Margin of error defined #nlpoli

Corporate Research Associates November 2011 omnibus:

If a provincial election were held today in Newfoundland and Labrador, for which party would you vote?

Progressive Conservative Party  60%

CRA August 2011 omnibus:

If a provincial election were held today in Newfoundland and Labrador, for which party would you vote?

Progressive Conservative Party 54%

Provincial General Election, October 2011:

Progressive Conservative Party:  32%

- srbp -

Speech Writing #nlpoli

Write in a way that sounds like the person delivering the speech would have said it.

You might not find that on any lists of great speech writing tips, but few people who write speeches would think of using words, phrases and sentence structures that just normally wouldn’t flow out of the mouth of the person delivering the speech.

You can see this point with Kathy Dunderdale.

Listen to her in a scrum on the fishery.  It’s at the 5:15 mark of a CBC newscast from December 2. She mangles a reference to contract negotiations between the fisheries union and Ocean Choice International. 

Then there’s a speech Dunderdale delivered in early November to a Canadian-American trade development group. This does not sound like Kathy Dunderdale:

Few of you would be here in this room today if you did not share my belief that there is indeed a time for courage, a time for stepping forward, a time for stepping up to do things that are hard, not out of hubris or reckless bravado, but out of a pure and rational conviction that greater things can be achieved by facing a challenge than by backing away from it. Fear has been running rampant through the marketplace in recent months. There are some who say this is a time not to build on great dreams, but to bury our ambitions – not to do the hard things, but to hunker down. I suspect that hunkering down is not why you are here. I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

And then it turns into a long-winded recital of Muskrat mythology, everything from it’s low cost to its affordable to “we made an economic miracle.”

The whole thing is flatulent. 

Windy.

All the same, this part of the speech has plenty of potential.  It’s about three or four re-writes away from being a decent one. 

Whoever put it together has managed to pick up the idea that repetition works.  Read through it again and see if you can pick them up:

• …a time for courage, a time for stepping forward,  a time for stepping up to do the things that are hard…
• …to accept the challenge, to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, to intend to win, and to energise the economy…
• …with courage, confidence, ingenuity and bravado…

What the person who wrote this speech missed is that while repetition is good, you should repeat them in threes to achieve maximum impact.  Casual observation and detailed research bear it out.

Groups of three.

Don’t believe it?  Winston Churchill’s wartime pledge that he had nothing to offer but  “blood, toil, tears and sweat” usually gets remembered as “blood, sweat and tears.”

Later in the same speech, Churchill said his wartime aim was victory:

…victory at all costs,  victory in spite of all terror,  victory, however long and hard the road may be…

Let’s take that last bit of Dunderdale speech and re-work it. 

I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

First of all, it is one big sentence.

So read it out loud.

Take your time and read it again.

Speeches are meant to be heard, not read.

Read it again.

There’s a bit of rhythm there. 

But see a problem?

Yeah, it is basically a series of repetitions of things.  The writer takes an idea to aid memory – repetition – and destroys the impact by doing it over and over again in a single sentence.

But wait a second, there’s another nice touch in there that can help us re-work it.  Look at the front end of that sentence.  There’s another useful device:  the contrast.  This is a time “not to…” ,  “but to”.

It sounds a bit like Marc Antony’s speech from Julius Caesar:

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Incidentally, remember how that speech starts?

Go look it  up.

Anyway, then the Dunderdale speech gives four things that we “but to”. 

Too much.

Then there are those opening words.  They suggest that Dunderdale is uncertain.  “I suspect that you believe…”.  I think you might believe this, possibly.

Awkward.

Why not just start out with a firm declaration?

“I believe that this is not the time to run away…”.

Run away is a simple phrase that conjures up the image of cowardice.

Bad.

Definitely something you would not agree with.

“Bury” doesn’t real fit.  It’s missing the object of the phrase:  what are you burying? The thought is incomplete.

“Hunker” only works properly if you combine with “down”.   “Hunkering down” is what you do when a hurricane is ripping through your town.  Hunkering down is what you do to survive a storm.  The image this conjures up is wrong.

On the other hand, “flee” is the image that the writer seems to have been shooting for.

It’s just that “flee” is a puffy word.  It is lace doilies.

“Run away” is the same idea but in a word that most people in the audience will pick up instantly with exactly the meaning you want:

“I believe that this is not the time to run away.”

Let’s make that one sentence.  You can add some stage instruction to the speaking notes for the speaker to lean on the word “not.”

So now we just have to complete the thought, tell people what we believe they must do.

Again, we’ve got the fours here.  The repetition is too heavy and even if it seems that this is an effort to work some mission statement into a speech, the result is a bit much.

What we need to do here is give the statement of what we think should happen.  We are looking for the oppose of run away.  Cowards run away.  Brave people do what?  They “face” up to things.

With Americans, a military metaphor would work as well.  A suggestion of combat, of fighting and winning what was lost would set up a clean picture of what the writer is struggling to say with all that repetition.

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight.

Almost done.

We just need to close the deal with a line that will have them clapping away in agreement.

Here’s where the group of three comes in.

“…courage, confidence,  ingenuity and hard work…”

The first one and the last one are both naturals. 

The middle two don’t work as well.  It’s hard to be courageous without being confident.

Ingenuity is a good quality.  Americans pride themselves on being inventive.  They are clever.  They come up with original ideas.

But ingenuity is bit of a 50 cent word.  It isn’t quite as plain as the others.

