Always Remember the Fifth of November…

“How did this happen?

Who's to blame?

Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? … There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, … .

He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.”

- srbp -

Traffic from Hallowe’en to Guy Fawkes Night

1. Working stiffs and lazy ones
2. And these guys came in second…
3. Kent demoted by Dunderdale
4. Muskrat Review Muddle and Nalcor Competence
5. The value of nothing or Pater knows best, redux
6. Truth in small things
7. The Apprentice
8. I knew Marilyn Monroe
9. Accessible Post-Secondary Education
10. Five for Friday Round-Up

- srbp -

Five for Friday Round-UP

To round out the week, here are five curious posts on different subjects to send you off into the weekend.

And don’t forget this Saturday* is Guy Fawkes Day.

1. Via Crooked Timber, a post at the New Statesman about the particularly abusive comments hurled at women bloggers.
2. Maybe provincial justice minister Felix Collins and his provincial Conservative colleagues should just suck it up and stop whining about the costs of the federal Conservatives’ omnibus crime bill.  After all, Felix and the gang campaigned for the harper crowd. And it’s not like the provincial Conservatives didn’t know about the crime bill before they voted.
3. This is is a practical way to promote bras.
4. One the one hand Scotiabank’s chief economist thinks everything in Newfoundland and Labrador will be ducky over the next five years.
5. And on the other hand, money is moving from commodities – like oil – into credit.  Do those two things go together?

- srbp -

*  Not Sunday

And these guys came in second…

Yes, yes. 

Everyone knows that Hallowe’en happens in October and that Mardi Gras – Fat Tuesday – is in the spring time, before lent which is before Easter.

That doesn’t matter.

For some reason the locals have a Mardi Gras celebration in October for Hallowe’en.

Go figure.

Take a look at this picture of the costumes four enterprising young men entered in the contest that is part of the celebration.

Talk about skill and creativity with a bit of foam and some paper and stuff.

And these guys came in second.

- srbp -

Muskrat review muddle and Nalcor competence #nlpoli

Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy is a smart guy.

It’s not that he is the smartest guy in a cabinet of dunderheads.

Kennedy would be one of the smartest people in any cabinet the province has ever had.

And that’s why it is safe to assume that Kennedy knows the most recent problems with the Muskrat Falls review – it’s on an indefinite hold – will take more than doing “ a better job in terms of making our [case?], getting our message out there," as he reportedly told CBC News.

For some completely inexplicable reason Nalcor, the provincial government’s energy corporation,  cannot pull together information on the Muskrat Falls project for a review by the public utilities board that it knew was coming.  Nalcor has gone through one gigantic review of the project already.  it’s not like this is their first time.

What’s even more astonishing about this latest failure is that Nalcor and its provincial cabinet backers set up the PUB review, determined exactly what the question would be and, therefore, what the outcome would be.

In other words, the review they are currently buggering up is one they control.  There are no surprises in it at all.  It is supposed to be a cakewalk.

And yet the information Nalcor cannot deliver – as it seems – is stuff they should already have by the box-load since it is all stuff they supposedly already reviewed on their own.

Just to give you a good sense of how badly buggered Nalcor is, consider the letter sent October 25 from the public utilities board to Nalcor about the delays.  There are seven specific disputes:

1. At a meeting on June 17th Nalcor stated its Submission would be filed by the end of July. This was confirmed in our letter of July 12th and at a meeting attended by a Nalcor representative on July 20th . We are therefore surprised to read in your letter that Nalcor "had not committed to that date".

2. The Board was not involved in any "collective decision" that the Submission would be delayed until the completion by Nalcor of requests for information from Manitoba Hydro International Ltd. ("MHl").

3. As confirmed at the meetings on July 20th and September 12th it was always contemplated that the MHI report would be finalized and filed after Nalcor's Submission.

4. Nalcor had not provided a list of confidential exhibits to the Consumer Advocate as stated on October 20th, the date of your letter. We understand that this list was provided late on October 21st, after it had been brought to your attention that such list had not been provided as stated.

5. The Review was initiated in mid-June, which is more than four months ago, not three as stated.

6. While the numbers are continually changing as new information is filed, Nalcor had, as of October 20th , (the date of your letter) filed answers to 166 requests for information and not 187 as stated.

