The Wet Bandits, Taliban version

One mid-level Taliban commander turned himself in to Afghan authorities in order to collect the reward mentioned on the BOLO poster local authorities issued for him.

According to the Washington Post:

When U.S. troops went to confirm that Ashan had in fact come forward to claim the finder’s fee, they were initially incredulous.

“We asked him, ‘Is this you?’ Mohammad Ashan answered with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, ‘Yes, yes, that’s me! Can I get my award now?’” recalled SPC Matthew Baker.

A biometric scan confirmed that the man in Afghan custody was the insurgent they had been looking for.

“This guy is the Taliban equivalent of the ‘Home Alone” burglars,” one U.S. official said.

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Sick parade #nlpoli

When you are home with a cold, there’s not much to do besides doze and read.

And when you are a political nerd at home with a cold, what better prezzie could there be than the papers presented at the Midwest Political Science Association?   Not much, is the answer, except the Monkey Cage, which offered up the links to the MPSA and a bunch of other gems.

Here’s one from the Monkey Cage to hold you until the old e-scribbler brain is de-fuzied.

The Oil Curse:  New book. Along with oil goes less democracy and economic instability.  Who knew?

There are four qualities of oil revenue, according to Michael Ross that make them so attractive to governments.  Your humble e-scribbler broke them out from Erik’s =post to make them easier to read quickly:

1. “The first is just the sheer scale of oil revenues. Government budgets tend to rise exponentially with oil discoveries. Increased revenues by themselves are not necessarily problematic but the source of the revenue also matters.”
2. Taxes versus oil royalties:  “If governments are funded by taxes, they become more constrained by their own populace than when they are funded by non-tax revenues (see here a more generalizable version of that argument from Kevin Morrison).”
3. “Third, oil revenues are very volatile compared to tax revenues. Most countries have little control over the world oil price, which falls and rises quite dramatically. They have some control over new oil discoveries but luck also plays a major role. Volatile revenues make for volatile politics, although some mature oil rich states (like Norway or the UAE) have managed to find ways to cope with this.”
4. “Fourth, oil revenues are secretive and relatively easy to hide. This facilitates corruption and hinders accountability.”

On that last one it was interesting to watch the evening news the past couple of days.  People are talking about home care and crumbling infrastructure.  No one mentioned the $4.0 billion in cash the provincial government is sitting on. 

Now they haven’t hid it completely.  The number is in the budget and other documents. It’s just hidden in plain site, so to speak.

Oh and it is going to pay for Muskrat Falls, in case you missed that little point.  Muskrat Falls becomes – in effect – a giant tax on the public, incidentally, but that’s another issue.  If no one “authoritative” speaks about it and no one in the media reports it, then it doesn’t really exist.  Come to think of it, that point is in among the conference papers somewhere.

Anyway, ask Kathy, Dwight and Lorraine about The Cash sometime. 

See what the Muskrat backers say.

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De apples and de oranges #nlpoli

You’d swear that provincial government departments had to hit quotas of good news media releases.

Environment minister Terry French issued one on Monday that claimed that the provincial government had beaten its greenhouse gas emission targets for the province.

Wonderful stuff.

And for what year, you may ask?

2010.

Stop and think for a second.  Two paper mills shut down in the province in 2005 and 2009.  The third one shut one of its two machines.  The Voisey’s Bay nickel mine was closed for a chunk of 2010 because of a labour dispute.

In the meantime, there wasn’t much in the way of new industrial activity.

There are also 70,000 few people in the province not driving cars and not running their wood stoves or burning oil to heat their homes.

So yeah, it’s not surprising that greenhouse gas emissions in the province dropped to levels not since for 20 years. 

Not content to let the good news go, French’s news release included this quote:

“We have witnessed significant real economic growth of 63 per cent since 1990, driven by offshore oil growth, at the same time that our emissions declined.   This represents a significant accomplishment for our province.”

Talk about connecting two things that are completely unconnected.  The economic growth he mentioned is due entirely to the increased prices for oil and some minerals produced in the province.  if we had opened a bunch of new manufacturing plants and dropped the GHG emissions, then there might be something to crow about.

