Porking it up, old style #nlpoli

Turns out that a seat on the offshore regulatory board is not Reg Bowers first Conservative pork appointment.

In 2009, the provincial Conservatives re-appointed Bowers to a term on the board of College of the North Atlantic.

Yes.

you read that correctly.

Re-appointed.

Only thing is, there is no release announcing his appointment the first time.

In 2005, the provincial Conservatives put a whole new board in place.  Bowers’ name isn’t on the list.

Bowers wasn’t on a list of new appointees in 2007, either.

Very odd then that the 2009 release indicated Bowers was going back for a second term on the board.

When did the first term start?

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There’s no changing the channel traffic #nlpoli

The top stories as chosen by SRBP readers:

1. The problem with the Liberals (post by Craig Westcott)
2. Muskrat Falls Friday Trash Dump
3. The truth hurts
4. Emera buys NL line service company
5. Margin of error defined
6. Dazed and confused, Muskrat proponents version
7. Speech writing
8. “…particularly hypocritical…”
9. We’re sorry – Scouts Canada
10. The price of hydro exports

Someone said recently that the Muskrat Falls story is over, that people need to change the channel and get on with something else.

The only people who think that way are people who back the project.

The more other people learn about the project, the more those other people oppose it.

That’s why the people who back the project want everyone to stop talking about it.

This week’s traffic bears out the continued interest in Muskrat Falls.

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Connies pork-up offshore board #nlpoli #cdnpoli

The federal Conservatives took a leaf from the provincial Conservatives’ book on Thursday and added a political pork appointee to the board that regulates the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Long-time Tory Reg Bowers was intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue’s campaign manager in the last federal election. He’ll serve for a six-year term, subject to re-appointment.

The official announcement of his appointment is pretty vague on the details of Bowers’ background that make him an appropriate appointment.  All the release says is that Bowers has “30 years of experience in developing regional business prospects in Newfoundland and Labrador. He has worked on numerous projects creating opportunities for communities in his home province.”

Before he left politics abruptly in late 2010, Danny Williams set the wheels in motion to appoint his communications director to a provincial seat on the joint federal-provincial board.  Williams’ successor Kathy Dunderdale carried on with the appointment. Dunderdale and her natural resources minister word of Matthews’ new job secret until word of it leaked early in 2011. 

The botched appointment died in a ball of flames amid public condemnation of the blatant patronage it represented. 

The furor included a now famous attack on Dunderdale by Williams:

In my opinion, Elizabeth Matthews – of all the women I have met in politics including my ministers – was the most competent woman I had come across.

Bowers joins another federal appointee with no relevant background in the offshore oil and gas business:  Conrad Sullivan, brother of former Conservative fisheries ambassador Loyola Sullivan,

The two provincial appointees on the board - retired labour union boss Reg Anstey and Ed Drover – also lacked any relevant experience in dealing with offshore oil and gas issues prior to their appointment to the board.

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“…particularly hypocritical…” #nlpoli

Tories bums in the province must be a wee bit tighter than usual this week.

The province’s Dippers – new Democrats to the uninitiated – filed a lawsuit this week challenging the constitutional validity of a Troy law passed in 2007 that lets people vote when there are no elections.

You can tells Tory bums are tight.  No, it’s not because of because of the agitated yelping of the local dogs who, alone among God’s creatures, can hear hypersonic flatulence.

Rather it is because of the number of Tories belching verbal flatulence against the New Democrats.

For starters, natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy told the Telegram that

“Ms. Michael’s about-face is disturbing on a number of fronts — first of all, her flip-flop on this matter shows a lack of principles and, secondly, rather than taking responsibility for her actions, she tried to blame her staff for not doing adequate research….”

An argument that starts by tossing aside a cabinet minister’s usual reluctance to comment on matters that are before the courts.

And then to start by impugning the personal integrity of one’s opponent.  The vicious, petty ad hominem slur:  there’s something you usually don’t hear from Tories in this province. 

So sad are these comments:  sad because Jerome Kennedy, the leading light of the administration, and one of the better cabinet ministers of the past couple of decades, has nothing of substance so he must instead rely on this sort of foolishness.