7. There were responses to six requests for information (not five) outstanding for MHI as of October 20th.

The PUB corporate secretary drives home the point about delays by Nalcor in filing its own submission to its own review.  To make them a bit easier to read, here they are with the original words but with the specific dates separated out by bullets:

• “At a meeting attended by a Nalcor representative on July 20th , a written preliminary schedule was discussed which stated, based on Nalcor's previous advice, that the Submission would be filed by July 27th followed by the MHI report in September and then public consultations.
• “On August 2nd Nalcor sent a status update to the Board on outstanding information requests which stated that the Submission was then ‘target mid to late August’.
• “By e-mail dated August 3rd , to Nalcor, Board staff stated that ‘We are very concerned that certain information will not be available until late August, including possibly
  your submission ‘.
• “On September 8th, a meeting was requested with Nalcor which occurred on September 12th to discuss the outstanding information, including the Submission, and its
  impact on the Review and the schedule, including finalization of the MHI report. If there were "a collective decision" by Nalcor and Board staff to delay the Submission until after responses to MHI requests for information or issuance of MHI's report, there would have
  been no need for the August 3rd e-mail or the discussion at the September meeting on the Submission date or the letter of September 14th.”

Clearly, Nalcor cannot gets its presentations together, cannot meet deadlines it sets, cannot recall the details of the agreed deadlines accurately and in many instances simply cannot count.

If this is what the company does with a set-piece hearing on its own terms, one can only imagine what problems it might have with a genuinely independent review.

Hang on.

No need for imagination.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency reviewed the entire Lower Churchill project.  It found the company failed to demonstrate the need for the project not once but twice.

And then there is the hearings before the Quebec energy regulator over a series of appeals Nalcor used as part of its series of negotiations with Hydro-Quebec over transmission access through Quebec. Nalcor failed on each appeal, in one instance largely because the company did not call any evidence to refute the contention of an expert presented by Hydro-Quebec.

Given all this, no one should be surprised that as more people learn about Muskrat Falls, and as Nalcor ramps up its efforts to sell the project to people, those same people are walking away from the project.  Polls by Telelink for NTV found that between February and September, support for the project fell from 71% to 42%.

Given all this, no one should be surprised if more and more people started to question not just the project but the Nalcor senior management team itself. Nalcor’s repeated failures of this magnitude speak to a deep-seated problem not just in the Muskrat Falls project but in the group of people running the project and the company.  Nalcor’s failures  - and they are nothing other than failures - will turn not just the voters of the province from it but potential investors and customers as well.

The Muskrat falls project is in trouble.

Kennedy’s smart enough to know it.

Jerome Kennedy has a tough job ahead of him.

Kennedy’s smart enough to know that too.

He’s tough enough to sort it out as well.

The only question is whether Kathy Dunderdale will let him.

- srbp -

The value of nothing or Pater knows best, redux #nlpoli

Talk show host Randy Simms has a fine column in the most recent Saturday edition of the Telegram.

Our House of Assembly needs fixing, writes Simms.

It hardly sits.

It has no functioning committees.

Laws receive cursory discussion at best.

Simms quotes from an article by Memorial University professor Alex Marland that you can find in the latest issue of the Canadian Parliamentary Review.

Simms quotes:

The House is closed for 88 per cent of the year and talk radio has effectively replaced it as the people’s voice. Legislation is not sufficiently scrutinized. The committee of the whole is greatly overused, there are too few opposition MHAs to assess bills sufficiently and standing committees are embarrassingly underused to the point of being dysfunctional.

Simms notes in another spot that the last time a piece of legislation went off to a House committee for specific review was 2001. Note the date.

All true.

Russell Wangersky adds a couple of other details in a column of his own but  regular SRBP readers are familiar with these issues:

• 2006:  the half-time legislature
• 2007:  Danny Williams muses about taking freedom of speech from the House of Assembly
• 2010:  The Biased Speaker
• 2010:  Paternalism
• 2011:  The Persistence of Patronage Politics

The problem with the current state of the legislature is not just that the members aren’t working as hard as those in other places or that they are among the highest paid in the country.

The problems now are the same one your humble e-scribbler has been raising all these years:

• No one is holding the government to account in public as it should, and,
• The government is making decisions that will affect the province for decades to come without disclosing what they are doing and why.

The most glaring example of the sort of mess the dysfunctional House can produce is the Abitibi expropriation.  But you can equally add the unsustainable growth in public spending since 2003, the Conservatives’ love affair with secrecy, dismantling of the access to information laws,  and the ongoing management problems that have beset the Williams and Dunderdale administrations.

The answer to the problem in Newfoundland and Labrador’s political culture is not to shut down the legislature and have a committee run around to see what others are doing.

The first step would be to acknowledge what the problem is, exactly.  if you missed it, read back a couple of paragraphs.

The second step would be for people to acknowledge it isn’t a problem with the legislature alone.  It’s much bigger and goes into the issues Wangersky points out.

