdale version stand out.  Scroll back through the archives list of these e-scribblers for the summer of 2007.

Summer of Love.  On August 18, your humble e-scribbler note that the Tories seemed to be inventing excuses to issue happy-news releases.  25 additional campsites at a provincial park, for example.

Toward the end of July 2007, you’ll find a post about the spate of announcements comparing July to previous Julys:

Note, however, that cash announcement in the 25 days of July 2007 already done are already at the same level of 2004 and they are double those of 2005 and almost quadruple those of 2006.

The post starts off with a quote from Danny Williams that will look awfully familiar:

Flanked by two Progressive Conservative candidates in Bay Roberts, Premier Danny Williams told reporters on Wednesday that what government has been doing over the past couple of weeks is just government "carrying on business."

What really stands out in the Telegram figures is the big jump in 2010 and the larger jump in 2011. Poll goosing and the pre-election impetus – the Telegram’s point – are just penetrating insights into the stunningly obvious. Something else is going on.

It’s the trending that shows up when you look beyond the polls as most people misinterpret them. In May this year, your humble e-scribbler pointed out that the Tory polling numbers have been slipping pretty significantly.

This chart shows CRA polling as a percentage of actual respondents not of “decideds”.  That second hard point from the right shows the results of last August’s jump in cash announcements.  And the reason for it is the slide the quarter before.

But then look what happened over the next three months before Danny Williams left abruptly.

Big slide.

And in the months since then, the Tories have continued to slide downward.

They were at a point in May where losing a raft of seats in October looked like a very real possibility.  As noted around these parts last May, if the trends continued the Tories would be even weaker in August.  The leader numbers could also continue their downward trend to the point where all three party leaders shared the same distinct lack of interest from voters.

So if you were the incumbent party headed into an election with public support apparently weakening,  you’d pretty much be guaranteed to do the only political thing you know how to do:  take as many spending announcements as you can type up and e-mail them out to try desperately to stop the spiral in the polls.

As far as Kathy Dunderdale and her crowd are concerned this is normal.  For the rest of us, though, you have to look a little beyond the obvious to figure out why their “normal”  is even more “normal” than usual.

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Traffic Flow: August 29 – September 2, 2011

1. Robots in dead heat (poll goosing)
2. NL ratepayers to carry full load for Muskrat falls plus more
3. The Politics of Cynicism, NDP style
4. Uniting the Left:  a reminder
5. Nalcor royalties:  yet more information
6. Muskrat Falls:  lost opportunity
7. Court docket now online
8. Paving the way (political donations by paving companies)
9. Political Reporting 2011
10. About SRBP

 

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Grand Riverkeepers call Joint Review Panel Report “victory” for Labradorians

 

From the Grand Riverkeepers news release:

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, LABRADOR, NL – “The Review Panel’s report reflects what we have been saying all along,” said Clarice Blake Rudkowski, president of Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. “The Lower Churchill project does not make economic sense, and environmentally, it’s simply and clearly too destructive.”

“Labrador doesn’t want this project, and Newfoundland doesn’t need it” says Grand Riverkeeper Roberta Frampton Benefiel. “Given the high transmission costs, the initial cost of Muskrat Falls power on the Island will be just as high as Holyrood, and the cost will keep going up for decades.” She added that there are almost certainly better alternatives, including conservation, on-Island wind, and other options, including offshore gas to fuel Holyrood for backup. “As the Panel pointed out, Nalcor sees the project as an end in itself, so it has never really looked for alternatives,” she said.

The Panel looked in detail at the justification for the project, alternatives to it and the many environmental concerns raised by participants in the public hearings. It found that “Nalcor’s analysis that showed Muskrat Falls to be the best and least cost way to meet domestic demand requirements is inadequate,” prompting it to call for a formal financial review and an independent analysis of alternatives before the project could proceed.

In its report, the Panel determined that the Project would have several significant adverse environmental effects, and concluded that Nalcor did not carry out a full assessment of the fate of mercury in the downstream environment. It stated that, in the event of dam failure, Nalcor “should assume liability” for all personal and financial losses, regardless of cause. And it concluded that, if alternative ways of meeting Newfoundland’s electricity needs in a way that is economically viable and environmentally and socially responsible, the Muskrat Falls project as proposed should not be permitted to proceed.

Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. participated in all of the Panel’s hearings in the province and, along with other members, made 21 separate submissions. It engaged several experts, including Philip Raphals of the Helios Centre, an expert in energy policy, to analyze the need, justification and economics of the proposal. The Review Panel retained many of his findings and recommendations concerning the inadequacy of the analysis presented and need for careful assessment of alternate supply strategies for Newfoundland. As well, our scientific advisors successfully challenged many of Nalcor’s assertions.

Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. calls on Nalcor and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to respect the Panel’s findings and follow its recommendations. Specifically:

• It calls upon Nalcor to modify the Project in response to the 70 + recommendations concerning the biological and social environment;
• It calls upon the Government to consult with stakeholders, including both supporters and opponents of the Project, as to the best way to proceed with the independent financial and alternatives assessment that the Panel called for, before governments decide on whether or not the project should proceed; and
• It calls upon the Provincial Government, Newfoundland Labrador Hydro, Newfoundland Power and the Public Utilities Board to move forward with implementing an Integrated Resource Planning framework within the province, as called for by the Panel.

Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. first came together as a concerned citizens group in 1998 to challenge plans for a mega hydro dam project. In 2005,  they became affiliated with Waterkeeper Alliance  joined some 200 other Waterkeepers worldwide. The purpose of Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. is to preserve and protect the water quality and ecological integrity of the Grand River watershed and its estuary, through actions of public awareness, monitoring, intervention and habitat restoration. It actively promotes economically and environmentally sustainable ecosystem management approaches that will maintain the heritage and intrinsic value of this river for present and future generations.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, please contact: Clarice Blake Rudkowski, President, Grand Riverkeeper Labrador Inc. 709-896-9530, Roberta Frampton Benefiel, Grand Riverkeeper & VP, 896-4164 or 897-4241 or Philip Raphals, Helios Centre, Montreal, 514-849-7900.

The Old Blue Goose

When the three posts on the provincial Conservatives’ communications strategy first appeared here in August and September 2006,  people who had never heard of it thought the ideas were preposterous.

The relatively small number of people in the province who knew what is going on  - politicians, political staffers and some media types - tried to dismiss it as irrelevant or as old news.

Five years later, the basic ideas are known to anyone who follows political stories in the local conventional media.  Once someone pointed out the patterns, others started to notice them too.

Then two professors at Memorial University did some research and confirmed the pattern of calls to open line shows and other aspects of the strategy.

Essentially, the three posts boil down to this:

• The government party times its media activity to coincide with the polling periods of its own pollster.  Four times a year, the provincial government’s communications office pour out news about new projects, road paving and government spending.  “Playing the Numbers”
• All newsrooms are not equal. News media coverage plays a key role in selling the party in power to voters.  The provincial communications strategy favours news media that will offer the best chance of getting their messages out as often as possible and with the least amount of filtering.   “The media and the message”
• Government uses public opinion polls to help shape public opinion, not measure it.   The government party floods radio call-in shows with partisan supporters, including cabinet ministers, during polling periods to generate positive coverage during polling months.  The polling results then become part of the effort to suppress dissent:  the government is right because it is popular and popular because it is right.  The polls say so. “The perils of polling”

August is one of the months in which the government’s pollster is in the field.  Not surprisingly, the current provincial governing party has been heavily pushing its happy-face news releases.

Also unsurprisingly, when asked about it, the leader of the governing party dismisses the idea the storm of news releases and spending announcements is about anything but informing the people of the province about government initiatives.

She promises the whole thing will stop at the end of August She doesn’t mention that the government’s pollster has stopped or will shortly stop gathering data so she and her political friends are done with poll goosing …for now.

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The Politics of Cynicism, NDP style #nlpoli

One could hardly imagine a better way to bitch-slap the carefully fabricated Legend of Jack Layton than Lorraine Michael’s news release announcing a 25% reduction in something the provincial NDP leader calls a “small business tax”.

“Small businesses employ most of the workers, contribute to their local economies, and continue to create most of the new jobs in this province,” Michael said today. “A focus on small business in Newfoundland and Labrador became an important part of our platform preparation. Consultation with small business owners helped us identify some key ways to give them a break.

Problem Number One is that Lorraine doesn’t bother to tell anyone what small business tax she would like to chop.

Perhaps it is the Small Business Income Tax.

Problem Number Two is that the current rate is 4%.  The New Democrats will drop that to 3%.

Whooppeee friggin’ ding. This is a non-announcement.

The release has absolutely no detail in it at all, in keeping with current New Democratic Party practice.

That means you can’t really tell what they are promising and as such you will have a hard time holding them accountable later on should they accidentally compile enough credits to form a government.

For those keeping score, we are up to problem Number Three.

In that same theme, this lack of accountability is exactly the opposite of what the Dippers did in Nova Scotia.  Over there, Darrell and the crew issued a simple statement of goals and had all sorts of details that you can use to tell if they did it or not.

The province’s New Democrats are running a very aggressive campaign that is centred primarily on their steady stream of candidate nomination announcements.  They are getting plenty of media coverage for it.

Whether that’s enough to cause a massive break through in seats in the province remains to be seen, but if past history is any sign, voters in this province aren’t that stupid.

At some point, voters will pay attention to the candidates and the party platform.  What voters will see at that point is pretty striking.