Sadder still are his words because Jerome knows that in the Tory version of the house of Assembly,  opposition parties do not have the time to research bills properly and investigate them.  the Tories won’t open the House or allow any time for such things. 

More on that later.

Then there is another Tory who did a stint as the last caller on the morning open line show on Friday.  He dismissed the lawsuit as being “particularly hypocritical” of NDP leader Lorraine Michael. Back in 2007, you see, the NDP leader voted for the Tory bill that made their special ballot foolishness the law of the land.

Said Tory claimed that if Michael was “legitimately concerned” then she would have used the “mechanisms available to her’ to suggest amendments to the election law.

Where might she do this?

Why, the House of Assembly, our Tory friend insisted.

This would be the same House of Assembly that has come to resemble a legislative house of ill repute under the Tories.  They ram through a handful of bills through in the scarce number of days they let the place open.  Parliamentary oversight committees don’t exist. 

And even if all that weren’t true, the Tory on the radio knew full well that he and his colleagues would vote down any amendment any opposition politician came up with, just because.

Coming from these Tories, any talk of relying on the legislature would be disingenuous at best

These are the same Tories whose current leader has criticised the House for being useless when it comes to dealing with the truth where the real problem has been her own demonstrable distance from truthfulness in the past.

Their former Glorious Leader routinely made a mockery of accountability, himself, and once mused out loud that it might be time to get rid of free speech in the legislature once and for all.

The thing is, the Old Man wasn’t joking.

What is a bit of a joke though is that this whole onslaught of Tories is in defence of Clyde Jackman, the Tory who won his seat in the last general election by a handful of special ballots. 

Where Jerome might be one of only a couple of high flyers in the current cabinet, Jackman is definitely at the other end of the scale.  He might not be the most incompetent minister to hold office since 2003.  The competition  - Charlene Johnson, Kathy Dunderdale, Paul Oram, Dave Denine to name a few - has been extraordinarily stiff even in a province used to having some especially stunned-arse cabinet ministers.  You’d be safe, though, if you suggested that Jackman would certainly be in the Top Three.

Jackman’s abilities are not the joke here, though.  Rather, the joke is that the lawsuit against the special ballot voting provisions came as a result of the fact that Jackman won a tight race by relying on them, as it turned out.

He wound up in that tight spot as a result of some rather clumsy political manoeuvring by Jackman and his colleagues on the fishery and the Marystown fish plant, the Marystown shipyard and likely the government’s botched response to a hurricane or two.

Now his Tory colleagues are employing equally clumsy  - embarrassingly clumsy - political claims to back him up.

And while that may not be particularly hypocritical, it is particularly funny.

Damned funny.

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The truth hurts #nlpoli

Brace yourself.

Peter Jackson’s column in the Wednesday Telegram is spot on.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

Peter Jackson’s column is spot on the money and the mark and the point and whatever other metaphor you want to use.

The editorial on this page [in the hardcopy layout of the paper] laments how the Canadian electorate seems to be developing more tolerance for less-than-honest statements from our leaders. This is alarming, because cynicism and apathy can only lead to even worse behaviour, and undercut the foundations of our democracy. 

We expect politicians to avoid the unhealthy temptations that come with public office, but we’re not naïve enough to think it won’t happen from time to time. All we can do is remain ever vigilant, and ask those found culpable to own up and move on.

Peter’s especially right on the bit about how the cynicism and apathy that comes out of untruthful political statements eats away at the base of our society.

There’s evidence for this in a recent study that the Star’s Susan Delacourt blogged this week.  The study of voter apathy found that  - as the report put it - “Disengaged people felt that politics is a game that does not produce results for them…. The overall point seems to be that there is very little reason to be engaged.”
You don’t have to go to the United States or mainland Canada to find untruthful politicians.  There’s been plenty of false statements around these parts.  We are not talking politicians who change their position based on new information or a different circumstance.

We are talking unmistakeable falsehoods.

