As a rule, any commentary that purports in its title to bust myths usually winds up perpetuating a myth or two of its own.
Corollary: if it doesn’t propagate a few myths, there’s a danger that the same commentary will contain misinformation that will lead people off into the trees.
John Samms' recent post sets out to debunk a few myths about Muskrat Falls but winds up proving the old mythbuster rule and the corollary in the process.
Here’s how.
After a wild weekend in Suburbia in the Woods, the province’s ruling Conservatives turned up all over the talk radio shows going on about how there were so many Tiny Tories at the convention and how a chunk of the provincial executive was made up of people under 30 years of age.
Clearly, the Tories are bothered by something to do with age, as in they are loaded down at the top end with people who aren’t young. Like say the Old Man, who was the oldest person elected Premier when he took office in 2003.
Or Kathy Dunderdale, who beat Danny by a good few years to be the oldest person ever elected Premier.
Or maybe they are just a-feared of the province’s New Democrats.
by JM
There has been a new group of business people who have been formed in support of the Muskrat Falls Project. I would ask that these individuals review the following key facts and figures before they confirm their support of the project. I would also ask that they push the Government to answer the questions raised at the end of this short post
Thanks to the Telegram’s James McLeod and his Twitter feed from Gander, take a look at two of the resolutions from the Progressive Conservative.
Watch the raw video of the Thursday news conference in which Premier Kathy Dunderdale, natural resource minister Jerome Kennedy, and finance minister Tom Marshall announced the end of a dispute with the companies developing the Hebron project.
Pay less attention to the details of the announcement itself than to the details of how they made the announcement.
Word from the hobby shop Thursday is that the USS Skipjack is on the way.
In 1/72 scale, this is going to be one big submarine:
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Round 1 voting is open and I respectfully ask for your support.
Click on the picture to cast your vote.
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Sending the third topsides module from Hebron outside the province was “absolutely unacceptable” to Premier Kathy Dunderdale back in June.
She was “extremely unhappy” and vowed to “pursue all avenues available” to her in order “to ensure that this very important work stays in Newfoundland and Labrador.”
A few months later, the absolutely unacceptable has become completely acceptable. The only question – as it turned out – was the price.
The federal government is considering changes to the Equalization program and the way it assess revenue from hydro-electricity, according to documents obtained by PostMedia News under the federal access to information system.
The changes would apparently take into account revenue from hydro-electric corporations in provinces like Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador where a portion of the revenues from provincially-owned hydro corporations are sometimes passed directly to consumers in the former of lower electricity rates.
“Potentially, it’s a huge issue,” said Al O’Brien, chairman of the federal government’s 2006 expert panel on equalization, which examined hydroelectricity revenues as part of its analysis of the broader national program. “It will be controversial.”
He believes governments in Quebec and Manitoba recognize their fiscal capacity, or revenue-generating ability, is underrepresented in the current system.
However, any changes to how hydroelectricity is calculated in equalization could have a “huge impact” on how much — if any — a province receives from Ottawa in equalization, he explained. For example, some studies have suggested Quebec could lose billions of dollars in equalization payments if the true value of hydroelectricity were calculated in the program.
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For those who have been following the issue, SRBP and others were talking about remittance work back in 2007.
It remains a key part of the current administration’s economic policy. The proof is in an airport in western Newfoundland that offers parking facilities for patrons who may be gone for upwards of one year.
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By any reasonable standard, Gordon Weil would count as an expert.
In business.
In the energy business.
An expert.
As much as she said she wants to hear from experts, Weil’s review of the Muskrat Falls project won’t have any impact on Kathy Dunderdale.
That’s because he doesn’t fit her unique definition of what an expert is.
Note the number of times Ed Martin says “open” or “transparent” within the first five minutes of his weekend interview for On Point with David Cochrane.
Odds are very high that these words relate to a very sensitive issue for Nalcor, revealed by their extensive polling.
Put the On Point interview together with Martin’s article in the weekend Telegram - not online - and you can see why these ideas are causing Nalcor such problems.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale tied the record on Friday for senior executive changes in the provincial public service.
She appointed an acting deputy minister of justice to replace a fellow who has gone off to his reward as a justice of the supreme court.
Dunderdale set the record last year with 39 changes in a group of senior managers numbering about 85 in total.
If she keeps up the same pace of changes in 2012, Dunderdale will make a total of 49 before the New Year arrives. A quick tally would show that - if she hits that number – Kathy Dunderdale will have made the equivalent of a complete change in the senior ranks of the public service in about two years.
That’s on top of the heavy number of changes to the senior public service over the past decade. Of the line departments, natural resources as seen the heaviest number of changes. There’s been no obvious explanation for the high turn-over any more than there was any explanation of the sudden and mysterious changes at the deputy minister level in the department last month.
The former deputy minister, appointed in 2011 disappeared in September 2012 without explanation or – if you check the release – even a mention of her existence.
She.
Just.
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Call them the Dam One Percent.
Call them Dan-Dam Style.
Call them Millionaires for Muskrat.
Call them MFers, with tongue firmly in cheek.
The business people who back Muskrat Falls are now writing letters to the newspapers and forming political action groups to show their support of Muskrat Falls.
Like nobody knew that people like Nalcor directors Cathy Bennett and John Steele, former Nalcor chair Deanny MacDonald, and Labrador businessman Peter Woodward didn’t love the Muskrat Falls project already.
Think about that! Does anybody have any confidence that, when mines in this province go to Hydro-Québec looking for energy for development in Labrador, they are going to get the best industrial rates in Atlantic Canada?The provincial government wouldn’t be worried about the issue unless Quebec had power to sell.
