The Sir Robert Bond Papers

17 January 2013

We can get there from here #nlpoli

People across the province are astounded that some students at Memorial University cannot correctly identify countries, continents, and oceans on a map of the world.

Geographic illiteracy shocks people. Well, it should, just like they should be appalled that 44% of the people over 15 years of age in this province read below the minimum level needed to function in modern society. And they should be left speechless at the idea that 66% of the people in Newfoundland and Labrador over 15 years of age lack the numeracy skills for modern society.

Happy Talk #nlpoli

Cuts.

Layoffs.

A couple of tight years.

Hard times.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale, finance minister Tom Marshall, and natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy have been preaching that since before Christmas.

Apparently, a couple of Conservative politicians didn’t get the memo.

No obligation to take electricity: Emera CEO #nlpoli

From the Chronicle Herald:

Emera CEO Chris Huskilson says there are several options available to Nova Scotians to meet future energy needs, but he insists the arrangement with Newfoundland and Labrador represents the best opportunity.

“It is not something (Nova Scotians) must do because Emera is bringing it forward, it is something they can consider and decide,” Huskilson said in an interview Tuesday.

“We have not signed anything that would obligate Nova Scotia customers to take this energy. All we’ve done was sign something that creates that opportunity.”

-srbp-

The cost of not doing the math #nlpoli

Natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy admitted over the weekend that he had not done the calculation to figure out if the equity stake in Hebron was worth the cost compared to just a change in the royalty regime.

CBC’s David Cochrane put the question to Kennedy after seven minutes or so of Kennedy’s recitation of talking point after talking point about the Hebron project and the impact of the massive increase in costs. In response to Cochrane’s relentless, detailed questioning, Kennedy tried every folksy analogy in his arsenal of banalities. He talked about putting away money for your children’s education. He tried the bland admonishment that the government would look after the future, not just do what was immediately popular.

Kennedy even tried to suggest questions about public finance - and the impact of spending billions on resource projects – should go to Tom Marshall. Since the provincial government struck a deal with the Hebron partners in 2007, the estimated cost of the project has tripled. Cochrane noted the cash commitments.

And finally with his acknowledgement he hadn’t done the math himself, Kennedy blinked on a basic element of the provincial government’s strategic plan.

Putting selective “facts” on the splitting table #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale wants to have a “conversation” about the provincial government’s financial mess and the ways we might fix it. That’s what she told CBC’s David Cochrane in her year-end interview.

One of the things Kathy wants to talk about is taxes, specifically the number of people not paying the bulk of the taxes the provincial government collects.

Kathy doesn’t really want to have a conversation, of course. Kathy likes jargon. She uses jargon a lot. She thinks it makes her sound smart. It never has. Kathy uses jargon so much that It just makes her sound like someone trying to sound smart.

Snow Day Entertainment

The world is full of some really dumb, really lucky people.

-srbp-

10 January 2013

High-Value Delivery #nlpoli

Two cabinet ministers trekked up the Southern Shore on Wednesday to hand over a cheque for some government cash to a local group of seniors.

Of course, they dragged their political staff with them.

The value of the cheque was $2,000.

Beyond the “clutches of Quebec” #nlpoli

Another perspective on Muskrat Falls, via the Ottawa Citizen, and a previous attempt to run electrical power from Labrador through Nova Scotia:

Pickersgill took the matter to the R.B. Bryce, the cautious deputy minister of finance, who identified several problems in a memo to his minister. First, the federal government could only provide a loan at per cent as Ottawa had done for transmission lines between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, amortized over 40 years. Second, the federal government had to avoid the impression that Ottawa was conspiring with Smallwood to outflank Quebec.

When Smallwood discussed the matter with Pearson and finance minister Walter Gordon in Ottawa in February 1965, they offered no help and advised him to work and resolve his differences with Lesage. Ottawa’s decision narrowed Newfoundland’s choice to a single option: negotiate with Quebec or leave Churchill Falls undeveloped.

-srbp-

08 January 2013

A Manufactured. Right. Here Mess #nlpoli

The Premier, the finance minister, and their favourite economist are talking about tax increases, layoffs, and spending cuts.

They are talking about cuts and layoffs at a time when the provincial government has more money coming into its accounts than any government in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador before 2003.

The provincial government finances are in a mess.

$#*! da Premier says: Freudian slip edition #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale, quoted in the Globe and Mail in a story on sanctioning of the Hebron project:

Our goal has been to ensure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are the main benefactors with respect to our natural resources,

Benefactor.

A benefactor is someone who delivers a benefit to someone else.

She is a bit like Dubya sometimes.