The third step would be perhaps the hardest.  For that one, people would have to recognise that the legislature got the way it is because they placed a higher value on conformity or cheerleading than on democracy.

Danny didn’t do. 

Kathy didn’t do it.

Other people, including the two columnists now calling for reform,  allowed them to do it with comments like this:

“That being said, for the last seven years, Danny Williams has been the right choice to run this province, and, regardless of any number of complaints, he’s done it well.”

Rooting for Danny and/or and otherwise staying silent – even when what he was saying or doing was truly appalling in a civilised society – basically gave Williams and his associates free reign to dismantle the legislature and the rules by which we are all governed.

Kathy Dunderdale is just carrying on with the same approach.

Pater didn’t know best, after all.

- srbp -

Working stiffs and lazy ones #nlpoli

For some reason, TransCon papers carried a story on newly elected Liberal member of the House of Assembly Jim Bennett and his plan to carry on a law practice while he sits as an opposition member in the legislature.

The Telegram even put the thing in its Saturday paper.  Here’s a link the version carried by the Western Star.

What’s so striking about this is that it is a complete non-story.  As you’ll see part way down the page, the conflict of interest section of the House of Assembly Act quite rightly exempts ordinary members from the restrictions on carrying on with another job or outside business interests while serving in the legislature.

So why single Bennett out?

Good question.

The story turned out to be a bit of fodder for at least one of the local radio talk-shows.  But there again you have to wonder why they singled Bennett out for comment and, in some instances, for criticism. It’s not like others haven’t done the same sort of thing in the past or aren’t doing it now.

For example, Paul Oram carried on several businesses while he served as a backbencher in the Tory caucus.

New Democratic Party leader Jack Harris carried on an active law practice the whole time he sat in the legislature. Other backbench lawyers have done the same thing.

St. John’s South MHA Tom Osborne runs a music promotion business called 5th String Entertainment. On the right, you’ll find the online registration for the company with Service Newfoundland and Labrador.

Nothing odd about politicians and entertainment:  once upon a time, not so very long ago,  another Tory ran a popular downtown nightspot while he sat in the legislature.

Enterprising young fellow that he is, Steve Kent used to have a small consulting company. 

Since he’s been in the legislature, though, Steve’s been running a driver training business with his wife as partner.

Steve also serves as chair of the board president and chief commissioner of Scouts Canada.

There is nothing unusual about backbench members of the legislature carrying on with private businesses or a career while they are also in the legislature.

So why did some local media single out Jim Bennett?

Hopefully it was nothing more than laziness and sloppiness.

If they weren’t lazy and/or sloppy, they could have done a quick check and turned up all sorts of people.  And the list here contains only the ones your humble e-scribbler noted over the years. 

Undoubtedly ,someone going through the individual member’s disclosure statements could find other businesses or professional practices backbenchers are still carrying on.  The cabinet ministers will all have their stuff in blind trusts  But backbenchers can continue to work a second job.  There’s no legal or ethical reason for them to stop unless the second job interferes with their ability to do their elected job.

More to the point, though, there’s no reason why any of us should expect backbench members of the legislature to give up their other interests. That’s especially true for licensed professionals who would have to stay current in their profession in order to stay licensed.

It’s interesting to note that while Chief Justice Green spent a considerable part of his report discussing the idea that holding a seat in the legislature to become a full-time job in itself. Green discusses the issue at some length and makes the following observations:

If one can tease an underlying legislative policy from this subsection [27 of the House of Assembly Act] , and extrapolate into the broader arena, it is that the life of an MHA does contemplate other non-political activities; and where there is a conflict between those other activities and the Member’s duties, the test for determining whether the Member is properly fulfilling those duties is not a quantitative one (i.e., not defined by reference  to numbers of days or weeks, vacation entitlement, etc.) but a qualitative one (i.e., to use the words of ss. 27(4), “… so long as the member, notwithstanding the activity, is able to fulfil the member’s obligations …”).

The issue under discussion is not theoretical.  In the 1970s, a Member attended university full-time outside of Canada for the better part of a year.  In the 1980s a Member continued to act as a deputy mayor of a municipality.  More recently, since my appointment,
two issues have entered the public domain relating, respectively, to certain Members who were  allegedly “moonlighting” by carrying on the practice of law
and a Member who allegedly was unavailable to deal with a public issue in her district because she had been working outside the province as a nurse. [p. 9-28]

In the end of that section, Green recommended, among other things that:

To eliminate confusion on the point [full-time versus part-time] , the legislation should also state that a Member, qua Member, is not prohibited from carrying on a business or engaging in other employment or a profession, provided that the nature of the business, work or profession is such that it does not prevent him or her from attendance in the House when it is in session and from devoting time primarily to the discharge of his or
her duties as a Member when the House is not in session.

