Political leaders have a moral duty to the people they serve.
There are times for politicians to fight for their constituents.
And there are times when responsible political leaders must help a community to heal. In the wake of the tragedy in Makkovik, Premier Kathy Dunderdale should be helping people to come to terms with a tragedy. Instead, the Premier is abusing people who have put their trust in her to do the right thing.
A few days ago, Stephen Taylor posted a table from a 2010 study that showed how big Quebec’s public debt is compared to that of countries around the world.
The results weren’t pretty.
A similar comparison for Newfoundland and Labrador isn’t pretty either.
One of the more curious comments from provincial Conservative supporters lately has been the claim that they support the current Connie administration provincially because they – the supporters – are fiscal conservatives.
labradore has already challenged one such claim with a look at the provincial labour force figures. Here’s the chart from labradore’s post. It shows the public sector as a share of the total provincial work force:
Yes, friends, the “fiscally conservative” provincial government has produced a massive increase in the size of the provincial public service since 2007. And, lest any of these “fiscal conservatives” try to justify the Connie actions with talk about the unions’ favour excuse – catch-up – notice that the chart shows that Newfoundland and Labrador had no catching up to do.
While you are at it recall that the current labour force in the province is the largest it has been for quite a while. So the current “fiscally conservative” provincial Conservatives employ a larger percentage of a larger labour force in a very fiscally unconservative way.
But there’s more to it than that.
The Premier’s communications - Glenda Power - sent a couple of twitter messages to CBC’s Curtis Rumboldt on Friday. She was apparently correcting him on the impact closing Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited would have on the Muskrat Falls project.
Simply put, that’s not true.
Kathy Dunderdale is apparently off to Ottawa. According to voice of the cabinet minister:
There's no word on when the Premier will be flying to Ottawa, but according to the MHA for Mount Pearl South [Paul Lane], it will be soon. Representatives from the Premier's office have confirmed that Dunderdale has requested to meet with the feds sometime in the near future.
Meanwhile the Fisheries Minister says he's making a separate visit. Darin King says he'll be meeting with his federal counterpart to express concerns over the continued cuts in Newfoundland and Labrador. King says the fishing industry, search and rescue, and everything attached to the sea is of importance. He says the fight is not over.
She needs to work out some “fustrations”, maybe.
More likely, she is trying on the “Fighting Newfoundlander” suit to see if it fits. The fact she is trying it on – after explicitly rejecting it when she took over from Danny – is another symptom of the basic problem. If she had a plan, a set of priorities, an agenda, then she wouldn’t have the problems in the first place that are causing her frustrations.
Another Premier tried this once.
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Kruger, the owners of Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, are reassessing the viability of the mill in the west coast city on Friday after unions at the mill rejected a company proposal to restructure the company’s pension plans.
In a statement issued Friday, natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy said:
We are facing a grave situation, one which could potentially lead to the closure of Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited. Kruger is now reassessing the viability of its operations in Corner Brook. This obviously could have very serious ramifications for the employees and the entire Corner Brook area.
The provincial government wants the company and the unions to negotiate a settlement to the dispute.
Built in 1923, the mill at Corner Brook was the second paper making operation in Newfoundland after the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Corporation mill at Grand Falls. AbitibiBowater announced that it would close the mill at Grand Falls in 2008. The provincial government expropriated the mill and all of AbitibiBowater’s assets in the province before they could shut the mill. Ab closed its Stephenville operation in 2005.
The Corner Brook mill is heavily subsidised by the provincial government. It is the largest private sector employer on the west coast of the island.
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Premier Kathy Dunderdale is frustrated.
“What is it that we have to do down here to get your attention?” she asked, rhetorically, on Thursday.
She expressed that frustration in the House of Assembly in response to questions from Liberal leader Dwight Ball and in a scrum with reporters. Dunderdale aimed her barbs most especially at defence minister Peter MacKay.
If the Premier is having trouble getting her message through to the federal government, attacking an influential cabinet minister in public for something he didn’t do won’t help matters.
It just piles bad tactics on top of flawed strategies.
This one is for all the musicians…band musicians, that is.
The bands of the guards regiments of the Household Division are among the best bands of their type, made up of the some of the finest musicians in the world.
Here’s a massed rehearsal recorded earlier this month and posted to youtube. leaving the music to one side for a moment, it’s fascinating to watch the director and how he conducts the rehearsal. Watch how the musicians respond to his direction and how they adjust and adapt.
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Justice minister Felix Collins offered a spectacular example on Wednesday of how serious is the current administration’s political problem.
Collins makes a complete arse of himself trying to explain why he and his colleagues are refusing to act on a promise they made in 2007 to introduce legislation that would protect public servants who disclose information - in the public interest - about wrongdoing in government.