A quick flip through a book of words that have similar meanings gets you in the neighbourhood of “creativity”.

And there you are, done:

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight…
with courage, creativity and hard work.

Rule of Three.

Repetition.

Plain language.

And it would all sound like words Kathy Dunderdale would use.

Here endeth the lesson.

- srbp -

The Miracle of Persuasion #nlpoli

Miracle on 34th Street is your humble e-scribbler’s favourite Christmas movie, tied with the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol.

Over at copyblogger.com, Susan Daffron ties Miracle on 34th Street with persuasive writing. It’s a cute angle handled very effectively.

For those who are interested in those sorts of things, the illustration for her post is one of the original movie posters for Miracle.

20th Century Fox released the movie during the summer of 1947 and played down the Christmas angle and the Santa Claus storyline in favour of Maureen O’Hara and John Payne.  Subsequent advertising usually has featured Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle and Natalie Wood as the precocious eight-year-old Susan.

And for those who don’t want to read the post, here’s a clip from the movie that tugs at the heartstrings.

- srbp -

The Wheel of Fish #nlpoli

Remember that thing about not being able to slide a sheet of paper between the three political parties on major issues?

Well, it continues to play out on the fishery.

Ocean Choice International announced on Friday it is closing a couple of plants that have been struggling for some time.

The provincial government  - via Premier Kathy Dunderdale  - blames the union for rejecting an offer to keep a couple of hundred people on the payroll long enough every year to qualify for federal hand-outs.

The latest fisheries minister repeats the government’s policy that fights against any reorganization of a fishery that everyone knows has too many people and way too many plants in it for anyone to make a decent living without government handouts. 

He threatens to hold up a decision on OCI’s export licenses unless the company delivers guarantees that the company will not close other plants.

The Liberals blame the Tories.  Bring out the “regulatory arsenal”, the Liberal news release screams, in order to to stop ”giveaways”.  Now there’s a novel idea:  politicians interfering in the fishery. What was the definition of stupid, again? 

The union-controlled New Democrats blame the company and province’s governing Tories for the mess.  What would they support?  Something that involves more government interference in the fishery which is, not surprisingly what both the Liberals and the Conservatives think is the right and new thing to do. 

And around and around the political merry-go-round spins, apparently, without any sense of the human tragedy caused by decades of exactly the same ideas they push as if no one has heard them before.

All three parties pretend that the central problem in the fishery doesn’t exist.  “The central problem of the fishery today”, as your humble e-scribbler wrote in September, “is that stocks have been decimated by decades of overfishing as a result of government policies that encouraged too many people to enter the fishery than it could sustain economically or environmentally without hundreds of millions annually in federal and provincial government subsidies.”

The Liberal release, in keeping with the party’s election platform, might actually be the stupidest position of the three parties.  But in fairness, they are mere millimetres beyond the Conservatives and the New Democrats on the stunned-arse scale.

Derek Butler is executive director of an association of fish processing companies.  In the Monday Telegram, Butler argues that only “change and a modern competitive fishery designed to perform to the market can work.”  He’s right.

But that is exactly the fishery that the politicians have fought against for decades.  The politicians had a choice.  They could manage the change or just let it happen. The former offered the chance of stability, order and control.  The latter could wind up being brutal and savage with an unpredictable outcome.  One is a jaunt; the other a  manic storm of motion and fury.

Well, with OCI’s decision last week, they don’t have a choice any more. 

Their merry-go-round ride just turned into a roller coaster without seatbelts or rails.

- srbp -

 

Related:

• “And no fish swam…”
• “Quiet:  Genius at Work”
• “Up the Creek with Jackman and Rideout”

Emera buys NL line service company #nlpoli

Via CNW:

“HALIFAX, Dec. 5, 2011 /CNW/ - Emera Utility Services Inc. (EUS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera Inc. (TSX: EMA.TO -News), today announced the acquisition of the utility line and communications construction, installation and maintenance business of Green's Service Station Ltd. (Green's), a power and communications line construction and maintenance company based in Goobies, NL. The purchase of Green's aligns with EUS' growth strategy and strengthens its competitive position within Atlantic Canada and beyond.

With more than 30 years' experience, Green's is a recognized leader in the field, with a reputation for quality, safety and professionalism. "Green's has a highly-regarded reputation for providing premium service to its customers. This purchase will allow EUS to take our services in the area to the next level, and will expand our capabilities and opportunities throughout the region," said Dan Muldoon, President and COO of EUS. "We see tremendous opportunity in Newfoundland and Labrador and Green's will play a pivotal role in our ability to compete for business and grow in this province."

As part of the transaction, approximately 80 full and part-time employees from Green's, including the founder and former President, Vernon Smith, will join the EUS team. As the Managing Director, Smith will continue to play a significant role in NL operations.

"Building a business with such a great team has been truly a rewarding experience and the decision to sell was thoughtfully considered," said Smith. "However, after getting to know Dan and the EUS team, I am confident that my employees and I are joining a great organization that offers plenty of growth and opportunity for everyone."

Emera Inc. is not disclosing the purchase price for this acquisition, other than to note that it is not material to its business.

About Emera Utility Services:

Emera Utility Services, Inc. (EUS) is Atlantic Canada's largest Utility Services Contractor. Based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it has additional facilities in Dartmouth, Truro, Sydney, Saint John, Moncton, Fredericton and Charlottetown.