- srbp -

The Apprentice #nlpoli

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

It’s a great quote even if it has been misattributed to a raft of people, including someone named Petronius Arbiter who lived so long ago that some people can’t even agree on whether or not he was a Roman or a Greek.

But the quote is still appropriate, especially if you look at the provincial government.

Remember how in an earlier post, your humble e-scribbler noted that last weeks second Dunderdale cabinet was a lot less than it was cracked up to be?

Well, in the Tuesday Telegram Joan Burke gave an amazing insight into just exactly how the Tories came to create this new department Burke is running. Be warned before you go read the whole thing that it is a puff piece of the first order, but do read the whole piece just because of what it tells you about how the current administration functions.

At its core, Burke said the shift is about apprentices, skilled trades and filling the jobs of the future.

…

“The whole apprenticeship issue has become more and more complicated,” Burke said.

“We have 6,000 apprentices registered in the province, so where are they? You know, we should be well underway of filling all the labour gaps.”

On the very first full day of the election campaign this fall, Premier Kathy Dunderdale promised to do more about apprentices.

At the time she called it a “bottleneck” in the skilled trades process.

It was the apprenticeship issue, primarily, that drove the marriage between Education and HRLE, Burke said.

A single issue led the government to create a whole new department that consumes not only the university but also the entire government apparatus designed to deliver income support to thousands of residents of the province.

Now it is by no means a trivial matter, but sorting out a problem with apprentices is no reason to create a whole new department.  That’s the sort of issue that comes up all the time in government.  What happens?  Well, usually someone gets told to sort it out.  Could be a deputy minister or it could be a cabinet minister or a group of cabinet ministers.

As for the labour shortage, that’s an old issue.  The report mentioned in the article actually just gives the latest description of a problem that’s been identified for a decade or more. 

Again, it’s not a problem that needs a whole new department to figure out.  If the schools that train skilled trades workers haven’t been doing their job in meeting known market demands, a new department won’t fix that.  This is the sort of stuff they are already supposed to be doing. 

And if they aren’t doing it, then that seems to be a high-end management problem:

• People who are supposed to decide things apparently aren’t deciding., or,
• There’s a problem getting word out about decisions, or,
• People who are supposed to decide things farther down the food chain are too frightened to take decisions, or,
• They are so pre-occupied with chasing their tails that they can’t get on with the job of governing.

Creating this new department is starting to look more like a sign of the underlying problem than an answer to it.  This is, after all, a government that can’t seem to get its capital works done, that has legislation laying about unfinished and that seems to have a chronic problem managing more than one issue at a time.

Re-organizing makes it look like something is going on when it actually isn’t.

- srbp -

Related:

• Massive cost over-runs now par for the course
• One Judge Short
• The Court Security Acts
• The missing Sustainable Development Act
• “And there shall be plans…”
• One thing at a time in Labrador
• The Le Petomane School of Government
• There’s no greater fraud…

SRBP’s Shocktober Traffic

1. Kent demoted by Dunderdale
2. CBC torques poll coverage
3. Here’s what an opposition party looks like
4. Telelink releases campaign’s only independent poll
5. Whither the Liberals
6. Astroturf
7. Muskrat Falls support plummets:  poll
8. When is “nutbar” an unacceptable term?
9. Williams set to offer comms director plum patronage job
10. The Morning After the Night Before

- srbp -

Accessible Post-Secondary Education #nlpoli

Lots of people  like the idea of free tuition at post-secondary institutions like Memorial University or the College of the North Atlantic.

In the recent provincial general election, the provincial New Democrats included it as one of their major policy ideas.

A Memorial University engineering professor took up the argument last week in a letter to the editor at the Telegram:

By not having free tuition at MUN, we are basically discriminating against poor people and the middle class.

That’s one of the popular misconceptions about access to higher education.  People think it’s about cost and that people who have less money can’t afford to attend.

Research like the studies mentioned in earlier posts don’t back up the popular belief.  A recent study of experience in Ireland, for example, found that the “only obvious effect of the policy was to provide a windfall gain to middle-class parents who no longer had to pay fees. [p. 14]”.

What worked against people from low income and middle income families – according to other studies – was academic achievement in grade schools. 

Tough luck for them.  The same engineering prof who wants free tuition also wants to toughen the entrance stands:

Because not everyone can handle the workload at a university, to be eligible for free tuition a student would need a high school average greater than, say, 80 per cent.

