Shit the Premier says: law and democracy edition #nlpoli

Last week the gang at the Center for Law and Democracy were, in the words of justice minister Felix Collins, a “two-bit outfit.”

This week, things are different.

Now the Premier has decided that this two-bit outfit is peachy keen.  In the House of Assembly on Monday, she thought the Center’s rankings for the province were just wonderful:

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador was the first Province in this country to introduce legislation on access to information. We were rated number one in the country. The Centre for Law and Democracy does rankings of provinces that have this legislation, Mr. Speaker. Five provinces and the federal government have this legislation. Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador is ranked second in the country, next to BC, on openness and access to information in this Province. [emphasis added]

Nalcor’s Dark Secret #nlpoli

Since its creation, Nalcor has existed in a perpetual conflict of interest of one kind or another. 

SRBP raised the issue of conflict of interest 2006 when Dean Macdonald – then chair of Nalcor’s board – accepted an appointment to the board of a company Nalcor was doing or was planning to do business with.

Nalcor has been in another sort of conflict of interest in it acted as lead negotiator for the provincial government and as an oil company at the same time.  On the one hand its interest should be in maximising benefits to the province while on the other hand, its interest should be to lower costs in order to maximise corporate profits. The two things cannot exist side-by-side as the Hebron agreement demonstrates.

Again, SRBP pointed this out in 2006 when the Hebron talks fell apart and on several occasions subsequently.

Time hasn’t changed much.

Conflict of Interest and the Nalcor board appointments #nlpoli

2050 hrs – Mulligan Update – scroll to the end

Leo Abbass is the mayor of Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

He is a staunch of supporter of the Conservative Party.  He is such a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party – federal or provincial – that he can sometimes take on the appearance of the Pushme-Pullyou from Doctor Dolittle.

More background on the Twitter and ATIPPA #nlpoli

One Twitter exchange on Monday morning raised the possibility that Tory MHA Paul Lane was referring to something that happened during the debate last week on changes to the access to information bill and not details of access requests.

Could be.

But then again, there were a couple of other things that led your humble e-scribbler to think Lane was talking about specific access requests.

First, the Premier said something on Monday June 11 that suggested the Tories were ready or were getting ready to disclose details of requests:

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, somewhere in this process I will hopefully have the opportunity to demonstrate to people where their requests for information come from, and that is going to be very eye-opening to the people of the Province. Ordinary citizens who look to access information from this government do so readily, Mr. Speaker. They do it in record time, Mr. Speaker, at little or no cost. There are lots of vexatious requests for information, lots of phishing expeditions, Mr. Speaker, but they do not come from ordinary people here in the Province.

 

Second, a number of cabinet ministers talked about specific access requests during the debate. Some of them they might have known about because they came to their departments. Others they might not have. Since Hansard isn't available, your humble e-scribbler couldn't compile a complete list of mentions of specific requests. 

-srbp-

Tories involved in violation of privacy act #nlpoli

The temperature in the House of Assembly is not even cooled down and Tory legislator Paul Lane (Mount Pearl South) is likely to find himself in the middle of a controversy involving the disclosure of personal information that is supposed to be protected under the Access to Information and Protection of Personal Privacy Act.

Some words for Lorraine, via Peter Cashin #nlpoli

Lorraine Michael should bear in mind that some very famous Newfoundland and Labrador politicians found themselves accused of defaming someone.

That’s really the essence of the current question of privilege Government House Leader Jerome Kennedy levelled against her last week.  Kennedy knows the law well enough to know that what she did is a matter that he or Felix Collins ought to have taken to a courtroom on Duckworth Street.  Kennedy likely also knows the law well enough to realise he stands virtually no hope of getting anything from a Supreme Court justice except the back of his or her hand.  That’s why he is trying to win in the kangaroo court where he controls a majority of the votes.

How tenuous a grip indeed #nlpoli

To some people the provincial Conservatives are in fine political shape.  They are so firmly entrenched in power that they can afford to piss people off, to polarise the electorate.

There is always time to recover.

Yeah well, when you humble e-scribbler started predicting that Danny Williams would not run for a third term, plenty of people thought that was crazy too, and said so.  18 months before the event it seemed impossible.  Even a few weeks and days in advance, the Old Man looked like he planned to stay until he died in office.

Funny how things change.