-srbp-

The Hebron Complications #nlpoli

The partners in the Hebron project sanctioned the development on New Year’s Eve and announced the decision on Friday.

The new cost estimate to build the gravity base and bring the oil field into production is $14 million. As CBC noted on Friday, the capital cost estimate for the project increased from $8.3 billion to $14 billion over the past 18 months. That’s a 69% increase for those doing the math.

“But much of the increase of billions relates to increased construction and drilling costs,” CBC reported on Friday, “ plus current market and foreign exchange rates.” The partners expect to produce first oil from the field in 2017.

Tom Johnson is Redundant #nlpoli

Pity Tom Johnson.

The St. John’s lawyer landed a steady source of billable hours when the provincial Conservatives made him the consumer advocate at the public utilities board.

Tom has been doing a fine job of advocating for consumers, even if his version puts an interesting twist on what he is advocating for consumers to do.

Take last year, for example. Johnson advocated during the Muskrat Falls hearings. He advocated for the Muskrat Falls project. That means, in effect, that consumers will be forced to pay for the entire Muskrat Falls project in their electricity bills, plus profit for the companies involved.

Well done, Tom. Consumers will be thanking you in the future.

In the meantime, though, Tom is not resting on his laurels. This time, Tom is hard at it advocating during an application by Newfoundland Power for its return on equity.

Bond Year Eight #nlpoli

On SRBP’s eighth anniversary, a sampler of some January commentaries:

A year of Bonding (January 2006)
Whistleblower Protection Legislation (January 2009)
Pater Knows Best (January 2011)
Undisclosed Risk: financing the Lower Churchill (January 2011)

-srbp-

Bravery and Democracy #nlpoli

“It is easy to be an armchair critic, tweeted natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy before Christmas, “but It takes real courage to stand for election.”

In another context, John Steele offered this opinion about your humble e-scribbler.:

“One thing that I respect about Ed is, he’s got balls enough to put his name to stuff. He’s not anonymous, so I respect that.”

The word “democracy” derives from the Greek words for people and power. Democracy is a form of government in which everyone may participate equally and fully in making decisions that will affect them.

Some books for the New Year #nlpoli

Shannon Ryan’s A history of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic to 1818 is an engaging, accessible account of the English in Newfoundland from the earliest arrival through to the end of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

The publisher’s blurb:

The waters off Newfoundland, in the North Atlantic, held the world’s most abundant supply of codfish, which, when discovered, was in great demand. Unlike the fur trade—the other major early commercial activity in what is now mainland Canada—the production of codfish did not require year-round residence. It did, however, require numerous men, young and old, for the fishing season, which ran from spring to early fall.

This successful English-Newfoundland migratory fishery evolved into an exclusively shore-based, but still migratory, fishery that led to the formation of a formal colony by 1818. Shannon Ryan offers this general history as an introduction to early Newfoundland. The economy and social, military, and political issues are dealt with in a straightforward narrative that will appeal to general readers as well as students of Newfoundland and Labrador history.

And if that whets your appetite, you can also hunt down a copy of Jerry Bannister’s The rule of the Admirals: law, custom, and naval government in Newfoundland, 1699-1832.

-srbp-

31 December 2012

The Perpetual Talking Point Disaster #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale’s year-end talking points for 2012 were pretty grim.

As she told CBC’s David Cochrane, the provincial government is facing an enormous deficit. The deficit is the result not of government spending but of the up-and-down nature of the commodities on which government revenues depend.

The result is that government will have to raise taxes or cut jobs or some combination of both in order to cope with the deficit next year.

This should sound awfully familiar to people.

Talking Point Politics #nlpoli

The Telegram’s Saturday front page story on Tory efforts to manipulate online polls and comments garnered two equal and opposite reactions over the weekend in that political echo chamber called Twitter. [The story isn’t free. it’s in the online subscriber edition]

Some people got into a lather over it.

Some other people tried to blow it off as something we’ve known all along, something everyone does everywhere, and no big thing.

Equal and opposite, if you will, but the big issue here is in the middle of these two opinion poles.

Creating a Baby Boom. Not. #nlpoli

Flip over to the Occupy NL blog and you’ll see a critique of some recent SRBP posts on the provincial government’s bonus cash for live babies program.

Let’s summarise the critique and then go from there. While this summary will get you through this post, to be fair and to make sure that nothing gets missed, go read the full post with all the charts included at Occupy NL.

The author takes issue with the SRBP approach in the initial post in the December series, which looked at the total number of births. He contends that we should look at “the average number of live births a woman can expect in her lifetime based on age-specific fertility rates in a given year. Secondly, his analysis doesn't acknowledge that declining birth rates is a trend nation-wide and that provincial rates should be compared to what is happening in other provinces.”