EUS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera Inc. (EMA-TSX). Emera Inc. is a growing energy and services company with $6.8 billion in assets and revenues of $1.6 billion. The company invests in electricity generation, transmission and distribution as well as gas transmission and utility energy services. Emera's strategy is focused on the transformation of the electricity industry to cleaner generation and the delivery of that clean energy to market. Emera operates throughout northeastern North America, in three Caribbean countries and in California. More than 80% of the company's earnings come from regulated investments. To learn more about Emera, visit their website.”

- srbp -

Stop your “more for me please” rants, Dundernomics edition #nlpoli

Politics in Newfoundland and Labrador is nothing if it is not funny.

Last week, Premier Kathy Dunderdale warned the crowd running the province’s fish processing industry  - and everyone else in the province too - that they can’t “constantly turn to government” to fix every problem out there.

So on Monday, the people who prompted her to make that decision – Ocean Choice International – is meeting with provincial officials to discuss what sort of cash the province is going to cough up to help workers affected by OCI’s decision to close two of its fish plants.

As VOCM reported:

Ocean Choice International is meeting with government today about support for a worker adjustment program. The company announced Friday it was folding their operations in Marystown and Port Union, affecting 410 employees. President and CEO, Martin Sullivan, says financial assistance to an adjustment program for workers is part of an overall package to be defined in consultation with government and the FFAW. He says it's priority number one for OCI. The company plans to work with the affected towns in the future. Sullivan says if their properties in Marystown or Port Union can become part of the solution to the community economic development, then they are more then willing to discuss the options with the communities.

And without any sense of hypocrisy, irony or even humour, Premier Kathy Dunderdale joined with her fellow Atlantic Premiers on Monday to demand that the federal government cough up more cash for health care, among other things.

Again, from voice of the cabinet minister:

Atlantic premiers want the federal government to put more money into social transfers to help cover the rising cost of delivering health care.

The four premiers met in St.John's today to talk about a number of issues including the amount of money they receive from the federal government. A joint communiqué calls on the feds to cover 25 per cent of the cost of delivering health care. Their share currently is at about 20 per cent. There will be a First Ministers conference in January at which time social transfers and other issues will come up for discussion.

The premiers are also concerned about federal debt reduction. They would rather see cuts made first in the National Capital Region than the Atlantic Provinces.

Stop your “more for me please, rants” indeed.

- srbp -

Dazed and Confused, Muskrat proponents version #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale and Emera chief executive Chris Huskilson.

Par for the course for the former to be dazed and confused.

Somewhat surprising to find the latter a bit off.

The issue:  the cost of Muskrat Falls electricity.

Kathy Dunderdale told the world  - via CBC Radio - in November 2010 that it would cost somewhere between 14.3 and 16.5 cents per kilowatt hour to make electricity at Muskrat Falls. That was the estimated wholesale cost of the electricity from the Muskrat project, not including any transmission costs.

Last week, Emera boss Chris Huskilson said that electricity priced in that range was too expensive for Nova Scotians.

People in this province rightly wondered what was up given that their final price for electricity after Muskrat Falls comes along will be absolutely, guaranteed, without question or doubt way higher than 14 to 16 cents per kilowatt hour. 

After all, the public utilities will set the price.  By law, they have to look at the cost of production and transmission and distribution, account for any additional costs the companies – Nalcor, Newfoundland Power and now Emera – might have and then stick a guaranteed profit for them on top of that.

And that very expensive power from Muskrat Falls plus the very heavy debt that goes with it will push electricity costs up dramatically from where it is now.

Over the weekend, the Telegram quoted now Premier Kathy Dunderdale saying:

Dunderdale said the cost of Muskrat Falls power will mean that Newfoundlanders will be paying 14.3 cents for electricity when the project comes online.

Pure nonsense.

Even Nalcor won’t hazard a guess – in public - at what consumer rates will be in this province after Muskrat comes on stream.

And if that comment of hers about consumer prices is suddenly true, she’ll have to explain why she said one thing now and a year ago said something dramatically different.

But then there’s this bit:

"We're not going to get 10 cent power, but Nova Scotia may be able to get 20-cent power, or 11 cent power," she said. "They have transmission already in place. They have other things they can draw on that we don't have here in the province. So you're not comparing apples to apples."

At first glance that might seem confusing but here’s what she might be trying to get out.

Nova Scotians are not going to get 10 cent power from Muskrat Falls.  Under the deal with Nalcor, Emera will get a block of power for free.  And they’ll get access to more power from Muskrat Falls for less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

And yes, for those already familiar with this, that would be the same Muskrat Falls power that cost at least 14 cents to produce and then however much to transmit it besides.  The Nova Scotians will get it delivered to their door for less than the cost to make it.

As for the 20 cent and 11 cent power Dunderdale is talking about, someone will have to try and get that out of her because it makes no sense at all. it has nothing to do with the price of anything, anywhere real.

Meanwhile, provincial natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy is quite right to scratch his head a bit over Huskilson’s other comments about Muskrat prices.  As Kennedy noted in another Telegram story, Huskilson told Nova Scotia legislators in October that:

The uniqueness of that particular type of investment is that we are actually getting the energy from this project at the project economics. We’re paying no more and no less than Newfoundlanders will pay for this particular energy from this particular project. In fact, it’s a very, very advantageous situation that Newfoundland is giving us access to this resource at the same cost that they are seeing for the resource. So that’s the position and the opportunity that’s before us.

