The Return of the Public Accounts Committee #nlpoli

Supporters of the current governing party like to talk about how theirs is the most open, accountable and transparent government of all time.

Problem for them is that they cannot prove it.

Those of us who don’t believe that claim have a distinct advantage:  we can offer solid evidence about the the current lack of openness, accountability and transparency.

Neil Armstrong 1930-2012

A profile of the first human to walk on the moon, from 60 Minutes:

-srbp-

No deal likely on Hebron 3rd module #nlpoli

CBC’s got the story:

ExxonMobil will be able to move work related to the Hebron oil project out of Newfoundland within days, as the possibility fades for an agreement to use local fabrication facilities.

“We’re not making any real progress, and it doesn’t appear that mediation will solve the issue,” Natural Resources Minister Jerome Kennedy told CBC News late this week.

Kennedy can rattle on all he wants about what a great case he believes the provincial government had.

Talk, as SRBP noted in June, is exceedingly cheap.  When the provincial government signed the Hebron agreement in 2008 they were not concerned about local benefits at all.  They took what the companies had on the table and nothing more.  Ed Martin’s view as head of Nalcor seems to be the same view of local industrial benefits he held when he worked for Big Oil.

-srbp-

If they don’t stop it, we’ll go blind #nlpoli

You have to wonder sometimes how far Tory politicians will go to issue a good news comment of some kind during the time when the government pollster is in the field.

They are the only ones who do this, apparently, as part of the Tories’ organized effort to skew public opinion polls and then crow about the adulterated results.

Anyway, this is a two part example of the lengths to which the quarterly orgy of public onanism goes sometimes.

Williams prepared to wrap arms around Quebec #nlpoli

There’s something just too funny for words about former Premier Danny Williams sometimes.

It’s the kind of “too funny” where you don’t know whether he gets the joke and is just having a laugh at his own expense or is so completely blind to how asinine his own words make him look.

You see it is absolutely ridiculous for Danny Williams to deride his predecessor, Roger Grimes, for supposedly wanting to “wrap his arms” around Quebec in order to develop the Lower Churchill when Williams himself spent five years doing just that.

Of course it was only after Williams’ suck-job failed that he started in with the anti-Quebec crap.

Too friggin’ funny, Danny.

So funny in fact that SRBP even made a big map to help people make some kind of sense out of Williams’ foolishness.

-srbp-

Tense Problems #nlpoli

“As a lawyer,” natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy told reporters on Thursday,” you’d often hear the phrase that the best predictor of past behaviour is future behaviour.”

This is not just a slip of the tongue.  The minister is confused.   Obviously confused. 

You can see that confusion in Kennedy’s other comments. He called reporters together around 12:30 and gave them some of his thoughts on a letter by former premier Roger Grimes that appeared in the Thursday Telegram.  Kennedy was a bit tense, it seems, and so it isn’t surprising that in his remarks, Jerome confused his tenses.

Verb tenses.

And that, as they say, made all the difference in the world.

Dunderdale: Hydro-Quebec equity in Lower Churchill and no ‘69 redress part of ‘win-win’ for HQ #nlpoli

For five years, the provincial Conservatives secretly tried to interest Quebec in part ownership of the Lower Churchill, according to Premier Kathy Dunderdale.

Dunderdale: September 2009

In September 2009, she told Open Line host Randy Simms (audio at right) about the secret efforts made by then-Premier Danny Williams, Dunderdale and Nalcor boss Ed Martin to sell Hydro-Quebec an equity share.

Dunderdale said that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador was prepared to leave aside any question of redress on the Lower Churchill.  The Conservatives previously committed that a deal on the Lower Churchill with Quebec would have to include redress for the disastrous 1969 contract between Brinco and Hydro-Quebec.

Two views of Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

In Nova Scotia, energy minister Charlie Parker touted the benefits of the Muskrat falls deal for his province in a letter to the Chronicle Herald, published on Wednesday.

Parker flipped the bird to opposition politician Andrew Younger, taking issue with Younger’s claim that the deal would lead to increase electricity prices for Nova Scotians:

The cost of this electricity will be virtually the same in Year 35 as it is in Year 1 of the agreement. This is the principal benefit of the project and it’s why this government has worked so hard to ensure it goes ahead.