The truth is, hitting that emissions target was relatively easy. And, to be sure, it had absolutely nothing to do with economic growth.

If you had to admit that, though, French and his comms director wouldn’t have been able to put another notch in the tally toward their quota of bullshite for the month.

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An alternative to A Grit-Dipper merger #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Okay so this is about the federal parties, but Rob Silver has a provocative idea.

But why not start a discussion between Liberals, New Democrats, Red Tories, and young people who have never been a member of a political party in their lives about a new vehicle – a new party. Consider it a blank slate. If we were starting from scratch, what would we fight for? How would we organize ourselves? So while there would still by definition be trade-offs (unless you start a new party by yourself, it's impossible for there not to be in politics), hopefully by starting something new, instead of squishing together two organizations with existing rules and structures, you could avoid the easy-to-imagine analysis of “who's taking over who,” “who won and who lost” that permeates so much Ottawa groupthink. Instead you'd create a new party for the next century. Naive potentially, I know.

The worst-case scenario? There's nothing there, both parties go on their merry way with new leaders and life goes on. Either there's something there to discuss, or not. Something that can be agreed to, or not. Something that a big enough group of caucus and membership of the parties are willing to leave their existing party in favour of, or not.

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Drug stores, mail carriers, and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

As your humble e-scribbler pointed out in August 2011, the province’s drug store owners lost their fight against lower drug prices for consumers in the province.

Some of them – the so-called independents – are holding a news conference at some unspecified time later this week to explain just how badly they lost.  Surprisingly, that’s exactly how they plan to explain it:

This conference will outline the catastrophic losses to independent pharmacy from both the agreement imposed by government and the changes to generic prices forced by legislation.

That line is from early on in the notice they sent to news editors for tomorrow assignments.  Only later did they mention that the agreement the provincial government announced over the weekend might affect consumers badly.

It won’t.

Government officials know it won’t.

The same crowd of drug store owners uses exactly the same prediction of imminent catastrophe for drug store owners – and maybe their customers - any time the provincial government does anything to its provincial-funded drug plans. In the later 1990s,  it was in a racket over the dispensing fee drug stores charge. 

Despite the warnings of doom from many of the same drug store owners who are taking to the ramparts this time, the drug stores are still out there.  Sure the mix of “independent” to "chains" has shifted to near parity from a 66/33 split favouring independents. But when you realise that a decade and more ago that ratio in this province was already the flip of the situation across Canada, you can see that the locals aren’t doing so badly.

Don’t forget the really important point, though:  no one in the public is complaining they can’t find a drug store.

Consumers can still get their drugs.  They or their insurance company will pay less for them now.  And for seniors on the provincial plan, they are actually going to pay less than the mandatory price a decade ago. 

For consumers, this is nothing but a gigantic win.

For the record, note the dig in the notice at the president of the association representing all pharmacists (PANL). Consumers don’t give a rat’s backside about those internal feuds among the stores, either.

For the provincial government, this is one big win against the two opposition parties both of whom went to war for the drug store owners. Neither of the opposition parties sized up the issue politically.  That much is obvious.

The fundamental shag-up here is the same one that will affect the postal workers, incidentally.  A local union leader called one of the open line shows on Monday to gripe about how automation will get him on his rounds faster and help lower operating costs for the post office, which means hopefully that the cost of postage won’t be jumping up.

The guy went on and on about the inconvenience for him personally.  He talked about the possibility that some of his colleagues will lose their jobs because the improved speed and cost-effectiveness of the machinery.

Both the drug store owners and the postal worker are talking to themselves.  The people they need to win over in order to have a political impact are consumers.  Neither the drug store owners nor the postal workers have explained why consumers should give a toss.

The way your humble e-scribbler has framed the outcomes in both cases is how consumers will hear them or have heard them.

For those who have jumped ahead a bit, you can also see why the provincial government has been steadily losing support for its plan to jack up electricity rates and double the public debt or some such combination.   Consumers just don’t see any benefit for them in it.  A great many of them are flat-out opposed to the scheme.  They simply don’t believe Jerome, or Kathy, or Ed martin when they promise the moon and the stars but can’t deliver a simple report.