The video of Collins’ scrum with reporters is worth watching
Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy in the House of Assembly on Wednesday explaining some of the financial aspects of Muskrat Falls:
The one thing I need to make clear though to the people of this Province that any equity investment in Nalcor is on the basis of the project being sanctioned. The money stays in the Department of Natural Resources and is then disbursed to Nalcor as money is spent, Mr. Speaker. Also, it does not go to the net debt of the Province because it is a capital investment. In this particular case, Mr. Speaker, we have a revenue generating asset which can produce monies and revenues for this Province, along with hydroelectricity, for 100 years. [Emphasis added]
In the first bit he describes how the cash goes from the provincial government to Nalcor. That would be the $2.9 billion they plan to spend on the dam itself.
The problem comes with that bit in bold print.
Few people who pay attention to public life in this province will forget the abuse the provincial government - particularly former Premier Danny Williams - heaped upon Max Ruelokke for having the temerity to be a better candidate to head the offshore regulatory board than the guy the premier wanted to stuff in the job.
Ruelokke had to sue the provincial government to force them to do what the law directed.
So detestable was the provincial government’s – i.e. Danny’s - behaviour that the judge who heard the case stated in his decision:
Having considered the above, I find that the conduct of the Respondent (in relation to the Applicant) has been callous and “reprehensible” and is deserving of “reproof and rebuke”. Accordingly, I will exercise my discretion and award the Applicant his solicitor and own client costs.
We may be headed for the same mess again.
For those who remember the post from 2009 on problems some paratroops have had exiting the aircraft, here’s one that makes the old heart stop.
There is no audio so it is hard to tell exactly what happened. In any event, the fellow dangling on the end of the fouled static line and parachute assembly eventually gets to live thanks to the Hung Up Parachutist Release Assembly.
While the soldier is dangling, the crew in the back of the transport break out the HUPRA parachute rig and hook it onto him. They eventually release him and the guy floats to the ground. You can see the red nylon of the HUPRA pack just as the guy floats downward. His landing was likely a hard one, but at least he lived.
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Four years from now, Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation and Hydro-Quebec will automatically renew the 1969 power contract for another 25 years.
Everyone knows that, surely.
What you may not recall, though, is that 2016 is the year that the federal government will renew its annual payment of $8.0 million to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador under Term 29 of the Terms of Union.
In 1996, the provincial government negotiated an advance on the Term 29 payments totalling $130 million. Here’s the quote from the 1996 budget speech:
We will receive $50 million of the advance this year. The federal government has agreed to provide us with another $80 million over the three year period.
Of course, while people call them Term 29 payments, they are actually the amount set by the commission appointed under Term 29 to study the financial position of the Newfoundland and Labrador government within the first decade after Confederation.
The commission was to recommend “the form and scale of additional financial assistance, if any, that may be required by the Government of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to enable it to continue public services at the levels and standards reached subsequent to the date of Union, without resorting to taxation more burdensome, having regard to capacity to pay, than that obtaining generally in the region comprising the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.”
The legislative authority for the payment comes from the Newfoundland Additional Financial Assistance Act.
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The townie Tories are all a-twitter over federal Dipper leader Thomas Mulcair’s endorsement of Sheilagh O’Leary for mayor of Sin Jawns in the next municipal election.
On Monday, reporters asked Premier Kathy Dunderdale about Mulcair’s comments. Here’s a bit of what she said, via CBC:
"I don't know how somebody who doesn't live here, is not on the ground, doesn't appreciate the demographics to start with and the particular issues, could be offering advice on who is best suited," said Dunderdale outside the House of Assembly Monday. [capitalization corrected]
“So the frig what?” would seem like a better, i.e. appropriately dismissive, response. Instead Kath used a comment that begs for the retort that she does it all time: talks about stuff when she doesn’t “appreciate the demographics” or understand what is going on.
An innovative cover of “Somebody that I used to know”…
And, the inevitable parody of the creative cover that is creative in a whole other way…
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The Telegram’s James McLeod took some time during a recent Estimates committee hearing on Monday to dash off a post at his blog about the ceremonial aspects of the legislature proceedings.
He mentions the number of items in the House of Assembly chamber that came as presents from other provinces after Confederation. He finishes off with this bit:
Arguably the coolest gift of them all came from B.C. They gave us a massive gold mace. The mace is so cool, it actually gets a parade every day when the House is sitting - it's a small parade, just the Speaker, and a handful of other folks, but still, a parade! You can read more about the mace here, including the old wood one that sits outside the public galleries.
The wooden mace on display in the public gallery of the House of Assembly is the one used in the first parliament in Newfoundland in 1832. How it got there is a story in itself.
As SRBP noted in an earlier post, the first step in getting yourself out of a hard political spot is to recognise that you are in a hole.
What often happens – as seen in the provincial Conservatives and the Burton Winters tragedy up to now – is that they cannot see that they are in a hole in the first place.
On Monday, the local Connies took it a step further.
