As the Telegram reported on Saturday, the Public Utilities Board has suspended consideration of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s 2013 capital works application.
The company is having trouble answering a couple of questions.
Here are the ones that are causing problems.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale, from her unscripted speech at the Tory party annual meeting, via the Telegram’s James McLeod:
We didn’t support the Harper government, people of Newfoundland and Labrador didn’t. You know, somebody who didn’t have principle could’ve walked away from the commitment to the loan guarantee. What would the consequence have been? We wouldn’t elect anyone for a long time to that party? He didn’t, he absolutely maintained his commitment to the people of this province. You’ll see what that means in the next couple of weeks, but it’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. He didn’t have to do it, but he did it. He made a promise to the people of the province, and he kept it. And it’s important as Tories, because we tore strips off him when we believe he needed to have that done, and here was Miss Buffo out leading the crowd. Not everything has to be a brawl on the steps of Confederation Building, remember that too. But there comes a time when you’ve got to stand your ground, and b’ys, get out of the way, and that was one of them. I made no apologies then, and I don’t make them now.
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During the last federal election two polling stations in the riding of Labrador closed for two hours after an Elections Canada worker drove away with the ballot boxes, according to the Toronto Sun.
According to the Sun:
A spokesman for Elections Canada said an employee in Labrador thought ballot boxes were for "training" and drove away with materials for about 20 minutes. The employee was then called back to the polling stations, located at a legion and a hall, by another officer and the station was reopened.
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Look around and anyone can find a huge amount of information about Muskrat Falls and electricity in Newfoundland and Labrador.
For all that, though, there is a great deal of misinformation out there. That only adds to confusion some people are experiencing. As disappointing as it is, misinformation remains a fact of life in the Muskrat falls discussion.
As a couple of recent posts have shown, some of the misinformation turned up in a single online commentary recently posted. Something good can come out of everything, as it seems and so this third post corrects the misinformation and replaces it other issues and more substantive information.
From Kathy Dunderdale’s unscripted speech to Conservative party delegates at the 2012 annual meeting:
Only the people who love us very much will be around when we finish this job because it takes over your life. I remember being in a Treasury Board meeting and somebody saying, you know, you can’t do that. You can’t expect somebody to drive a hundred miles a day and work for minimum wage, and somebody said, well sure, you ask Ross Wiseman to do it every day.
From the report by federal conflict of interest and ethics commission into certain actions by former fisheries ambassador Loyola Sullivan:
In June 2011, after consulting with my Office about whether he could take the position, Mr. Sullivan took up the position of Vice President of Resource Management and Sustainability at Ocean Choice International (Ocean Choice). In that position he had several interactions with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada related to matters of interest to Ocean Choice during his one-year post-employment cooling-off period. He also attended a consultation organized by Fisheries and Oceans on behalf of the Groundfish Enterprise Allocation Council.
During my examination I found that several of these interactions were made in order to persuade federal government officials to make a decision to the advantage of Ocean Choice and, in one case, to change a policy in accordance with the position of the Groundfish Enterprise Allocation Council. In my view, these interactions involved making representations. I have therefore found that Mr. Sullivan contravened subsection 35(2) of the [Conflict of Interest] Act.
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The issue of Holyrood and the future cost of thermal generation is a big part of the argument for Muskrat Falls.
What’s so amazing about it is that people can actually get so confused by something so straightforward.
Kathy Dunderdale gave a speech to the hundreds of Conservatives who gathered in Gander last weekend for their annual convention.
The Telegram’s James McLeod transcribed most of it and posted it to his blog at the Telly website.
Dunderdale’s speech is amazing because, unlike her recent speeches, she didn’t rehearse every single word and gesture. This one is all Kathy, speaking earnestly about what she believes.
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.