To keep it, a student would have to maintain that average at MUN.

The inevitable result of that policy  - free tuition coupled with tough academic entry standards  - would be to further skew the benefit of free tuition to those who don’t actually need the leg up in the first place.

The usual alternative to free tuition is an approach that targets financial assistance at specific groups.  In his 2005 review of the Ontario post-secondary system, Bob Rae recommended – among other things – that the provincial government provide improved grants, adjust the student loans program and promote scholarships and similar financial support for students who qualify on economic grounds.

Inevitably, though, these approaches rely on government funding of university and college education. The only difference is how much the government will pay out of general revenues at the front end. 

Government subsidised education has one feature that people often don’t consider. Subsidy.  That’s what it is, by the way, whether you talk about free tuition or the sort of approach in Newfoundland and Labrador today. The only difference is whether the subsidy is 100%, as in the free scenario, or some other percentage.

Subsidised education puts the focus of discussion about education costs to the students rather than the education itself.  The alternative – like in the American approach – values the education.  Universities set tuition as a source of income.  The level of tuition can reflect the cost of delivering the education plus any premium for the type of degree or the institution itself.

One alternative that blends the two approaches together is the graduate tax.  In its simplest form,  tuition costs can be set based on the cost of delivering the education or a market calculation of of what the degree or diploma is worth.

The student does not pay while attending college or university.  After graduation, the student pays a percentage as an additional tax on income for a fixed period of time. 

Such an approach has one significant advantage over the current Canadian model or any of the variations some have proposed:  it eliminates the regressive nature of the policy that sees the entire society providing a benefit to specific individuals at a partial or near complete discount. 

With a graduate tax, the beneficiary of the education winds up paying for it.  What’s more the beneficiary pays based on the value of the education itself as reflected in post-graduate employment.

None of that addresses the accessibility issue for university, but at least it holds out the prospect of creating a post-secondary education system that is fairer than the one that currently exists in Newfoundland and Labrador.

- srbp -

.

Jingle Bell Walk/Run for Arthritis

 

Come Jingle With Us!

17th Annual Jingle Bell Walk and Run for Arthritis!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

 

What does the Jingle Bell Walk and Run look like?

• People can come dressed in great Christmas costumes to start the festive season off early! Take a look at some of last year's participants in the picture above.  

• All participants are given jingle bells to wear as they complete the walk/run to make some noise about arthritis.

• Participants may run, walk, wheel or jog for a distance of 1km or 4km- Jingling the whole way!

• Enjoy delicious McDonald's muffins and coffee, Central Dairies milk and yogurt, and apples, bananas and cake!

• There are tons of greats prizes to be won, and something to suit everyone's tastes! 

• Face paintings by Miss Newfoundland and Labrador is sure to be something the kids will look forward to!

• Join us this year for an afternoon filled with festive music and great company! We look forward to seeing you there!

This year, The Fry Family Foundation and VOCM Cares are each donating $20 to The Arthritis Society for every finisher!

Therefore, just by coming out and crossing the finish line you will be raising an additional $40 for The Arthritis Society!

Registration Rates:

Adults - $35 or fundraise a minimum of $65
Youth - $20 or fundraise a minimum of $20
Family - $90 or fundraise a minimum of $150 

Start a Team and Sign up Today!

If you would like to join the fight against arthritis - Register Here!

Early Bird registration will take place at The Running Room, November 9^th from 6 - 8 p.m.  9 Rowan St., St. John's

For more information, please visit www.jinglebellwalkandrun.ca or contact:

Amy Tiller

atiller@nl.arthritis.ca

579 - 8190

Quick Links:

Online Registration - Start Today!
Jingle Bell Walk and Run Poster
Jingle Bell Walk and Run Pledge Form

Truth in small things #nlpoli

If the truth may be found in the smallest of things, then the shifts and changes in Kathy Dunderdale’s second cabinet reveal a great deal.

“It is very important to me that our government operates as efficiently as possible, while providing quality programs and services that meet the needs of the people of our province,” said Premier Dunderdale. “Re-aligning departments and adjusting ministries to ensure they are best positioned to take on the challenges and opportunities before us is very important.”

Here’s how the official news release laid out the re-aligning and adjusting:

• Combine the old Human Resources, Labour and Employment department with the post-secondary education section of the Education department to create the  Department of Advanced Education and Skills.  The new department will “focus on supplying highly educated graduates and skilled workers for a fast-growing economy.”
• Merge the aboriginal affairs department with the Intergovernmental Affairs department to create the Department of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs.
• Put the Business department with Innovation, Trade and Rural Development to create Innovation, Business and Rural Development.