Collins beats Kazakhstan #nlpoli

From a second rebuttal to justice minister Felix Collins, right (not exactly as illustrated) from the Center for Law and Democracy:

In a speech to the House of Assembly on 14 June 2012, Collins used derogatory terms to refer to CLD, and claimed we had financial motives in publicising our research. CLD is no stranger to working in difficult political environments. Over the past year, we have conducted projects in Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Somalia and many other countries that are known for being particularly hostile to democratising forces. However, this is the first time that the integrity and professionalism of our organisation have ever been directly attacked by a political leader. [Emphasis added]

 

-srbp-

Resolute to Indefinitely Idle Mersey Mill in Nova Scotia

From resolute Forest Products:

MONTREAL, June 15, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: RFP) (TSX: RFP) today announced that it will indefinitely idle the Mersey newsprint mill located in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. The facility, owned by Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited (BMPCL), is a joint venture between Resolute (51%) and the Washington Post (49%). The indefinite idling will be effective on Sunday, June 17, 2012. 

 

"The mill produces newsprint primarily for export markets and is unable to compete due to declining prices in those markets, caused mainly by unfavorable currency fluctuations, stated Richard Garneau, President and Chief Executive Officer of Resolute.  "The decision to indefinitely idle production at the facility was difficult as we are mindful of the impact it will have on affected employees and local communities. We have worked diligently with the provincial government, our employees, union leadership and other stakeholders but simply could not overcome the inherent challenges."

 

The Company remains committed to customer service and delivery of high-quality products and will work closely with customers to ensure a smooth transition.

 

This indefinite idling will reduce capacity by approximately 250,000 metric tons of newsprint. Approximately 320 employees at the Mersey paper mill, associated woodlands, Oakhill sawmill and Brooklyn Power Corporation will be affected by this action. Resolute will continue to work collaboratively with governments to ensure that impacted employees are provided support during this transition.

 

The Company is currently assessing the feasibility of selling all of its assets in Nova Scotia, including its private timberlands, the paper mill, sawmill and Brooklyn Power.

 

...
For further information:
Media and Others
Seth Kursman
Vice President, Corporate Communications, Sustainability and Government Affairs
514 394-2398
seth.kursman@resolutefp.com

 -srbp-

When rights are annoying #nlpoli

There’s something about this frivolous and vexatious thing that caught people’s attention right from the start.

Under the provincial Conservatives’ new secrecy laws, a cabinet minister can refuse to disclose information if he or she thinks the request is “frivolous or vexatious”. (sec. 43.1)

Leave aside the idea that a politician gets to decide on who gets information and who doesn’t.  As we learned from the Cameron Inquiry, Danny Williams and his political staff vetted access to information requests and blocked stuff they didn’t want to hand over or blocked people they didn’t want to give stuff to.  The law didn’t matter.  They refused.  They stonewalled.  They used every other trick in the book.

But that’s a whole other issue.

Let’s just look at this curious choice of words and see what they reveal.

Your Law School called… #nlpoli

The more they talk, the worse it gets.

In the House of Assembly on Thursday, justice minister Felix Collins gave some examples of what he would consider "frivolous and vexatious” requests for information.

Now before we go any further, we should explain what those words usually mean to lawyers.  After all, Collins is a lawyer so he should understand the concept.

This definition is taken from a 2010 Ontario Court of Appeal decision in a case called Pickard v. London Police Services Board (canlii.org via Morton’s Musings):

[19]  A frivolous appeal is one readily recognizable as devoid of merit, as one having little prospect of success.  The reasons may vary.  A vexatious appeal is one taken to annoy or embarrass the opposite party, sometimes fuelled by the hope of financial recovery to relieve the respondent’s aggravation.

One of the examples, Collins gave was of a person who asked for copies of e-mails sent and received by seven people over the course of year.  Frivolous and vexatious harrumphed the law school graduate. And now under Bill 29 a cabinet minister can dismiss such a request out of hand and save time and money.

There are a few problems with Felix’s example. 

And that was the point, Felix #nlpoli

Justice minister Felix Collins and his colleagues are having a bad week.  Felix and his buds want to limit public access to government information. They want to make it harder for people to find out what they are doing with public money.

People don’t like it and they’ve been making that clear to them.