Simply put, Huskilson’s comment is not true.  Under the term sheet, Emera will get a block of power for nothing and an extra load for less than what Nalcor says it will cost to produce the power.  Jerome! even uses the same figure – 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour – that everyone knows now is Nalcor’s working, low-end figure for Muskrat costs.

Once again, we see the basic problem for the politicians and company bosses pushing the Muskrat falls project:  they cannot keep their stories straight.

No wonder public opposition to the project is growing.

- srbp -

Muskrat Falls Friday Trash Dump #nlpoli

The provincial government waited until late Friday afternoon to issue a bulletin that Emera had registered the Nova Scotia interconnection with the environment department for review.

That’s weird because Friday is usually when you release news you want to bury.  Friday is normally a crap news day since people don’t pay attention to the Friday nights news. 

If you can’t kill the story,  you can at least be assured that after the weekend, the story will be significantly weaker than if it hit on Monday and had a whole week to build steam in the glare of cameras and media inquiry.

So if you were going to close a couple of fish plants, you’d do it on Friday. Premier Kathy Dunderdale could still look severely stressed in the media clips – we are talking edge of a stroke stress here – but still the story would likely have less fuss than if it had been released on its own on Monday, 8:00 AM.

But the electricity line to Nova Scotia – a supposedly huge part of the Muskrat Falls development  - is not the news you’d like to bury. 

Well, at least you wouldn’t think so, especially since by the time it hit the wires, the fish plant story was already owning the front end of the news cycle.

So if releasing it on Friday afternoon is odd, then the actual wording of the announcement is odder still:

Maritime Transmission Link (Reg. 1618)
Proponent: ENL Maritime Link Inc.

The proponent, ENL Maritime Link Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera Newfoundland and Labrador Holdings Inc., is proposing to design, develop and operate the Maritime Link Transmission Project between the Island of Newfoundland and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The transmission link is a 500 MW, +/-200 to 250 kV high voltage transmission system that includes the following elements and associated infrastructure: transmission corridors, subsea cables, shore grounding facilities, two converter stations and adjoining substations, two transition compounds and other potential infrastructure as required. The three main geographical components of the project are:

1. Newfoundland component - In southwestern Newfoundland, a new transmission line between Cape Ray and Bottom Brook along an existing transmission corridor and Bottom Brook to Granite Canal in a combination of existing and new corridors.
2. Cabot Strait component – Crossing the Cabot Strait, two subsea cables spanning approximately 180 kilometres from Point Aconi (or Lingan), Nova Scotia to Cape Ray, Newfoundland (exact location to be determined).
3. Nova Scotia component - In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a new transmission line (approximately 50 kilometres in length) parallel to the existing transmission corridor centerline between Point Aconi (or Lingan) and Woodbine.

Project construction is scheduled to begin in 2014 and first power planned for delivery in late 2016 or early 2017.

The undertaking was registered on December 1, 2011; the deadline for public comments is January 6, 2012; and the minister’s decision is due by January 14, 2012.

Notice right off the bat:

• No Nalcor.  The thing is registered by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera. 
• No Muskrat Falls.  No Lower Churchill at all, in fact.
• No room.  There is a single 500 megawatt line.  That won’t much – if any – capacity for exporting power beyond Nova Scotia.
• Construction isn’t tied to Muskrat at all.
• The construction dates anticipate first power received in 2016.  That doesn’t match up with likely Muskrat timelines given the continued delays in that project.

Go to the registration document and a few more curious things show up.

Like, for example, the Maritime line on the island of Newfoundland isn’t going to run out towards Clarenville as the Nalcor documents suggested.

It’s going to start at Granite Canal, an existing Nalcor generating site on the south-western part of the island.  It’s not far from the big hydro plant at Bay d’Espoir. And it’s close enough to the former Abitibi generating facilities that Nalcor got as a bonus courtesy of the 2008 expropriation.

Here’s a section of one of the maps provided in the registration documents:

And remember that curious absence of a reference to the Lower Churchill in the notice?  Well, there are a few mentions of the Lower Churchill in the registration documents.  One of them notes that the Maritime link will allow surplus LC power to flow to Nova Scotia but…

The Maritime Link will have no direct connection to the Labrador-Island Transmission Link, which is a project being developed by Nalcor Energy, as the proponent, along with the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Generation Project. The Maritime Link has a separate utility due to the fact the Project will  serve as a complete and independent connection between Nova Scotia and the existing electrical system. Project Registration on the Island of Newfoundland, will operate independent of the Labrador-Island Transmission Link, and is the only transmission facility which will connect the two provincial grids. [Emphasis added]

Yes, friends, it is separate and independent.

And that’s interesting in light of the announcement last week of industrial benefit opportunities for Nova Scotians on a project  - Muskrat Falls – in which they have no direct involvement apparently.

Anyway, the details of the Maritime link suggest that Nalcor intends to keep all the Muskrat power in the province, if it gets built.  They’ll meet their commitments to Nova Scotia using the huge amount of surplus power in the central Newfoundland hydro-electric system. 

That stuff is all bought and paid for or seized so there’s basically very little cost associated with it.  That would explain how Nalcor would plan to meet its obligation to Nova Scotia under the term sheet and any deal they sign with Emera.  The Nova Scotians can get free power because Nalcor will ship it out of stuff that is basically next-door to free.  Meanwhile, they will force people in Newfoundland and Labrador to pay for Muskrat Falls entirely.  They’ll justify their rate applications to the public utilities board on that basis.