This release puts the big information at the back end.  Eliminating the business department ends an eight year fiasco. In effect, the Conservatives created the “business” department in 2003 by breaking off some sections of the industry, trade and rural development department.  Now they’ve just put it all back the way it was, complete with the Beaton Tulk-era Rural Secretariat

After eight years of accomplishing nothing, the Conservatives have just put the economic development resources of government back to where they were in 2003. Danny Williams created the department to give a vehicle for his personal business acumen to create thousands of jobs and single-handedly produce a economic miracle in the province.  Williams did nothing while he was minister of his own department, often going weeks without meeting his deputy minister. He handed it off to a succession of second and third tier ministers like Fairity O’Brien or Paul Oram.  Even someone like Ross Wiseman couldn’t do anything except make speeches and hand out gobs of free cash to private companies.

The result of those eight years is a very fragile economy is is more heavily dependent than ever on government spending. The new minister – Keith Hutchings – has exactly zilch in the experience department when it comes to economic development:

Mr. Hutchings graduated from Memorial University with a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Political Science and obtained a Certificate in Public Administration from Memorial, as well as an Occupational Health and Safety Program from Ryerson University in Toronto.

Mr. Hutchings’ professional career has included 11 years with the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission. He also served as Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to then Leader of the Official Opposition in the Provincial House of Assembly (1996 -1998) and successfully ran his own consulting business.

The Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs department basically recreates what used to exist 20 years and more ago as the Intergovernmental Affairs secretariat, and adds Labrador Affairs and the non-profit and voluntary secretariat for good measure. The first two are relatively small, functionally oriented sections that could easily be rolled inside the Executive Council where they once lived.  The latter two sections are meaningless political sops that serve only to increase bureaucracy without enhancing service delivery. Dunderdale could have eliminated them entirely while likely improving the overall efficiency of government.

The ministry went to newbie Keith McGrath in order to make sure there was a cabinet minister from Labrador. This reorganization is a minor administrative change.

The new Advanced Education department actually combines the pre-2003 post-secondary education ministry with the department that handled job training programs.  That’s it. 

The organization makes sense if it was aimed solely at ensuring that the provincial job-training resources lined up to meet – belatedly – the labour crunch in the province. 

Adding Memorial University to the mix could severely hinder the university’s development by burying it inside a department aimed at something other than what it does.  Memorial doesn’t exist in order to be a glorified trade school.

This is Joan Burke’s big reward for backing Dunderdale, nothing more, nothing less.

What’s more interesting about the labour market focus of the department is that it won’t include any of the labour relations elements.  They are all part of the provincial government’s traditional function of regulating industry and ensuring a healthy and productive labour relations climate.

But under the most recent re-organization, the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission reports to the government services department and the labour relations agency reports to the environment department. Such a re-alignment ensures that the “silos” the new minister claims the re-organization would cure remain in place.

In  every other respect and distinct from these three adjustments, the departmental organization stays the same. 

When it comes to who got a new job and who didn’t, those seemingly small points also tell a larger story.

Besides Joan Burke, Susan Sullivan got a big reward for her political loyalty to the Premier. She takes over the health portfolio.  Sullivan may not feel quite so lucky in a few weeks or months – health is a difficult portfolio – but it is the largest department and the one that typically goes to those the Premier holds in high regard. If she does well, Sullivan could become a contender to replace Dunderdale when the Premier leaves before 2015.

Jerome Kennedy’s new gig at natural resources gives him a well-deserved respite from the health minister’s job. Kennedy took over that job at a hard time and navigated the department though some tough times.  he got out of it with both his health and his reputation intact.  That’s a rare achievement.

At natural resources, Kennedy faces the challenge of mounting problems with the Muskrat Falls project.  Kennedy can be a forceful proponent for an argument like Muskrat Falls.  He can also be a diligent house-cleaner when problems occur. if Dunderdale had to kill off Muskrat, Kennedy could handle that effectively too.

In the next four years, Kennedy will also have to deal with the border issue in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the future of a string of law suits related to the Lower Churchill. 

Danny Williams appointed Kathy Dunderdale to natural resources safe in the knowledge that he was really looking after things.  He didn’t need a minister who understood much and Dunderdale fit the bill.  With Kennedy, Dunderdale has a minister who will – in all likelihood – lead this crucial department in more than name only and take the heightened public profile along with it.  Kennedy could be well set when Dunderdale leaves.

Kennedy’s appointment as Government House Leader is a clear sign the Conservatives are going to approach the legislature with a strong arm and an iron fist.