For those that don’t oppose it flatly, the rest are uncertain.  They have doubts.  The opposed and the unsure constitute a majority. If NTV and Telelink can scrape together the cash for a poll, they should do one very soon.  Telelink is the only truly independent pollster in the province on this issue with a track record for accuracy.

But where you’ve got it:  three groups, and all three suffering from the beginners fault of communicating with themselves instead of the people they need to persuade.

No surprise the three of them have lost or are losing badly.

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Our Secret Nation #nlpoli

Comedian Greg Malone is writing a book.

The title is Don’t tell the Newfoundlanders:  the true story of Newfoundland’s Confederation with Canada.

It is non-fiction.

Well, supposedly it is non-fiction.

That’s because any book or article with the “true story” in the title is pretty much guaranteed to be full of plenty of popular myths, fairy tales, folklore and just plain old bullshit.

The likelihood of getting the untrue story from any “true story”  goes off the dial when the book is about Confederation.  You see, since 1949, Newfoundland has had a thriving conspiracy industry centred on Confederation.  It rivals any of the grassy knoll, Area 51 stuff in the United States on any level.

And when you dig a little deeper you know you are going to get the real story that is as authentic as you might expect from an ersatz Barbara Frum. 

Last year, Mary Walsh interviewed Greg about his book when she filled in at The Current.  That’s a link to the audio and appropriately enough Greg follows on a discussion of humour in politics.  The blurb describes Greg’s book this way:

And he has uncovered what he says was a conspiracy to make sure Newfoundlanders did join Canada.

Yes, friends.

It is the same old schtick. 

Such old schtick, in fact, that historian Jeff Webb has already dealt with it. Such old schtick, in fact, someone made a movie out of it.

And it really is the same… old… schtick.  Malone credits the late Jim Halley as one of his inspirations for digging into Confederation.  With that starting point, you can be pretty much assured of what is coming. 

Malone doesn’t disappoint on that front.  Malone talks With Walsh about some Canadians lusting after iron ore and hydro-electricity in Labrador, the British/Canadian war debt written off against Confederation and all the rest of the stories that have been swirling around since the late 1940s.

There doesn’t look to be a fact, detail or argument from Malone you can’t find somewhere else.  And, inevitably, there are likely plenty of details Malone just never considered because they didn’t fit into his world view.

Apparently, the book is set for a Christmas release. 

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Related:

• Fantasy Island:  Flags of our Fathers edition
• Le declin de l’empire
• A tourist in her own land

Our failed state #nlpoli

The always sharp labradore has posted links to a report by the Foundation for Democratic Advancement on election finance laws across Canada.

You can find the full report here.  The Newfoundland and Labrador section starts on page 34.

The analysis (p. 38) reads, in part:

Based on the FDA scoring scale (see Conclusion section), Newfoundland and Labrador received an unsatisfactory score of 51.3 percent. This score means that Newfoundland and Labrador has numerous deficiencies in its electoral finance legislation and borders on a failed democratic state. The FDA believes that this legislation is not working in the interests of the majority in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Borders on a failed democratic state.

Doesn’t get much plainer than that.

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OK Go – Needing/Getting

A little something to cleanse your brain of all this political stuff.

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The Voice of Experience #nlpoli

Most of the people who have been talking about search and rescue the past couple of years – especially the politicians – know absolutely nothing about the subject at all.

At last, we have comments from someone who knows the subject from direct experience. 

Steve Reid is a retired helicopter pilot and was recently the commanding officer of 103 Squadron in Gander.  He knows what it means to risk his life for others.  He’s also got a letter in the Gander Beacon.

On the time to launch, a favourite one of a couple of the local political ghouls:

A 30-minute (daytime)/two-hour (off hours) posture provides unfair representation of the actual reaction times that SAR crews routinely achieve.  For 103 Squadron, a typical response from the flight line averages 19 minutes or less, while a quiet hour response usually takes just under an hour.