Since the Maritime link can happen without the Lower Churchill, Emera is likely looking to lock Nalcor into a guarantee to deliver on its free power commitments regardless of what happens with Muskrat and the Lower Churchill.  That would explain the delays in negotiation.  Emera has Kathy Dunderdale over a barrel and would be foolish not to press their huge political and negotiating advantage.

Emera filed its paperwork on November 30.  The provincial environment department controlled when it accepted the documents and issued the bulletin.

Given the information the documents contain, it’s no wonder provincial officials dumped them out there with the trash on Friday. 

Now wonder that Kathy Dunderdale looked sick in her media scrum about OCI’s plan to close a couple of fish plants. Her pained and stressed expression likely had nothing to do with a few hundred jobs lost in the fishery. 

She’s got much bigger problems with the Muskrat Falls project and the mess that Danny Williams started and then left for her to clear up.

- srbp -

Traffic for the start of December #nlpoli

How do you know Peter MacKay lied about the helicopter flight? 

When PMSH stepped in to defend him he said nothing about the “training flight” story MacKay started with.

1. Stupid politicians and their staffers
2. Offshore board slags CBC
3. Habeas corpus for kids
4. Adult conversation
5. Muskrat Falls plot points
6. More of the same
7. In case you missed it, MF political panel version
8. Rush job
9. The Muskrat Morass deepens
10. With friends like these, Muskrat Falls version

- srbp -

And so it begins (fishery restructuring version) #nlpoli #cdnpoli

News today that OCI will permanently close two of its fish plants is merely the start of it.

The hurricane of change that is sure to follow will make the 1992 cod moratorium seem like a gentle breeze.

- srbp -

The value of education, redux #nlpoli #cdnpoli

The most recent report from the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada shows that Grade 8 students in Newfoundland and Labrador score among the lowest in Canada for tests of mathematics and below the national average score for English.

Education minister Clyde Jackman, a former teacher himself, has tried to shift attention away from what the results are:  yet another reminder of the dismal state of the province’s educational system.
None of this is surprising.

As SRBP noted in August 2010, the province’s population consistently scores poorly in national evaluations of reading comprehension and mathematics scores.

Reading and writing is a challenge. 

Almost half the adult population of Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a literacy level that would allow them to “function well in Canadian society.”  

Basic math skills are an even bigger problem. 

Almost two out of every three adult Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don’t have the skill with numbers and mathematics – they call it numeracy – to function well in Canadian society. 

Numeracy is actually a far greater problem because it involves not just an ability to add, subtract, multiple and divide.  Numeracy also involves logic and reasoning, probability and statistics.

The problem is not a lack of money.  The provincial government spends significant amounts on education.   Ask any provincial Conservative and that’s about the only bit of informational they will cite that rings true.

Other politicians want to spend even more money on education.  In a  demonstration of the findings about problems with logic and reasoning, these well-intentioned souls advocate policies that would not produce the desired result.  In fact, evidence suggests that the ideas like free university tuition would make worse the issue of access for people from low income families.

The problem is not that we don’t spend enough.

The problem is  that we do not recognise there is a problem in the first place.

Clyde Jackman’s response is typical.

Nor do we collectively seem to appreciate the extent to which education is the foundation for future success both individually and collectively. 

Social  progress.

Economic development.

Improved health.

Innovation.

All come from improved education.

The third order problem is that what changes or reforms we have pursued in the past decade have been the wrong ones, driven entirely by the wrong motive.  The collapse of the educational system in 2005 under the Conservatives to a series of five super educational districts was entirely an exercise in bureaucratic consolidation of power.

The current school districts are too large, as former education minister Philip Warren noted in 2008.  Additionally, the 2005 reforms took the community out of education.  The reforms that Warren and his cabinet colleagues initiated in the 1990s aimed at increasing local control of education and of giving parents a greater level of involvement in education.

Recent changes to the school system in the metropolitan St. John’s area are an example of the pernicious, deleterious effect the 2005 school board re-organization has wrought. Education bureaucrats in the government department and the school district concocted a plan among themselves, discarded an earlier understanding with parents and then engaged in a cynical manipulation to force their pre-conceived outcome on those directly affected by their decisions.

It is no accident that all of this took place in an environment in which political leaders and their associates took every effort to stifle debate, ruthlessly attack those who dissented and pushed attention instead toward crusades that were, in truth, little more than political Punch and Judy shows.

Some of those who fought most zealously for the political theatrics are now shifting their stories, trying to ignore their own past involvement in making the mess. Others have not. They all still rattle around in the Echo Chamber.

The state of education in our province, like the state of our politics, is a sign of the extent to which we have turned away from the values that we once shared as a society.  We have lost sight of what is valuable and lasting and replaced it with the superficial, the trivial.

The first step to changing that is to recognise there is a problem.

And with yet more evidence that the provincial education system is failing, the problem is getting harder and harder to ignore.

- srbp -

The politics of quackery #nlpoli

Comedian Dara O’Briain has a routine someone has posted to youtube in which he lambastes advocates of ideas that have no foundation in facts.

He lampoons the irrational.

On that latter one, O’Briain could be lampooning the provincial New Democrats, and specifically Dale Kirby.

Kirby presented a brief to the Hebron development review commission this week.  His comments included a call for a change to offshore work schedules to two weeks on the rig and four weeks of payment for not working.  Kirby also called it “reckless” that the oil companies are allowed to use the S-92 helicopter to fly workers back and forth to the rigs. He said the helicopter was “dangerous”.