Darin King took the poisoned chalice of fisheries in the recent cabinet shuffle.  The provincial Conservatives haven’t been able to find a policy they can all agree on.  As a result, the fishery remains a festering political pustule that breaks from time to time, splattering the minister of the moment. King can kiss his leadership aspirations good-bye.

Derrick Dalley got the Conservatives’ community pork portfolio as minister of  tourism, culture and recreation.  He succeeds Terry French who got a quiet and relatively easy portfolio in what is usually the home of ministers on the way into cabinet or those on the way out.

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Coming up next week at SRBP…

On Monday:  Detailed commentary on Kathy Dunderdale’s second cabinet and her reorganization of departments, including some of the comments from posts that hit Number One and Number Nine last week.

On Tuesday:  “Financing Post-Secondary Education” - another instalment in the 15 Ideas series.

On Wednesday:  "The Value of Nothing and Nothing of Value:  Democratic Reform Revisited"

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What he said: education bureaucrats version #nlpoli

The Telegram’s Brian Jones puts the new school board policy on  dishonesty in the correct perspective:

Behaviour is not separate from their beloved “academic outcomes” (curses on educational jargon; in former times, teachers simply and more accurately referred to “results”).

In fact, behaviour is an essential aspect of academics.

Responsible parents encourage their children to be diligent, hardworking and interested in their studies: put in effort; don’t be lazy; do your best.

The district’s new policy on cheating makes a mockery of parents’ efforts.

More importantly, the policy mocks students who don’t cheat. It insults their honest efforts to study and to learn.

Read the whole column.  Jones nails a bunch of other aspects.

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Traffic that was more sworn on than sworn in #nlpoli

1. Kent demoted by Dunderdale (Yep, your humble e-scribbler got the Steve Kent thing in Number 9 spectacularly wrong)
2. Astroturf
3. Tory snouts back in trough
4. Churn baby churn
5. The rewards of planning an organization
6. The Best Case/Worst Case Scenario
7. The Insiders on Polls during Elections
8. And then right on cue…
9. The indelicate art of cabinet-making (Yep, your humble e-scribbler got the Osborne thing spectacularly wrong)
10. Why should anyone care?

 

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Quickie Cabinet Reaction: Happy Campers #nlpoli

1. If you don’t want the job, then quit:  All these people in cabinet and every one looks like they have had something shoved up inside them, sideways.  Even Kathy Dunderdale herself looks sour as sour can be in the picture illustrating the online CBC story.
2. Big Winner:  The NDP.  The insurgent Dippers got a huge boost from Kathy Dunderdale as she seemed to take some policy advice from Danny Dumaresque and the Liberals.  By leaving out representation from Mount Pearl and St. John’s, Kathy Dunderdale gave the four Dipper MHAs every excuse they needed to hammer away at the provincial government on every issue from roads to health care.  The Tories at Tammany Hall  - Doc O’Keefe chief amongst them - won’t be able to cope with the political fall-out, especially if Dunderdale has to cut and chop anything. In fact,  if Doc and the gang are serious about changing municipal funding options, Kathy Dunderdale just gave them all the big middle finger.  That just plays into the Dipper expansion plans.
3. Big Loser:  Darin King.  With this appointment, Kathy Dunderdale sent Darin to his political doom.
4. The people who whispered in The Sister’s ear about a wellness portfolio need to check their sources. You know who you are.
5. Lorraine Michael needs Cultural Awareness Lessons:  On Thursday, NDP leader Lorraine Michael told reporters “I really don't think we need two ministers for Labrador, one called the Minister of Labrador Affairs and the other Aboriginal Affairs. I think it's totally unnecessary.”  There are aboriginal people all across the province.  Michael displayed a truly remarkable level of ignorance by trying to claim that the aboriginal affairs a portfolio is only related to Labrador.

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New technology and medicine

Via kevinmd.com, an article by medical student Alex Chamessian on how he uses his iPad as part of his education:

I’ve tried to incorporate iPad into patient care and education as much as possible.

One salient example is from my recent pediatrics rotation. Our team cared for a newborn who was showing signs of what appeared to be benign neonatal sleep myoclonus. The baby’s mother was very disturbed by the sight of her new (and first) daughter contracting during her sleep. When I was presenting this case on rounds, I pulled up a Youtube video of benign neonatal sleep myoclonus and showed it to the parents and the rest of my team. When the mom saw the video of someone else’s baby twitching like her own, she was reassured that her daughter’s condition was fairly common and of little concern. Likewise, the rest of my team, which included residents, medical students, nurses and attendings, got a better view of what benign sleep myoclonus looks like. This particular experience showed me the great power that iPads and similar technology can have at the bedside.