On the constant comparison with fire departments:

It would be great if all it took to launch a SAR aircraft was to turn a key to start an engine and then race down a highway, but this is not the case.  There are important factors to consider each time, such as en route weather conditions, air traffic control obligations and other specific mission requirements

He also talks about the growing mission for SAR since the 1940s and with it, the growing expectations:

And with this evolution, there are new pressures to contend with, such as an implied obligation for 103 Squadron helicopters to remain postured on the island in support of offshore activities, not to mention the long-standing support that the RCAF has provided to Newfoundland and Labrador for cases that fall under provincial jurisdiction.  These include support to ground SAR cases, which encompass all other forms of distress that are not automatically classified as aeronautical or maritime distress as well as humanitarian efforts such as hospital-to-hospital patient transfers.  Recognizing that Newfoundland and Labrador has unique geographic, meteorological and accessibility challenges, the number of cases for which the RCAF provides supplemental support outside of its federal mandate far exceeds all other provinces.  Most have dedicated resources assigned o meet their specific provincial obligations.

Read the whole letter.  It brings a reward you cannot get from anywhere else.

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DND to shut down 5 Wing base housing #nlpoli

From David Pugliese at the Ottawa Citizen:

■ Military housing at Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg will be shut down.

The story appeared on April 11.

Biggest take away from that right up front is that all those Conservative promises for the last half dozen years about Goose Bay remain the total bullshit they always were.

Someone should ask Leo Abbass, John Hickey and other federal Conservative backers all about that.  After all, if DND sheds all that housing, that battalion or the UAV squadron or all the other BS that Leo and John campaigned for just isn’t showing up.

Then someone should contact local developers and see what a sudden dump of good affordable housing will do to the local market. 

Potentially very good for consumers.

Likely not so good for speculators.

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Fun Facts: Hibernia gas and Holyrood #nlpoli

From Stephen Bruneau’s submission to the public utilities board hearing on the Muskrat Falls project:

In 2010, the withdrawal and use of natural gas as a fuel for electrical generation and heating was greater for Hibernia alone than was the total oil-fired energy used at Holyrood for the same year.

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Breastfeeding Controversy for HITS FM #nlpoli

HITS FM morning crew  has stirred a bit of controversy for his remarks on April 11 about breastfeeding.

There’s an excellent account of it at Meeker on Media.  The HITS crew gained the ire of Tara Bradbury for his remarks about celebrity Mayim Bialik who is breastfed her son when he was aged three and a half years.

Bradbury commented , in part:

Beyond the surprise, I'm disappointed that Randy, being in a position of celebrity in this province, would help perpetuate a stigma that our Department of Health, hospitals, public health nurses and other health groups have been busting their butts for years trying to eradicate. 90% of Canadian moms choose to start breastfeeding their newborns; in this province, only 63% do. By the time these babies are six months old, only 10 per cent of them are still breastfed.

She’s right.  Breastfeeding rates in this province are appallingly low.

You can find the audio file on the HITS FM website.  That link came via Dara Squires’ blog where you’ll find even more on this controversy.

Scroll down a bit in her piece and you will find a link to a Canadian Public Health Association paper on breastfeeding in this province.  it dates from 2006 but the information is still pretty much the state of affairs today.

The provincial government still doesn’t have a breastfeeding policy.

Figuring out a policy really isn’t all that hard to do.  You have to wanna.

Breastfeeding:  it’s what your tits are for.

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Torquing public safety #nlpoli

Search and rescue on the east coast of Canada is one of those cases where you can complain that all three political parties  - provincial and federal - are guilty of playing slimy political games and you’d be right.

The latest move is the return of a CH-146 Griffon helicopter to 444 Squadron in Goose Bay, Labrador.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The return.

Trip 4 used to have three helicopters.  In order to send some helicopters to Afghanistan, the Royal Canadian Air Force took one from here and one from there.  One came from Goose Bay.

And now that the Afghan deployment is over, Trip 4 is getting its helo back.

Any connection between the two events is entirely coincidental.  Well, except when politicians tie the two together in a way that is as disingenuous as other political and media comments on the search and rescue issue..

Defence minister Peter Mackay tied the two issues together:

"This helicopter represents another resource that can contribute to Canada's Search and Rescue system in support of primary responders in this region."