In an interview with CBC’s St. John’s Morning Show, Kirby repeated his comments about the offshore shift system. Kirby said that he and his colleagues had seen research that such changes would be marvellously beneficial to workers, to offshore safety and to offshore production. 

Kirby specifically referred to an increase in incidents of unspecified kinds in the third week of a three week work rotation.  He also claimed that a shorter work shift would attract more women to the jobs.

You can read Kirby’s presentation to the Hebron review hearings. Note that he makes no reference at all to any independent evidence to support his claims. He merely talks about the changes in North Sea oil industry rotation schedules.

When pressed by Morning Show host Anthony Germain on the issue, Kirby didn’t cite any specific examples of anything.  He shifted to a claim that somehow “we” owed it to workers.

Germain persisted with another specific reference to the research Kirby supposedly had.

With Germain having now given him three opportunities to give something concrete, Kirby then got to the truth:  this is an area where someone needs to do research. 

That’s why Kirby didn’t refer to any concrete evidence.  There isn ‘t any.  All Kirby did this past week was push a political line that is devoid of any intellectual or other integrity.  It’s just a pile of ideologically driven garbage.

It’s quackery.

Rather than hear from credible witnesses, the Hebron review commission wound up hearing from a witchdoctor, homeopath, horseshit pedlar, to borrow a phrase from O’Briain.

Kirby’s attack on the S-92 is basically the same. It’s another round of political ghoulism. The helicopter has been in use around the globe.  There has been one local tragedy and other incidents of one type of seriousness or the other.  There’s plenty of evidence around to allow one to compare incidents globally with this aircraft with those locally. 

You can the S-92 with other types of helicopters.  You can even collect the information to compare the period from initial use to the same point in its flight history for other types of helicopters.

Kirby didn’t do any of that.

Dale Kirby, education professor at the local university, with absolutely no experience in aviation, offshore safety or anything else offered his entirely unsubstantiated opinion about things he – quite obviously knows nothing about.

Horseshit pedlar indeed.

Kirby didn’t do that because his presentation had no need of facts, evidence or anything that could be mistaken for substance. 

As for those other words Kirby tossed around, the wannabe provincial New Democrat leader couldn’t have given a better example of just how reckless, feckless and dangerous some politicians can be. 

Kirby’s approach to politics is nothing more substantive than a left-wing version of the average American Tea Bagger.  It thrives on misinformation.  It serves only to mislead. it is irrational.

And we can only expect more of it from the NDP over the next four years.

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Stupid politicians and their staffers #nlpoli #cdnpoli

National Defence has had its fair share of total boobs who wind up appointed as minister.

Perhaps worst of all was the numpty who mandated that all Canadian Forces kitchens should use real maple syrup.  Of course, the maple syrup he mandated came from the part of Quebec he represented, but that was the extent of his concern.

Rare have been the ministers whose combination of intelligence and ability led to sound decisions and the sort of grown-up behaviour that the men and women of the Canadian Forces deserve.

The latest contestant in the “Biggest Dickwad of a Minister” sweepstakes would have to be Pete MacKay.  As it turns out, a very senior officer in the air operations centre warned against using a search and rescue helicopter to winch the minister out of a vacation spot on the Gander River.

He’s a sample from The Star’s story on the military advice the minister’s political staff ignored:

“If we are tasked to do this we of course will comply,” Ploughman continued. “Given the potential for negative press though, I would likely recommend against it.”

The “Ploughman” in the quote is Bruce Ploughman, then a colonel and these days a brigadier general.  Ploughman – originally from Newfoundland – is chief of staff for the military command responsible for deploying Canadian soldiers, sailors and aircrew around the globe.

According to his official biography, Brigadier General Ploughman is a highly experienced maritime helicopter pilot with tons of experience on the management end of the military. He’s also commanded the Canadian air wing in Afghanistan.

Smart guy.

Someone you might listen to.

Listen to, that is, if you weren’t the defence minister or the staffers who insisted on using a helicopter for the minister’s personal business.
From the looks of the Star story, it seems that the experience air force staff officers tried a number options to see if a bit of delay or apparent difficult would lead the pols from finding another way to get Pete out of the woods.

If that’s the case, then the officers were much smarter than their political masters.  The idiots insisted and – as a result – the whole mess has proven to be embarrassing for MacKay and the federal Conservatives.

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With friends like these, Muskrat Falls version #nlpoli

Federal natural resources minister Joe Oliver answering a question from Liberal Gerry Byrne during Question Period on Wednesday in the House of Commons.

Byrne wanted to know why the federal government was now talking about some equivalent form of financial support but not the loan guarantee originally promised.

Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte): Mr. Speaker, as of today the Conservatives are in formal default of their promise of a Muskrat Falls loan guarantee.

After over a year of analysis, a financial equivalent is being floated instead. Offering a financial equivalent is a refusal to assume any future risk for the project. It is not a true loan guarantee and is not what was promised. In contrast, a true loan guarantee would not cost the federal treasury a nickel as long as the project was technically and financially and economically viable.

Will a loan guarantee be offered, yes or no?

Hon. Joe Oliver (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, the Muskrat Falls project will provide significant economic benefits to the Atlantic region and will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We have reached many milestones in this process, including the New Dawn agreement with the Innu of Labrador, and appointing a financial adviser to ensure taxpayers' interests are respected.

We will work together to ensure there is a guarantee. There will be a guarantee –.

The default Byrne was on about appears to be the deadline in the agreement with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador on the loan guarantee.