Like the one about the federal government taking 85% of provincial offshore oil revenues. Yes, friends, the entire 2004-05 offshore oil ruckus was founded on a falsehood.

Or, more recently, the claim that the Quebec energy regulator denying Nalcor access to the Quebec energy grid.

Aside from outright falsehoods, there is the cousin:  lack of disclosure.  The current provincial administration is well known for its love of freedom from information for the public.  Access to information debacles?  Failure to produce whistleblower protection laws?  The weakened House of Assembly and its broken oversight committees?

All speak to a political culture that promotes anything but the sort of honesty and integrity that genuine democracy demands.

Ultimately, we are all responsible for the current situation, just as we have to shoulder the burden for change.
The Telegram editorial [board] are right about that, too.

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We’re sorry – Scouts Canada #nlpoli #cdnpoli

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The price of hydro exports #nlpoli

Via National Public Radio (New York) comes a series on the cost to Americans of importing electricity from Canada.

The second instalment – aired December 6 – focused on Labrador and the Muskrat Falls project. 

There’s the familiar cost from Labrador opponents of the project, in this case former Conservative cabinet minister Joe Goudie:

But when you talk with a lot of the people concerned about those changes, many—not just Gaudi [sic] —bring up their parents.

“They [Nalcor Energy] just don’t understand that it [the river]  is a part of our lives.”

And then there is the irony of the potential future sources of energy for New York:

Opponents to [Nalcor vice president Gilbert] Bennett’s plan say natural gas could be a better alternative to cut emissions. But the irony is, that while the dam is controversial in Labrador, gas drilling is controversial in New York. They’re two conflicts that will play out simultaneously, as both places decide who will power who — and how.

Either way, “Canadian hydro would come at a price”.

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Irresponsibly managed electricity #nlpoli

Energy expert Tom Adams takes about five and a half minutes to explain why “buying at high prices from local generators and selling vast amounts of power to neighbouring utilities at rock bottom prices” is a bad idea. [CBC audio file]

Energy supply has been growing in Ontario, especially from expensive sources, while demand hasn’t been going at the same rate.  As a result, the province has crap loads of electricity that it buys for one price and sells for much less to people outside the province.

Those inside the province get to pay high rates.

For those who missed it, that’s essentially the Muskrat Falls plan.

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The problem with the Liberal Party #nlpoli

Guest post by Craig Westcott, from his editorial in this week’s Business Post.

If, as its president Judy Morrow has proposed, the Liberal Party puts off holding a leadership convention for two years, it will be making a serious, possibly ruinous mistake.

Like that one lonely turbot once described by then Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin as clinging to the Grand Banks by its fingernails, the Liberals are on the verge of extinction, despite its retention of Opposition status in the House of Assembly.

Tuesday’s CRA poll results confirm that.

For three consecutive quarters the NDP has marched upwards, standing solidly now in second place, its lack of Opposition status only temporary perhaps until the first by-election.

The bald truth is that nothing will get done to rebuild the Liberal Party without a real leader to push it. An interim leader won’t cut it, unless it’s someone of the ability of Bob Rae who is rebuilding the federal party while maintaining interim leader status. But Rae is an exception to the rule. There are no Bob Raes in the Liberal Party of Newfoundland, at least none that are obvious.

At the risk of telling tales out of school, I was shocked when I took the job as communications director for the Official Opposition last fall to learn there was no party apparatus backing the caucus. The fabled Big Red Machine no longer existed in this province. And even if it had existed, with a $700,000 to $800,000 deficit at the banks, there was no money to put gas in to run it.

There was no party membership list, there weren’t even district associations in most districts. Only for the work of long time MHA Roland Butler, who has perhaps the best organizational smarts in the party, there would have been no district associations in place to fight this past fall’s provincial election.

The sad truth was that little to no grassroots rebuilding had been done since the Liberals lost the disastrous campaign of 2007.

For most of the four years between elections, the leader retained interim status. For part of the time, until Morrow was elected party president, the executive headed by Danny Dumeresque was said by some in the party to be more determined to undermine interim leader Yvonne Jones than support her.

