The First Casualty in Dunderdale’s War #nlpoli

As she launched the first salvo in the final battle of the War for Muskrat Falls, Premier Kathy Dunderdale decided to prove the old maxim correct:  she put Truth up against the wall and shot the old girl squarely between the eyes.

“We adhere to established contracts and respectful business practices,” she told the crowd at a Board of Trade luncheon.  No word if the crowd at Fortis shifted uncomfortably in their seats.  The people from ENEL  - had they been there - could certainly attest to the manifest falsehood in the Premier’s comment.

Dunderdale had a few more bullets to pump into Veracity’s lifeless form off before she was done.

Random observations #nlpoli

What Kathy Dunderdale said in 2012 about wanting to be Premier:

“If you live your life more in the moment, the rest of it will work its way out.”

Sounds a lot like what SRBP told you.  Here’s one comment from July 2011:

Kathy Dunderdale took over the job in the first place on the understanding it would be a temporary thing.  The shift in December had more to do with internal party politics than Dunderdale’s sudden discovery she had some goals to accomplish.  [Hint:  she didn’t].

Then out of the blue she gave some of her staff new titles and presumably bigger salaries to go with them.  At least, they will certainly have fatter severance packages now when she leaves the office well before the next election.

-srbp-

GovSpeak Translator #nlpoli

A “forgivable loan” is another way of saying that a private-sector company is getting a free gift of public-sector money.

-srbp-

The Enduring Principle of Newfoundland Mining Development Policy #nlpoli

If you want to understand the provincial government’s mining policy, look no further than Joe Smallwood and a speech he gave to the local chapter of what was then the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in 1979.

Labrador Mining and Power Rates #nlpoli

In her scrum with reporters last week, Premier Kathy Dunderdale answered questions about possible rates offered to new mining companies in Labrador if the Muskrat Falls project goes ahead.

She mentioned the low electricity rate IOCC and Wabush mines receive from Churchill Falls as an example of how industrial customers get better deals than consumers.

Yeah, well, no.

Muskrat Timelines slide back #nlpoli

Here’s what VOCM reported after Nalcor chief executive Ed Martin delivered a speech to St. John’s Rotary earlier this year:

Ed Martin won’t get into precise dates but says a decision on Muskrat Falls is fast approaching. The Nalcor CEO was the guest speaker at a Rotary luncheon in St. John’s. Martin says a sanction decision one way or the other needs to be made by October at the latest. Anything past that he says will cost the Crown corporation millions per month. Martin says they’re looking at having the decision ready by June/July so they can be presented to MHA’s and debated in the House.

Last weekend, Martin told the Telegram he would hope to get things done by the end of the year:

Kremlinology 42: Dependency and the Loan Guarantee #nlpoli

The cost of the Muskrat Falls project has escalated to the point where the provincial government can’t do it without a federal loan guarantee.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale said as much on Wednesday when she finally got around to meeting with reporters two days after her meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In her long rambling answer to the first question, she called the loan guarantee “important” at least twice. How far they have come since Danny Williams first started down the entirely political road to build the entirely political project.

Labrador Mining and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale is bothered enough by his detailed critical analysis of Muskrat Falls that she has been known to single him out in fundraising speeches in the province and in the House of Assembly.

Journalists like CBC’s David Cochrane are tweeting requests for the guy to get in touch.

Yet so far Nalcor hasn’t challenged any of his commentaries at the Public Utilities Board or previously here at SRBP.

Today, they have another reason to pull at their hair.

The Boyo called Brazil #nlpoli

Obviously, Premier Kathy Dunderdale got squat from her meeting with the Prime Minister on Monday. 

You can tell because all she had to say on the day of the meeting was nothing.  Her office issued a statement that – for some inexplicable reason – hasn’t turned up on the provincial government’s website.

You can also tell because a media scrum she had scheduled for Tuesday got bumped off until noon on Wednesday.

English v. Pike: Game on! #nlpoli

Supreme Court Trial Division, Court Room 7, Duckworth Street.

10:00 AM.

Be there or be squarer than you’d normally be as a lawyer or person interested in lawyer stuff.

William J. English vs Mark D. Pike et al.

Tone, Standards and Political Suicide #nlpoli

The song from MASH was wrong.

Suicide is not painless.

And political suicide is more painful to watch than any other kind.

38! #nlpoli

This will be a record year fort changes in the senior ranks of the provincial public service.

On Friday, Premier Kathy Dunderdale announced change number 38 for 2012.  That puts her one off last year’s record total.

And as we told you a couple of weeks ago, she’s on track for 49 changes this year.

Cabinet ministers must be pissed off about this constant disruption in their departments.

-srbp-

Title Shuffling #nlpoli

The news via Twitter looked a lot bigger than it actually is.

David Cochrane tweeted on Saturday:

Sources: Premier Dunderdale shaking up staff on 8th floor (Premier's office). New deputy chief of staff Lynette Carroll (more)

Premier's new press secretary Debbie Marnell, new Director of Policy Denise Payne, new Assoc Dep Chief of Staff Derek Rideout (more)

Premier current press secretary Milly Brown moves to Special Assistant for Comms

Those moves continue a staff shakeup that started this summer with @LynnHammondNL taking the top Communications job on 8th floor.