He’s absolutely right.

The Politics of Oil and Budgets #nlpoli

When any country or province depends heavily on the money that comes from resource extraction, it affects politics there.

Political scientist Michael Ross is probably the most recent author on the subject. Terry Karl has also written extensively on the resource curse.  She wrote of the best known books on the subject:  The paradox of plenty:  oil booms and petro-states.  You can also find some of Karl’s further thoughts on the issue in an article she wrote in 2007  and revised in 2009.

These studies focus on the developing world, for the most part, but what academics observe about those countries can cause you to think again about politics in other places.

Like say, Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Permanent Echo Chamber of Horrors #nlpoli

To borrow a phrase from Quebec Premier Jean Charest the other day, Twitter is a conversation between apparatchiks and journalists.  That’s pretty much it, although in Newfoundland and Labrador as elsewhere a few other people weigh into the exchanges.

The political Twitter world is a variation of the echo chamber.  That’s what Charest meant:  a small group of people discuss or argue among themselves, sometimes without much concern for the outside world. 

You can really see how that plays out in Newfoundland and Labrador again this week in the aftermath of the Tories’  orchestrated attack on the five lawyers who went public  - again – with their criticisms of Muskrat Falls.

Kremlinology 41: All politics is personal #nlpoli

On Friday, the Conservatives sent Mount Pearl North MHA Steve Kent out as the designated hitter in a deliberate, orchestrated personal attack on the five lawyers who oppose Muskrat Falls.

He turned up on CBC’s On Point and repeated much of the same innuendo on Twitter.

Kent got a lot of negative feedback on Twitter and likely elsewhere about his comments.  On Monday, Kent and his colleagues had dropped the personal crap.

Not exactly, there, Tom, b’y #nlpoli

As part of the orchestrated campaign to attack the people making the comments instead of the comments themselves , finance minister Tom Marshall trotted out in front of the news media on Friday to lace into a group of five lawyers.

Marshall said comments by five lawyers opposed to Muskrat Falls were “nothing new” and had been addressed before. All true.

At the same time, though, Marshall quickly read through an obviously prepared diatribe in which he said that the “use of such inflammatory language in my view is irresponsible and borders on fear mongering.”

People should pay attention to Marshall’s comments, but not because of Tom’s laughable hypocrisy.

Fourth time a charm: Kennedy changes MF “key point” …again #nlpoli

How many times should anyone need to change the key point in any discussion?

Well, this past weekend, natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy signalled what is the latest shift in strategic messaging on the Lower Churchill project since October 2010.

Hydro-Quebec to get Muskrat Falls electricity #nlpoli

Under a complex arrangement, Nalcor will send electricity from Muskrat Falls to Quebec in place of electricity from Churchill Falls during some months of the year. 

Nalcor hasn’t disclosed any other details of the arrangement. It appears Nalcor’s Muskrat Falls company will swap the electricity  - possibly free of charge - with its affiliate Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation, which will send it to Quebec under the terms of the 1969 contract at 1969 prices.

And rather than getting electricity from Muskrat Falls, Nova Scotians could receive electricity from Churchill Falls or any of Nalcor’s other hydro-electric generating stations on the island

You can find aspects of the arrangement in a clip from NTV.

There’s more to it, though.

They love going sleaze ball #nlpoli #connieplaybook

One enduring characteristic of Conservative political comments since 2003 is the resort to personal attacks.

It must be Rule Number One in the Connie political playbook:  Go sleaze ball. Don’t deal with the issue. 

This past week the public got a good example of that from a provincial Conservative politician.

Radio Free Nalcor #nlpoli

Talk about putting on the full court press to try and squeeze out every favourable bit of commentary for a project that remains mired in controversy and doubt.

Nalcor is running a couple of days of media trips – free of charge – to the falls itself where Nalcor has already started working on a project it claims they haven’t got approval to start work on yet.

And if that wasn’t enough, and surely purely by total coincidence Conservative strategist Tim Powers is a co-host on VOCM’s Back Talk.  The station is owned by Steele Communications, incidentally, whose boss sits  - by complete happenstance - on the board of directors of Nalcor’s oil and gas corporation.