Accessing medical records is also a big part of patient care. Most patient information is electronic at Duke and we have a dedicated system for managing that info. With the Citrix receiver program, I can tap into our EMR system via my iPad. This ability has been most useful on rounds. There have been several times where key patient labs were still pending at the time when we started rounding. With my iPad, I’m able to periodically check for lab values; more than a few times, I’ve been spared from having to omit lab values in my presentation because I was able to retrieve them while on foot.

You can check his own blog – Dr. Willbe – for the continuing adventures of a medical student.  Take the time.  It’s well written.

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Cabinet swearing in at 10 AM #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale will be at Government House to see her second cabinet sworn in at 10:00 AM..

SRBP will will have the run-down later on Friday.

 

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Kent demoted by Dunderdale #nlpoli

There’ll be no chance to run the wellness department around Kathy Dunderdale’s cabinet table for Mount Pearl wunderkind Steve Kent.

The Big Scout took a major kick in the parliamentary goolies on Thursday, getting punted from the Premier’s good graces to take up the job of deputy chair of committees in the House of Assembly/

Sure there’s a little extra in the pay packet compared to your average member of the legislature but as the third in line to the Speaker’s chair, Kent basically gets to do nothing more exciting than chair a few committee meetings when the House sits.

And under the Tories, that’s not very often.

Before this, Kent managed to finagle a job as parliamentary secretary for forestry and agrifoods, a sort of half-minister reporting to the natural resources minister. 

Normally a parl sec gig is the gateway to a cabinet appointment but not for the ambitious young fellow from Mount Pearl.

Maybe his demotion had something to do with his lack of enthusiasm for the Old Woman who replaced the Old Man.  We told you about Steve’s sudden website make-over back in August. He dumped Danny – after the better part of a year  - but in the remake, there was no sign of Kathy.

Kathy’s absence was very conspicuous.  As SRBP put it in August:

Aside from one side-on shot at some event or other, Kathy Dunderdale is a big black hole on Steve Kent’s website.

Talk about negative space.  Kathy’s absence just screams at you.

Steve could even have links to government news releases and a reference to the department he works for.

But there’s nada.

As it turns out the nada on the website mirrored the nada for Steve in cabinet appointments.

Did anyone see Paul Lane picking up a new suit at Tip Top by the Village Thursday night?

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The indelicate art of cabin-making #nlpoli

1. If Ross Wiseman is the new Speaker because Tom Osborne withdrew, that’s because Osborne knows he’s going back into cabinet.
2. Tom should send a thank you note to Gerry Rogers, the Skinner-skinner. 
3. Steve Kent will get a cabinet post, most likely something light and fluffy. Think intergovernmental affairs and the voluntary sector.  There are lots of made-up cabinet posts and plenty of light and fluffy caucus bodies competing for them but Kent’s been around since 2007 and Mount Pearl usually gets a minister. 
4. As much as you could run the place with about a third fewer ministers than the current cabinet has, Dunderdale likely won’t cut many posts, if any.  She needs to keep the ambitious crowd on her benches under control for a while, especially in light of the serious kick in the stones the party took in St. John’s.
5. The huge upset along the Burin peninsula will mean that both Darin and Clyde will get cabinet jobs. What cabinet jobs they get is another matter. Jackman might not get fish back considering he made a balls of it already.
6. If Dunderdale is serious about restructuring the fishery, she’ll need someone with a titanium spine and nothing to lose politically to take the job. Her only caucus member with those criteria  - Jerome! - is already busy and would be better deployed in another portfolio.
7. Marshall will likely stay on in finance. Dunderdale’s choices are limited. if you didn’t leave him there, where else could Tom go?
8. Education needs a shake-up. Unfortunately, there are few choices to shake it up and lots of resistance from the school board mafia led by Darin King to any substantive changes for the better in the province’s education system.
9. Natural resources is a plum job even though Dunderdale will likely keep her fingers in most of the major issues. As much as someone like Jerome! could deliver a major shakeup to a department is long overdue for a gutting, odds are this little plum will be kept for close friends of the Boss.  Due rewards for their service to the Dunderdale cause:  Joan Burke and Susan Sullivan. Take yer pick.
10. Fairity O’Brien could get left on the benches as a thank you for his loyalty to the Old Man.  The only more fitting political reward would be fisheries minister with a mandate to overhaul the industry at no cost to the treasury.
11. Whoever gets tourism, culture and recreation will be Dunderdale’s new pork and patronage czar.  Terry French did that job so admirably during the Old Man’s second term that he is due a promotion. 

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