Take a gawk at the provincial government telephone directory, though, and this looks a lot less impressive than you might think.  Here;s what these people were doing before and what they are doing now.

Name	Old Title	New Title
Lynette Carroll	Director of Policy	Deputy Chief of Staff
Derek Rideout	Director of Operations	Associate Deputy Chief of Staff
Debbie Marnell	Communications Specialist (TCR)	Press Secretary
Denise Payne	Special Assistant	Director of Policy
Milly Brown	Press Secretary	Special Assistant

Basically they’ve brought Debbie Marnell from a junior comms job in Tourism, Culture and Recreation to replace Milly Brown in the job of dealing with reporters day to day.

Brown goes off with a new title but there isn’t anything from the job description or her background that is a clue to what she’ll be up to.

Lynette Carroll, whose LinkedIn profile shows her as the Tory party executive director, moves from policy director in the Premier’s Office to deputy chief of staff.  No one filled that job in the Dunderdale Premier’s Office before.  They’ve created a new title for Derek Rideout but maybe not a new job to go with it. 

Rideout, incidentally had the title of Principal Assistant to the Premier whenever they last changed the PC Party website listing for the party executive board.

Maybe these changes will fix some problems on the 8th Floor but on the whole this looks a lot more like changing some titles and maybe changing some salaries rather than bringing in new staff with new skill sets.

This sort of stuff doesn’t change performance and poll results.

-srbp-

Sex and the cabinet #nlpoli

If all the speculation about a cabinet shuffle in the near future turns out to be true, it will be interesting to see if Premier Kathy Dunderdale breaks the fundamentally sexist nature of her current cabinet.

Kathy Dunderdale is justifiably proud of being the first woman premier in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history.  The fact that she is the first woman to hold the job is what makes her choice of cabinet ministers stand out a bit. Frankly, it’s a wee bit odd that no one has mentioned a curious pattern that appeared.

The Budget and Oil Prices #nlpoli

Just when everyone thought it was safe, a  gigantic Twitter exchange erupted on Wednesday evening between Telegram report James McLeod and Deanny MacDonald, the guy everyone thinks is already the Liberal Party leader .

They wound up discussing oil prices and the provincial government budget, something you’ll find in Macleod’s article in the Thursday Telegram.

Now that is what you call interesting #nlpoli

Labradore infuriates Connies both provincially and federally because the guy just knows his stuff and needles the little darlings at every chance.

On Tuesday, he posted a chart showing the number of words recorded by Hansard for each member of the House of Assembly during the last session.  He even colour-coded it by party for ease of reference.

You can find the whole chart here, but let’s take a look at a specific spot on the big picture.

If some of the provincial Connies, were quick to identify Tom Osborne as “deadwood”, then you have to wonder what they think of the people who participated less in the House than Osborne did.

People like Tony Cornect, Ray Hunter, Tracy Perry or John Dinn, all of whom spoke less than Osborne did.

Things got so bad in caucus, apparently, that Tom Osborne decided to leave rather than put up with it.  Is he the only one who will cross the floor this fall?  We could wind up with the “independent” party made up of as many members as the Liberals or the New Democrats.

-srbp-

More mumbo on the mumbo-jumbo #nlpoli

Keith Russell apologized on Tuesday for comments he made a week ago about the religious beliefs of some aboriginal people in Labrador:

I don’t buy into the mumbo jumbo about the trail leading to the Muskrat Falls site as being sacred ground. You can romanticize and sensationalize that particular piece of land all you want, but it is a resource.

As CBC reported, Russell issued a written statement:

With regards to my recent comment about Muskrat Falls, I apologize for my poor choice of words,

There it is: apology.  Job done.

Well… yeah but read a bit more.

Come again, b’ys #nlpoli

Two things about the provincial government’s new website devoted to climate change and energy conservation:

First, they could have used an editor.  This big chart has a rather glaring error in it.  Can you spot it?

This seems to be a pretty simple problem with the layout.  Strange that no one noticed it given that it is such a big picture on the middle of a page.

Dunderdale Translator: expert edition #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale speaks her own language.

She uses words in a different way from the rest of the population.  Take the word “expert”, for example.  Dunderdale claims that she would welcome any expert opinion that contradicts her current plan to rack up billions of dollars in debt building Muskrat Falls.

Dunderdale confirms knowledge of Osborne’s views on her leadership #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed on the weekend that she was aware Tom Osborne didn’t support her as leader of the Conservative Party in 2010.

Dunderdale told CBC’s On Point with David Cochrane that aware that Osborne supported her as interim leader.  However, Dunderdale said that when she wanted to seek the leadership on “a more permanent basis”, she polled the caucus and called Osborne last.

When Cochrane asked why Osborne was last on her list, Dunderdale said:

“…because you don’t miss when somebody… when he says now publicly that he didn’t support me, that’s not something you miss…”

That’s just one of several contradictions or misleading statements Dunderdale used to continue the Conservative attack on Osborne’s character.