The politics of gas price fixing #nlpoli

Gas prices used to be a hot political topic in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

A lot of people thought that the provincial government could do a lot about them and, in the process, protect consumers.  Others thought that the government should do something about prices and make it easier for people to get cheap gas.

Yeah, well it didn’t quite work out that way.

Navigator Online #nlpoli

Turn your browser to a new blog from The Navigator. 

For those who don’t know it, The Navigator is a monthly magazine about the fishery for people in the industry in Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States.

The Skipper’s Blog is written by managing editor Jaime Baker, late of the Telegram and the Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ Union. The subject matter for blog posts will likely be some aspect of the fishery but as Jaime told SRBP on Thursday, it could include other issues.  One post this week was about the young boy who offered his soccer medal to the Canadian men’s relay team.

Jamie’s most recent post is about a story this week about a resurgence in cod stocks:

While many outside the fishery may not have moved on from cod after the moratorium, the fishermen and the industry certainly did.

Last year’s $1 billion fishery was built largely on crab and shrimp. Believe it or not, a resurgence in cod right now to historic levels would actually throw a bit of a monkey-wrench into that industry.

How? Two ways.

One, cod are voracious predators and they tend to eat things like shrimp and juvenile crab (and anything else that is around). Most fishermen will tell you, in places where the cod are scarce, the shellfish tend to do well; and in places where the cod are plenty, the shellfish tend to not do well at all. And we should note there was very little in the way of crab or shrimp in this part of the world when the cod fishery was rocking out like The Who on speedballs. In fact, some scientists will tell you the fact that we have had crab and shrimp in these numbers is an anomaly.

His second point is that the local industry has re-oriented away from cod to the point where they’d have a hard time handling any sizable landings.

Other than maybe on the fisheries broadcast, that likely isn’t the sort of stuff you’ve been hearing.  Check out Jaime’s blog:  the opinions are both frank and well-informed.

-srbp-

Three of a kind #nlpoli

A series of posts at The Monkey Cage describe Martin Gilens research on the connection between public policy and personal income.

Part 1:

These findings suggest that political representation functions reasonably well for the affluent. But the middle-class and the poor are essentially unrepresented (unless they happen to share the preferences of the well-off). In a second post tomorrow, I’ll discuss my more hopeful findings that reveal the (less typical) conditions under which government responsiveness to public preferences is stronger and more equal.

Part 2:

In my previous post I discussed the lack of government responsiveness to the middle-class and the poor, when their policy preferences diverge from those of the affluent. This inequality is pervasive: I found no circumstances during the decades I examined in which the middle-class had as much influence as the well-off, or the poor as much influence as the middle-class. Although pervasive, representational inequality does fluctuate. When the balance of power between the two major parties is close and when presidential elections loom, policy corresponds more closely to the preferences of the public, and more equally to the preferences of the more- and less-advantaged.

Part 3:

Can anything be done to make policymakers more equally responsive to the preferences of all Americans? Campaign finance reforms that reduce the role of large donors are one avenue to pursue. The current climate does not seem auspicious, but Citizens United was a five-to-four decision and perhaps a future Court will be friendlier to campaign finance reform efforts. In addition, competition-enhancing reforms like non-partisan districting might produce more competitive elections and induce policymakers to attend more closely to the public’s preferences. Finally, advocates can focus on those policies that are supported by the affluent and poor alike. Majorities of affluent Americans support increases in the minimum wage, spending for education, job training programs, Social Security, and Medicare (albeit with somewhat less enthusiasm than the less well-off).

A distinction that makes a difference #nlpoli

As part of the commemoration events for the War of 1812, the part of the Department of National Defence responsible for ceremony has decided to give seven Canadian Army units including the Royal Newfoundland Regiment the right to carry the battle honour DETROIT.

A battle honour marks a significant event in the regiment’s history. Infantry regiments display their battle honours on the regimental colours.

The picture at right is of the regimental colours of the 1st battalion, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.  Its honours until now all dated from the First World War.

This is an important announcement and the members of the regiment should be very proud.