That quote is from CBC.

And intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue said much the same thing:

“That will bring the number of helicopters from two to three and that will give full services to 5 Wing Goose Bay for their needs, as well for any request for ground search and rescue," he told reporters in St. John's.

The rest of the CBC story carried on with the same omissions and distortions used by the Fifth Estate in an earlier story they broadcast.

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Another critique of Linda Ross #nlpoli

In a CBC Radio commentary [audio link] Heather Davis  - a former co-ordinator of the women’s centre in Corner Brook – criticises the Advisory Council on the Status of Women and its president Linda Ross for Ross’ recent comments about violence against women:

Everyone is demanding answers after a recent murder suicide, notes Davis, everyone except the provincial organization whose job that is.

Davis says there is a “disconnect” between the provincial advisory council and local women’s groups.  She identifies the cause:  the provincial government  - maybe the minister responsible – decided to appoint the president rather than follow past practice and leave it to women’s groups in the province to recommend the right person to head the advisory council.

Interesting.

Seems there are a few people who have problems with Linda Ross.

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So then what will they do? #nlpoli

Let’s make no bones about it. 

Even at the deepest darkest moments after the death of Meech Lake, federal-provincial relations were never as bad as they are right now between the crowd in Ottawa and the crowd in Sin Jawns.

Danny Williams put all his political credibility into his anything but Conservative campaign.  He pledged to campaign across Canada to defeat the federal Conservatives.

Williams lost.

Big time.

Sure he changed his goal at the end – as his failure became painfully obvious - and all the local media just repeated his reimagined version of the ABC campaign, but the truth is Williams screwed himself and the rest of us politically with his little ego-stunt.

Kathy Dunderdale decided the best way to fix that was to campaign for Harper in the next election.  Okay, well she thought it best to say she would campaign.  Whether she did or not depends on who you talk to.

And that worked out so well that the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador can’t get the Prime Minister of Canada to return her phone calls.

The latest idea Kathy had was to give the deputy minister of the intergovernmental affairs secretariat a new job.  He will spend an unspecified amount of time “conducting a horizontal review of federal-provincial agreements to determine their efficiency and effectiveness.”

Does that mean Sean will lie down while he studies?

Seriously.

WTF is a “horizontal review”?

Now this is such an important initiative that the only word of it is in a news release announcing yet another shuffle around of members of the senior public service.  Sean gets this new gig.  Meanwhile, someone will fill in for him. 

No word on what criteria Sean will use to determine efficiency and effectiveness or indeed what federal-provincial agreements they are including in the review.  Most likely it is the deals that shift federal cash into provincial hands so the hands can hand it out to other provincial hands.

These agreements cover things like the federal gas tax transfer to municipalities,  money for bridges,  and big transfers for health, social assistance,  and education.

We are talking big money, too. Last year, federal transfers to the provincial government totalled more than $1.0 billion.

No word on how long Sean will take.

And there’s no word about what the government will do with Sean’s report once he gets it done.

Perhaps Kathy will call Steve and…

Errr… maybe that might not be such a good idea.

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Afghanistan Infantry Firefight

A short video from an unspecified rotation by 3rd battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan.  The video is from a helmet-mounted camera worn by a soldier using a C-9 light machine gun

Note that at one point a rocket propelled grenade passes over the soldier’s head.

 

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Nalcor backs natural gas for electricity #nlpoli

Just for a bit of fun, go back to December 2010 and read about Ed Martin and his views on generating electricity from natural gas.

Fascinating stuff, in light of recent discussions.

Go back and read it.  You won’t be disappointed.

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Note-to-self update:  Don't type posts late at night.  Generating natural gas from electricity, indeed, as the first version said.  That would be like storing Muskrat Falls electricity in the Smallwood Reservoir to use later on.

And in other Muskrat Falls news… #nlpoli

The Telegram editorial:

Oh, so now it's electricity for mining ventures that need the power. So here's a question for the good minister: Muskrat Falls is supposedly going to increase rates to island customers to some 16.4 cents a kilowatt hour. What rate does Kennedy expect that the mining companies will pay? That certainly doesn't sound like a price high-use mining companies would appreciate - so will ordinary power consumers on the island be subsidizing corporate customers?