But Oliver’s wording is curious.

He says there will be a “guarantee”.

Not a loan guarantee.

Just a guarantee.

And the federal government appointed a financial advisor to make sure that taxpayers’ interest are “respected”.

Hmmm.

Some how none of that sounds like what we in the persuasion business would call “good”.

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The Muskrat Morass Deepens #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale, Ed Martin and their supporters have a basic problem.

In 30 seconds, opponents of the multi-billion project can give a simple, coherent, and unassailable reason why they oppose the project.

In 30 minutes or 30 days or 30 weeks or even 30 months, the provincial Conservatives and Nalcor haven’t been able to provide a thorough, coherent argument why people should back their deal.

Take the consumer price for electricity as a case in point.

Your humble e-scribbler opposes Muskrat Falls because the people who own the resource should not have to pay the full price for development plus a profit for the companies involved while customers outside the province will get the electricity at a discount.

Then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale put the cost of Muskrat Falls power on the table this time last year  - November 22, 2010 - and your humble e-scribbler put it right there so people would not forget it:

…in terms of when we bring that on in 2017 that’s the cost in 2017, $165, or excuse me it’s $143 a megawatt hour.

That works out to a range of between 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour and 16.5 cents per kwh.

That’s not the final consumer price, incidentally.  That’s the cost to generate electricity from Muskrat Falls.  What consumers in this province will pay on the electricity bills will be something higher than that.

Last April, now-premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed that Muskrat power would cost taxpayers in Newfoundland and Labrador at least 14.3 cents per kilowatt hour.  And then she added the point about exports:

Mr. Speaker, Nova Scotia needs power. They need power and they can provide it to themselves for 10 cents or 11 cents a kilowatt hour. They are not going to buy it from us, Mr. Speaker, for 14.3, so we have to go into the market and sell at what the market can bear

Nova Scotians weren’t going to pay that much for electricity in April and that is still their position.

On Wednesday, local news media reported comments by Emera officials to the Nova Scotia legislature’s natural resources committee on October.

Andrew Younger (Lib. Dartmouth East): You undoubtedly are aware that people are talking 14, 15, 16 cents a kilowatt hour, and I do understand that doesn’t mean that’s what you pay on the bill because there are lots of other things and it averages in with the other sources but is that the sort of . . .

Chris Huskilson, CEO, Emera: Well that won’t make it. That kind of number won’t make it.

MR. YOUNGER: Why?

MR. HUSKILSON: It’s too high, so it has to be lower than those kinds of numbers.

MR. YOUNGER: That’s good.

MR. HUSKILSON: We won’t bring forward something that is not going to make it.

Huskilson knows he won;t have to worry about those sort of prices.  The working agreement between Nalcor and Emera guarantees Emera a 35 year supply of electricity in exchange for the $1.2 billion cost of a transmission line from Newfoundland to Cape Breton.

Former Premier Roger Grimes has called that free electricity and, in essence, it is.  Even if you spread that $1.2 billion over the 35 years, the cost to Nova Scotia – even though it is entirely notional – works out to something like 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Emera can buy electricity beyond that base amount.  They will pay around nine cents per kilowatt hour for it under the working agreement.  Even with the anticipated inflation escalators, Emera wouldn’t pay anything close to the real cost of Muskrat electricity ever.

Ever.

This is a sweet deal for Emera.  They get to do business in Newfoundland and Labrador, with a profit guaranteed by the province’s public utilities board.

But on top of that, Emera will get what Chris Huskilson told the legislative committee a couple of times:  35 years of electricity at a fixed price.

No escalator.

Fixed.

Emera officials used that term quite a bit:

• “Rate stability - it has a long-term fixed cost to it.”
• “To go over the advantages of Lower Churchill, it’s 35 years of clean, renewable energy at a fixed cost.”
• “No, in the long run it does stabilize rates because when it comes in, it’s a fixed contract for 8 per cent to 10 per cent of our load for 35 years, so that will have a stabilizing influence on prices.”

Nova Scotians have a fixed price for 35 years.  That’s almost as good as Quebec scored on Churchill Falls in 1969.

In practical terms, even if you accept that 3.5 cents per kwh for the guaranteed block of power,  inflation will reduce the cost of Emera’s electricity to almost nothing over time.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, on the other hand, will always have to pay to cover the full cost of the project and guarantee a profit besides that for the companies involved.

Their costs will go one way:  up.

Go back to that starting comment:

Your humble e-scribbler opposes Muskrat Falls because the people who own the resource should not have to pay the full price for development plus a profit for the companies involved while customers outside the province will get the electricity at a discount.

It won’t even take 30 seconds to read.

The rest is explanation.

Now try and find Nalcor’s explanation of what the people in the province will pay for electricity. 

Good luck. 

They’ve avoided it like the plague.

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Related: 

• The view from Flower Hill
• Dundernomics 101:  how to lose money
• Undisclosed risk:  financing the Lower Churchill

The November Traffic

What were people reading at SRBP in November?

1. The Zazzy Substitution, political version
2. Nalcor’s own studies back NG as Muskrat alternative
3. We all can’t be wrong
4. Suck it up, buttercup
5. The orchestra pit theory of political news
6. Muskrat Review Muddle and Nalcor Competence
7. Working stiffs and lazy ones
8. Always remember the fifth of November
9. How interesting…
10. Dunderdale in tweet debate with opposition leader… or was she?