It was a mess. The view throughout the party was that as long as Danny Williams was leading the PCs, the Liberals didn’t have a chance of regaining government anyway, a mistaken view to those with knowledge of history. Joey eventually lost the confidence of the people and I believe Williams would have too, only much sooner than the 23 years it took Joey to crash. A more contemporary example, is Vladimir Putin, like Williams a wildly popular, dictatorial egomaniac while in office, who is now losing the confidence of the Russian people. Time brings down all dictators eventually, if death doesn’t get them first.

But I digress.

The problem with the Liberals is both a failure of leadership – on the party executive side as well as within the caucus - and also a matter of unfortunate circumstance.

During the year I spent with the Liberal caucus, it had only four members. The leader, Yvonne Jones, was off for much of that time, taking cancer treatment, though still involved with the running of the Opposition office. Another member, Butler, had his own health issue to face and was unable to participate in as much of the daily hurly burly as he wished. The other two members, Kelvin Parsons and Marshall Dean, had districts at the exact opposite ends of the island from St. John’s: One centred in Port aux Basques, 900 kilometres away, the other on the Great Northern Peninsula, situated even farther. When the House wasn’t sitting, which was often, they had to be in their districts tending to constituency matters. That meant they were unavailable to the television media in St. John’s (though full marks to Kelvin Parsons for beating it back and forth across the TransCanada every week to fill in for Jones and still take care of his constituents. If there was a prize for the hardest working man in politics last year, Parsons would have earned it).

Down the hall, the sole NDP member - the intelligent, earnest and hardworking Lorraine Michael - was in Confederation Building every day to take media calls. No sweat for her in that regard: Her seat was located in the city.

While a number of PC friends of mine have blamed the NDP surge in St. John’s on Danny Williams’ federal ABC campaign, which drove thousands of long time Tories into the Dippers’ camp, Michael deserves as much credit for also showing up for the media every day, especially when nobody from the Liberal office was available.

The situation for the current Liberal caucus is no better, despite the fact it has two more seats than last year. That’s because not one of the Liberal MHAs are from St. John’s or even the Avalon Peninsula. Two are from Labrador and the four others all have seats west of Deer Lake. The NDP, meanwhile, has five members, every one of them in St. John’s. Who do you think is going to win the war for media attention between now and the next general election in 2015?

And yet, the Liberal Party’s problems are not that hard to fix. It could probably write off all that debt by making a simple offer of 10 cents on the dollar to the banks. The debt is getting so old now it has probably been written off by the lenders on their own books already.

The party needs a full time organizer to rebuild and maintain the district associations, the basic battle units in any election.

It needs to take its head out of the water on the fishery and adopt a strategy that makes sense, resisting its outdated, overplayed, knee jerk habit of barking at the processors and shouting out support, but no real answers, for the plant workers and harvesters at all costs. Here’s a news flash gang: The fishery doesn’t decide elections anymore. There are so few people left working in the industry now, their votes can’t sway a campaign. And almost everyone in the industry is sick of being poor. They want change. Offer it to them. The PC government isn’t. That’s how you will win fishery votes.

And realize this: You can’t win the next election without winning St. John’s. So drop this rural/urban divide malarkey and devise some policies that will benefit the Avalon.

Finally, the Liberals have to regain some pride. The Grits have a good story to tell, if only they would tell it. Newfoundland’s current prosperity is due in large part to Liberal Premiers Clyde Wells and Roger Grimes, the guys who negotiated the three energy deals - as well as Voisey’s Bay – that are filling the government’s coffers. The crowd running the show now had nothing to do with any of it. And if Kathy Dunderdale implements this disastrous Muskrat Falls deal, the PC’s will destroy their chances of winning re-election next time around.

So there’s a lot to build for. But nothing will happen without a real leader to drive it. Waiting until 2013 will be too late. Find a leader now and have him or her ready to win a seat in the first by-election that comes up in 2012. Because if you lose that one to the NDP, the Liberal Party is finished.

If you stop writing yourselves off, maybe the rest of the province will too.

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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%

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 -