The Toronto Star:

OTTAWA—It seemed like a stroke of political savvy — at the time.

But now, a political storm may be gathering on the eastern horizon over a popular campaign promise by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to give a $4 billion loan guarantee to Newfoundland’s Lower Churchill hydroelectric development.

…

If you follow Twitter comments, you’ll see that Tonda MacCharles’ piece in the Star caused a few people of the Tory persuasion some degree of angst.  They bitched about its inaccuracy.

Thing is, the story is fair and accurate.

The problem is that the Conservatives have been consistently frigging up their pitch for the deal.

It really is that bad.

The rest of can’t all be wrong.

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If you ain’t got yer pride, Muskrat Falls version #nlpoli

Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy, speaking with David Cochrane on this weekend’s On Point with David Cochrane:

“What we have to do is put aside ego and pride, put aside political grandstanding…”

Now in the coded political language of Newfoundland and Labrador, why might Jerome want to distance himself from those qualities?

Why indeed?

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A fresh smear of lipstick #nlpoli

CBC’s online version got the story right from the most recent episode of On Point with David Cochrane:

Natural Resources Minister Jerome Kennedy says the Newfoundland and Labrador government is not back-pedaling in how it is handling the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project, even though the governing Tories are already planning measures they had ruled out.

And Kennedy is being absolutely straight with people:  the provincial government is not changing its direction.

Most emphatically and absolutely no change.  It’s Muskrat Falls or bust.

The ruling Conservatives are just changing the tone.

They are changing the appearance of things as they try and recover from the very serious blow delivered recently by the public utilities board

Look at what Jerome told David Cochrane.  two phrases in particular leap out:

“You have to show as a politician that you are flexible and open to listening to what the people are saying … what we are trying to do is assure the people of the province that everything is being considered…”

Show.

Not be.  Not do.

Show.

Open to listening.

Not actually listening. Or listening and then changing.

Just listening.

And that’s what this latest development is really all about: the appearance of change without actually changing.

Odds are very good that the government’s polling – done by Nalcor’s advertising agency – is showing that the government’s intransigence is undermining their credibility even further. Their strategy isn’t working.  People aren’t willing to just put blind faith in Jerome and Kathy and Fairity O’Brien.

That polling would very likely lead to advice for Nalcor and the government to change how things look.  Image, after all,  is everything for some people.

You wouldn’t need to poll, though, to hear people wonder aloud why the government is proceeding with this project at break-neck speed and despite the thoughtful criticism from a bunch of very smart people with tons of credibility.

You could also tell earlier on that the critics’ comments about Muskrat Falls did serious damage to the government case for Muskrat Falls.  Jerome Kennedy attacking them personally.

So now there will be a debate in the legislature.  As Jerome noted for On Point, the government has to introduce a piece of Muskrat Falls legislation this session anyway so they will now just have a bigger form of that debate.

Hang on a second.

What piece of Muskrat Falls legislation?  They’ve never mentioned that before.  Maybe we’ll find out what the legislation is about but notice that for all the promises Jerome made about assuring everyone that the government will put information in front of people, he hadn’t mentioned that important piece of information before.

The problem is not image.  It’s credibility.  They say one thing and do something else.

This new piece of legislation for Muskrat Falls will come before project sanction.  Logically, friends, that pretty much wipes away any suggestion in Kennedy’s comments later on with David Cochrane that Muskrat Falls might not happen.

Not surprising that Jerome didn’t mention it before now. Makes it kinda hard to assure people you could walk away from Muskrat Falls without batting an eyelid if you are planning to change the laws to pave the way for it before you’ve supposedly decided to get on with it.

So anyway, once again Jerome Kennedy wants to reassure people in the province that they will have all the information the public utilities board couldn’t get plus reports on wind and natural gas in order to assure the people of the province that Nalcor has considered all options before picking Muskrat Falls.

He mentions reports on wind and natural gas that some companies will complete for Nalcor. 