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All is well! #nlpoli

Nalcor and Emera announced on Tuesday that they’d agreed to put off the deadline on finishing a deal for the electricity line between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to the end of January 2012.  The companies issued a news release.

“We are making good progress on the agreements,” said Ed Martin, President and CEO of Nalcor Energy. “However, we need more time to complete the volume of work required. Our relationship with Emera remains strong and both parties are committed to a quality outcome. These are important agreements and we’ll take the time to do them right."

All is well.

It will just take more time.

Like we haven’t heard that before,  (April 1999)

Mines and Energy Minister Roger Grimes today announced that negotiations between the province, Quebec and the utilities are continuing based on the framework outlined on March 9, 1998 and that no decisions have been made that would vary the configuration of the Churchill River Power Project from the March 9 announcement.

and before (November 1999),

We have made significant progress. We are committed to working with affected Aboriginal groups and ensuring a thorough environmental assessment for this project. We are committed to ensuring value from our resource. And we are committed to getting the best deal for the people of this province.

and before (November 2000):

We are confident a viable deal remains to be done. While the project would likely be reduced in scope, is there anyone in Newfoundland and Labrador, the country, or indeed North America, who would argue that the generation of a much needed renewable, green power source and the creation of jobs is not something we should aim to achieve?

Plus ca change.

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More of the same #nlpoli

The whole thing is easy to figure out if you just look at it.

October 13, 2011:

Tuesday night proved to be a “holy f***, that was close” moment for the people running the Liberal Party and for people, like John Efford, who want to run the party.

Now that the danger has passed they want to get right back to the old ways of doing business that put the party in his current sorry state.

November 22, 2011:

Of course, the real message in this job competition is even more stark:  the Liberals have told the universe that they are not thinking for a second about rebuilding or the future or anything so grand.  They just want to flesh out the staff chart or hire on a defeated candidate who needs a job.

So what did the party do with the chief of staff job?

Well, he didn’t get defeated but the new chief of staff in the Liberal opposition office is an ex-candidate in need of a job. From VOCM:

VOCM News has learned that Kelvin Parsons is the new Liberal chief of staff.

The Liberals placed a job ad with close of applications at 5:00 PM on Friday.  Yvonne Jones made the decision by Monday evening.  There’s no way anyone can run a proper competition, weigh the candidates and make a sensible, fair decision that fast even if the process itself was the wrong one in the first place.

The fix was in from the start. 

The job ad was just window dressing.

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Missing deadlines #nlpoli

Nalcor and Emera announced on Tuesday that they would miss the November 30 deadline to reach an agreement on building an electricity line between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

They will now take until the end of January 2012 to get it done.

But that’s not the only significant deadline they’ve missed.

The agreement with Ottawa on a loan guarantee had some key dates in it as well:

The Parties agree that time shall be of the essence in this agreement and will be bound by this agreement including the following timelines, unless otherwise extended by mutual agreement: on or before August 31, 2011 – announcement of the terms of this agreement; on or before November 30, 2011 or 8 weeks following access by the Government of Canada to the projects’ data room and detailed analyses and representations by credit rating agencies – agreement on term sheet for engagement with capital markets; and on or before financial close – completion of formal agreements for provision of the loan guarantee.

Translation:

• August 31, 2011:  the terms of the agreement.  They met that deadline.
• on or before November 30, 2011 or eight weeks after the federal officials get access to the Lower Churchill financial details:  an agreement on a term sheet to take to the financiers.
• before financial close:  completion of formal loan guarantee agreements.

Monday’s curious statement from the federal government and two provincial governments didn’t talk specifics about the agreement. It just said that they get together and talk about things every now and then.  It also said that the three governments “will work together going forward on a guarantee that will be completed in a timely manner while ensuring that all due diligence is performed.”

But they didn’t put any firm dates on anything.

And they didn’t release an amended agreement with new dates, which is, in itself, as odd as the other deal released on Monday which also lacked signatures and dates and stuff.

It’s odd – you see – because if things have really been moving along so well then Nalcor should be able to work on the details of the loan guarantee with the federal officials.  They should have been able to give the federal officials access to the financial information.  After all, this project is supposed to be well along in the planning such that you’d figure Nalcor has a pretty firm idea on the financials for the whole project.  The Nova Scotia link is just one part of the project.

Now this could be nothing much at all.

Or it could be that something else is rumbling below the surface.  For example all those extra industrial and job bennys for Nova Scotia could be a sweetener to try and get more than a loan guarantee out of Uncle Ottawa. 

Think about it for a second. 

With the economy threatened by a foreign-induced slowdown, the federal government might be looking for a place for some specific stimulus that would stretch – inevitably – into central Canada.

They couldn’t put federal backing beyond a loan guarantee into a project that benefits one province.  But a huge project that will benefit at least two provinces?  Well, that’s a horse of an entirely different colour. 

There’s even a mechanism in the form of the Lower Churchill Development Corporation, still left out there with enabling legislation on the provincial books.  The Lower Churchill Development Act sets out a financial arrangement between the federal government and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.  It always seemed odd that the current crowd running the place ignored this 30-odd year old agreement.

But still,  even if that part wasn’t going on in the background, it is rather odd that the all-important loan guarantee didn’t get a more concrete endorsement than it did, especially for a massive project that is supposedly surging ahead despite all criticism and doubts.

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Adult conversation #nlpoli

An unaired promo for VOCM’s afternoon talk show, as imagined by Donny Dooley.

Sorry for people on mobile devices who can’t get this.  Apparently it might not work for you.

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