Felix and his friends got especially angry when an assessment of their new secrecy rules showed that what Felix and company were claiming wasn’t true.  far from being a model of openness, transparency and accountability, the Conservatives were taking massive steps backward.

So infuriated did the Conservatives get that they issued a statement late Wednesday night taking issue with the CBC report.  The statement.  It read, in part:

The Department of Justice has reviewed the global ranking of countries assembled by the centre. What the news story does not make clear is that most countries that ranked the highest or strongest on this list are third world countries. Many of these countries are listed on travel alert watch lists, have known human rights abuses and high crime rates.

So?

More oil, less democracy #nlpoli

“Oil and democracy do not easily mix,” wrote political scientist Michael Ross in The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, his 2012 study of the impact that income from oil development has on governments around the world.

Regular readers will recall this idea from an earlier post.

Countries that are rich in petroleum generally have lower economic growth and less democracy that countries that don’t have oil revenues. Ross puts this down, in part, to a relationship that citizens see between government revenue and government spending. 

Citizens in oil-producing countries, though, cannot directly observe how much their government collects in oil revenues.  They must rely on the government and the media for their information.  If they live in a democracy, the information is probably available. 

Probably available.

That assumes, of course, that the media in those democracies can find out the information and publish it.

The Vanished Records #nlpoli

Under changes to the province’s access to information law, briefing notes for cabinet ministers will be kept secret for five years.

Sounds like it might make some sort of theoretical sense.  Wait five years and then you can get the briefing note a minister used.

That’s hardly too much to ask, especially if government officials are just too busy to handle all those troublesome requests for information.

Great.

Well, what if the records don’t last that long?

The Secrets Policeman’s Bollocks #nlpoli

CBC demolished the false claims a couple of Conservative cabinet ministers made in order to justify their efforts to destroy the public’s access to government information.

Justice minister Felix Collins claimed that they had to cut down the number of information requests, which he said numbered in the thousands each year.  Service NL minister Paul Davis said in the House of Assembly: “"You know, they make countless and countless requests for information…”.

The Stacked House Filibuster #nlpoli

Democracy is a beautiful thing. 

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are witnessing its full beauty in the filibuster against the Conservative government’s latest assault on openness, transparency and accountability. 

Seat counts – seats count: the map #nlpoli

Here’s a map showing the possible seat results for an election where the Tories wind up with 41% of the vote, the NDP get 38% and the Liberals get 20%.  That’s basically the next public opinion poll from CRA if the current trending continues.

You would fight against disclosure too… #nlpoli

Rarely does one cabinet minister put on not one or two spectacular displays of incompetence in one session of the legislature, but justice minister Felix Collins has done that this spring in less than a month.

Freedom from Information: the sorry Connie legacy #nlpoli

“We will amend the Access to Information legislation to enhance the transparency of government actions and decisions.”

Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition, February 2003

There truly is a greater fraud than a promise unkept.  That would be the promise that is consciously and deliberately broken.

In February 2003, the provincial Conservatives – then in opposition – pledged to increase public access to government information.  The latest round of changes to the provincial access to information law suggests they are continuing their practice of hiding as much information they can.

Here are some examples of the sorry provincial Connie legacy of Freedom from Information:

• Ignoring the Black Letter (2005) In 2005, the Tories ignored the black letter of the access law and tried to hide public opinion polls.
• Aural is moral:  (2009)  Paul Oram didn’t have briefing notes, then he had ones with someone else’s name on them and then it didn’t matter because he quit politics.
• Oil Royalties (2009) 
• The Secret Inland Fisheries Review (2009)
• We can’t talk about the process because there is a process. (2009)
• Thousands for public speeches (2009)
• Schrodinger’s Purple Cat: (2010)  files that existed and didn’t exist at the same time.
• Tories hide spending documents from Auditor General (2012)
• Update – Williams afraid of whistleblower law
• Update – Tories hide spending documents from Auditor General
• Update – Privacy commish sues Dunderdale gov over “political” e-mails on gov comps, phones

-srbp-

Seat Counts and seats count #nlpoli

Last Friday, your humble e-scribbler gazed into the old crystal ball and produced a possible poll result if the recent trends continued.

If you reported them the way Corporate Research Associates does, you’d get the Tories at 42%, NDP at 38% and Liberals at 20%.

Wonder what that might mean to seat counts if you had that as an election result?