Just remember what Nalcor and the provincial government have always said.  You can find it in a blog post by Nalcor boss Ed Martin over at Nalcor’s “leadership” blog, posted April 5:

Nalcor examined a broad selection of generation supply options to meet the island’s growing and long-term electricity needs including: nuclear, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, coal, continued oil-fired generation at Holyrood, simple and combined cycle combustion turbines, wind, biomass, solar, wave and tidal, hydroelectric developments on the island and Labrador and electricity imports.

They looked at it all before picking MF.  You name it: they studied it.

Supposedly.

So what’s with the new studies?

Good question. 

If the MFers had really had looked in detail at everything before picking Muskrat Falls, then they would  - Number One – already have those studies and would not need to produce “reports”, and  - Number Two – they’d have already released them to show that the alternatives just don’t work.

Yes friends, you are already getting the distinct aroma in your nostrils of the spore from rattus politicus pinocchiosa.  That is one honking big rat turd you smell, too.

You see, we know what these reports will say.  We know because Jerome told us.

March 6 in the House of Assembly:

MR. KENNEDY: … We have looked at natural gas, Mr. Speaker, extensively. In fact, I can say to the Leader of the Opposition, I met with Ziff Energy out of Calgary on the weekend while in Toronto on another matter. They concluded, clearly, that the importation of gas from the United States is not economically feasible. Mr. Speaker, we know, clearly, that the building of a pipeline from the Grand Banks is not feasible. If the Leader of the Opposition has other options, I would like to know what they are.

March 7:

MR. KENNEDY: … I have met with different consultants in this area, most notably Wood MacKenzie out of New York and PIRA out of New York. We have discussed the issue of the pricing of natural gas and the effect of shale gas on markets and electricity markets.

This past weekend, Mr. Speaker, I met with a company called Ziff Energy out of Calgary. I met with them in Toronto. We outlined to them the proposals that had been put forward by various critics of the project and the conclusion reached, Mr. Speaker, by all of these consultants, experts, not self-professed experts, Mr. Speaker, the conclusion reached is the importation of natural gas is not economically feasible, nor is the building of a pipeline from the Grand Banks.

Remember Jerome’s penchant for slagging the critics”  “Not self-professed experts”.  You can tell that all those critics, none of whom are self-professed anything, are causing Jerome and his mates lots of trouble.

And if that doesn’t jog your memory, here’s Jerome from March 13:

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ed Martin, the President of Nalcor, outlined in great detail the steps that they had taken in terms of looking at the options for Muskrat Falls, Holyrood refurbished. They indicated that at the Decision Gate 2 process, liquefied natural gas was screened out. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Martin indicated, it was a fairly easy decision at that point because the viability of building a 350 to 650 kilometre pipeline from the Grand Banks just did not work. I am not aware of any LNG study.

Mr. Speaker, I have indicated on several occasions, I have met with experts, notably Wood MacKenzie in New York, PIRA in New York, and Ziff Energy of Calgary and discussed natural gas. I have indicated that the opinions given to us unanimously are that natural gas is not going to work. There are no studies or reports that I am aware of. If there are, they are in the eight boxes and I suggest that the Opposition go through them.

To paraphrase Jerome’s line until now:  We looked at it all.  We’ve talked to the experts.  They tell us we were right the first time.

Nothing changed at all in his discussion with David Cochrane over the weekend, except the cosmetic shift in tone we’ve already noted.  Any claims or suggestions to the contrary are simply unfounded.  you won’t need an expert study to see why.  To borrow a phrase the lawyers like:  the thing speaks for themselves.  Res ipso loquitur.

And even with a make-over, Muskrat Falls is still in trouble and the strategy the government is following is still Arnold Ziffel with a new smear of lipstick.  They are ploughing ahead with Muskrat Falls and all the sound advice in the world won’t persuade them to change their course.

We know that because finance minister Tom Marshall said it on province-wide radio this week, before Jerome tried to change the tone of government’s MF message track:

The opposition will get its say, then the government will get its way.  That’s how democracy works.

That isn’t how democracy ought to work. It is, however, how Jerome and his friends know it does work around these parts.  They just get shy when people realise it.

- srbp -