After all this time, some of you will find it interesting to go back and look at some slides from the original Nalcor “technical briefing” on Muskrat Falls delivered in November 2010.
The ”last saved” date on the deck is 25 November 2010
Compare it to the briefing Nalcor gave to the public utilities board, for example, in July 2011. Notice how much changed.
Last December, the federal cabinet appointed intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue’s campaign manager in the 2011 to a plum seat on the joint federal-provincial board that regulates the province’s offshore oil industry.
It was a pure pork-barrel appointment since Reg Bowers has absolutely no background that might have made him qualified to sit on the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. A series of appointments by his provincial Conservative friends doesn’t count.
Bowers landed a sweet gig: six years, subject to reappointment. Hob-knobbing with international oil industry types.
Flip ahead a year and Penashue has tried to distance himself from the controversy. A letter from Penashue to constituents released on Tuesday notes that Bowers was responsible for campaign administration. Penashue says he made it clear that the campaign would follow Elections Canada rules.
“No one is more surprised than I am at the allegations that have arisen since the campaign,” wrote Penashue. “No one is more disappointed. That’s why there is a new Official Agent in place to examine all of the paperwork and to work with Elections Canada to correct any mistakes.”
There have been enough questions about Penashue’s campaign finances since last summer for him to have relinquished his cabinet job until Elections Canada finished its probe into the campaign. The fact he hasn’t done so is one thing.
But In his letter to constituents, Penashue pointed to his official agent during the campaign and his responsibility, as a function of the position he occupied, for the state of Penashue’s campaign accounts, finances and documentation.
Something was clearly amiss in Penashue’s campaign. The problems with Penashue’s campaign may well have resulted from nothing more exotic than incompetence. But that incompetence should be seen plainly enough by now, on the face of it, to cause the federal cabinet to request Mr. Bowers’ resignation from the offshore board. If he doesn’t to leave voluntarily, then he can be removed.
Peter Penashue’s letter laid the groundwork for it.
Let’s just get on with it.
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to crummell: to have one's opinion completely reversed in a nanosecond by the whim of another.
There may well be others that will turn up in the wake of Tory Dan Crummell’s 180 degree reversal on Peter Penashue on Friday.
But no matter what witticisms crop up, Dan Crummell defined himself rather neatly, if unflatteringly, last week.
Your humble e-scribbler saw a couple of comments last week that said the NDP town hall on Muskrat Falls was a good argument against having a referendum on the megaproject. Some people were quite badly misinformed, so the commentary went, not just about Muskrat Falls itself but about the province’s electricity supply and demand.
Those observations are surprising. They are surprising because we’ve had two whole years of relentless marketing by Nalcor about their project. They are surprising because the provincial government has been trying to develop the Lower Churchill continuously since 1998. There isn’t a single year since then when the provincial government, Nalcor and before that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro have not been trying to find some way to get this thing done.
That’s almost 15 years of relentless public discussion. And still people don’t know basic information.
Absolutely gobsmacking, that is. Unless you think about public discussions over the past decade or so.
Master Corporal Darrell Jason Priede, killed in a helicopter crash at approximately 2100 hrs 30 May 2007 near Kajaki, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
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The Telegram’s Pam Frampton has a neat column this weekend on Jerome Kennedy, Muskrat Falls, and the provincial government’s problems with explaining to people in simple terms why Muskrat falls is a good idea.
Frampton nails the biggest problem simply enough:
The problem with the government’s Muskrat Falls message till now is that it has been a moving target. One week the project was all about clean energy, the next it was job creation, then it was all about being an affordable energy source, then it was a means of foiling Quebec, then it was a lure for mining companies.
Then she notes the critic’s arguments and the fact they they were,as Frampton, puts it often “shrilly spun” by government officials and others.
Kennedy tried to put a new face on government’s messaging during his appearance at the Telegram’s editorial board. as much as Kennedy seemed to change both his tone and his content, none of that stopped Kennedy from spinning - to use Frampton’s word - either his own position or that of the critics.
How surprising.
Lots of people in Newfoundland and Labrador fought for and continue to bitch about the recreational cod fishery.
They bitch because they cannot fish anytime they like. They bitch because other people in other parts of Canada don’t have the same restrictions on their recreational fishery.
Well, take a look at another place on the eastern seaboard where marine species are under heavy pressure both from commercial fishermen and, as it turns out, the recreational types as well.
Darin King failed miserably in his first encounter with the opposition parties.
He didn’t have to.
“I can give you a couple of examples myself that I’ve done. One is, ‘No debate! No debate!’ Then a week later, ‘OK, let’s have a debate now.’ That’s not good communication.”The Telegram editorial on Wednesday then mentioned the provincial government’s general message to critics of the Muskrat falls project. The editorial paraphrased it as “You’re all idiots, you don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re all wrong.”
Most of you are likely dissecting the American presidential election or hopped up to talk about the House of Assembly. Well, there’s plenty of time for that.
Consider this post a minor diversion, more about the backstory than about the discussion of what just happened. We’ll get back to some new and more involved subjects on Thursday.
Tuckamore Capital made a single political donation during the 2011 general election.
The company gave $1500 to Keith Hutchings, who ran for the Conservatives in Ferryland.
Dean MacDonald is president and chief executive officer of Tuckamore Capital.
In 2011, MacDonald was being courted behind the scenes to take over the leadership of the Liberal Party from an ailing Yvonne Jones.
At the time, Jones denied it publicly, as reported by CBC. The same CBC story quoted MacDonald as saying that “as a Liberal I will be helping Yvonne in any way I can in terms of candidates, fundraising and all the things that go on with an election.”
The Tuckamore donation occurred during the campaign.
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Last winter we took a look at the idea of cost per vote. Basically, you compare the amount of money a campaign spent with the number of votes it got.
It’s a way of measuring the efficiency of a political campaign. The lower the number, the more efficient the campaign is.
Here’s a chart showing the cost per vote for the three major parties in Newfoundland and Labrador in the four general election years 1996, 1999, 2003, and 2007. The calculations added the annual contributions for each party and the specific contributions for each general election during the year of the general election and divided the sum by the number of votes cast for each party.
The chart doesn’t include 2011 since Elections NL hasn’t released the annual contribution figures for that year yet.
The water management controversy flared briefly at the end of last week thanks to Geoff Meeker’s blog at the Telegram and a couple of interviews by the 2041 Group and Nalcor’s Gil Bennett.
This is one of those issues where a lot of people either tune out early on because it appears highly technical and complicated. Actually it isn’t. The topic only appears complicated.
It only appears complicated because of the very convoluted, long-winded, and very unhelpful way the cats at Nalcor talk about the water management agreement. They go all techie.
Once you get a handle on the whole water management thing, it’s quite easy to understand and it’s quite easy to see where the possible problems are.
“I know why you did it.
I know you were afraid.
Who wouldn't be?
… There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, … .
He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.”
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Lots of anguish and lots of humour attend the news that George Lucas has sold out to Disney.
A sample of the fun:
And another:
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Anyone with half a clue knows that you cannot develop a reliable, efficient electricity system built on type of generation only.
You need a mix so that the advantages of one type offset the weaknesses of another. All hydro is hard to do if you need steady supply because it tends to vary with the water flow. Wind is even worse for that. Oil and coal are good for steady supplies but they tend to be expensive, dirty or both. Natural gas is very cool, especially these days, because not only is there lots of it but it is very inexpensive and can deliver electricity pretty much on demand.
Only in Newfoundland and Labrador do we have access to trillions of cubic feet of natural gas already found, trillions more likely to be discovered, and a provincial government that doesn’t want to develop it because the natural gas is not expensive enough to use.