The first thing voters will see is that the New Democrats want to see the Conservatives back in office.  Lorraine is in her last campaign – most likely – so they don’t have any bigger plans at the moment.  They are hoping the Liberals will collapse but the Dippers aren’t doing anything substantial to move themselves forward.

The second is that their campaign “platform” is just a thin series of statements like this one on small business taxes.  The releases sound vaguely interesting but on closer examination, they turn into puffs of smoke at best.  At worst, they advocate policies that benefit people outside the province more than those who are actually going to pay for it.

Like, Muskrat Falls.

On Muskrat Falls,  the NDP stand firmly behind the provincial Conservatives. Their position is that they back it, if it works.  Well, the thing will “work” because local voters will be forced to pay the whole shot for it even though Nalcor and the provincial Conservatives ignored cheaper alternatives.  Either the New Democrats haven’t paid attention to what is happening with Muskrat Falls or they don’t give a shit about local voters. 

The third thing the voters will notice is that the New Democrats have turned from a party of ideals to a party of intense  - and pretty blatant cynicism.  Their position on Muskrat Falls is perhaps the best illustration of that.  Their positions on gasoline tax cuts and home heating fuel are examples of aping Conservative retail politics while mouthing words about ordinary Canadians, helping people and protecting the environment.

If that doesn’t add up to some pretty blatant cynicism, it’s hard to know what else would.

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* Link added.

Our plastic history revisited

One of the earliest posts among these e-scribbles dealt with a proposal – in 2005 – to rework the Colonial Building. 

The plan was to fix the place up, set up some displays to “interpret” some parts of the province’s political history for visitors and turn the rest of the building into offices.

The plan is striking for its ability to reduce the significance of our historic seat of government to yet another mouldering artifact of the past. The language of this discussion paper is sterile: "The Colonial Building is one of the most significant heritage properties in Newfoundland and Labrador." It is said to have heritage character-defining elements.

The plan is also striking since a committee of government-appointed experts from government and the local arts, cultural and heritage associations has determined the fate of the building, now vacant with the absorption of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador into the bland collective known simply as The Rooms.

The Colonial Building is to be restored in some fashion and turned into offices for arts, cultural and heritage organizations in the province. There will be the obligatory charade of "stakeholder consultations", but the Colonial Building will continue to be what it has been since 1959 - home to yet another group of technocrats.

In 2005, the whole thing was supposed to cost a little over $3.0 million, with the bulk of that going to restoring the building.

The original post raised a few hackles on someone involved in the whole plan.  He fired off some odd e-mails.

And then the whole plan vanished off the face of the Earth.

Like so many plans, strategies and other Great Initiatives of the current crowd what is running this place, people just stopped talking about it.

Stopped talking about it, that is, until the last day of announcements in the Summer of Love 2011 Great Orgy of Spending Announcements by the provincial Conservatives. These announcements have absolutely nothing to do with the pending election or the fact that the provincial government’s pollster is in the field this month.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale and federal intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue pulled off a mega-announcement in St. John’s of federal and provincial cash totalling more than $60 million for three projects. 

The two governments will get together with the City of St. John’s to drop $45 million into expanding the St. John’s Convention centre.

Another chunk of cash will go to turning an old industrial site in Paradise into a municipal park paradise sort of thing.

And the balance will go to the Colonial Building project.

There’s no dollar value on the Colonial Building project in the official news release, but odds are it is considerably more than the $3.0 million the whole thing was supposed to cost six years ago.*

Our plastic history, inordinate delays and massive cost overruns.

Plus ca change.

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Holy Frack Update:  According to the Telegram:

Premier Kathy Dunderdale also announced $8.6 million from the province (to be matched by the federal government) to complete the restoration and modernization of the historic Colonial Building, which used to house the provincial legislature and archives. That funding will be added to $4.4 million previously committed by the province and $625,000 from the federal government.

Clicking and clacking the old calculator gives us $22.225 million.

That would be seven and a half times the projected cost for the whole she-bang in 2005.

Et maintenant, le deluge…

In his regular column in the Wednesday edition, Telegram editor Peter Jackson succinctly explains why Kathy Dunderdale’s Muskrat Falls scheme is a very bad idea:

Reading the review panel’s comments, one comes to the conclusion that the rationalization for the project is circular. The Muskrat project is a given, and the statistics that are gathered only justify its existence. Statistics that fall outside the project — that of alternative sources — are sparse and poorly developed.

And simple considerations — like the impact on consumption of the trend towards energy efficiency — are ignored.

Jackson hits the nail squarely on the head in every respect, including his warning that the whole thing could cost us very dearly if the assumptions on which the project is based on turn out to be junk.

Verily, these must be the end times foretold by prophecy.

Well, by prophecy or the words muttered last fall as someone scurried out the Confederation Building side door:

“Apres moi, le deluge…”

Stand by to get your feet damp.

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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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