Muskrat Falls weakness: the North Spur #nlpoli

The north side of the site of the future Muskrat Falls dam has a problem.  The soil is made up of clay that has a tendency to sheer away in landslides when it gets too wet. The North Spur, as it is known, is a key part of the reservoir.

Cabot Martin has documented the whole thing in a slide presentation based on documents released during the environmental reviews of the project.

According to Martin, Nalcor won’t have a potential solution to the problem or know the cost until sometime this year.

No adult supervision #nlpoli

Not even 24 hours after the Premier insisted that the daily layoffs would continue until finance minister Jerome Kennedy delivered his budget speech,  Jerome issued a news release  - at 1:30 PM - announcing that they would be holding off on further layoff announcements until he delivered the budget speech.

As it turned out, NTV’s Mike Connors had tweeted around noon that the “Premier says government has decided to stop the trickle of layoffs until budget day.”  CBC’s David Cochrane tweeted the same thing.

Cochrane and Connors also noted that -  as Cochrane put it -  “Premier says more than 500 jobs will be cut in budget. Not all layoffs. There is retirement incentive. No more cuts until budget.”

Meanwhile, 17 employees in a raft of departments got word today that they were headed for the door. 

Apparently, those are the last ones until the budget speech.

Body Count #nlpoli

“We've now confirmed 98 layoffs across government today,” tweeted CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane on Thursday afternoon.  “Working on departmental breakdown…” 

Cochrane broadcast the casualty figures for each department later:

Breakdown by department: 10 Advanced education/skills. 6 CYFS. 13 Environment. 4 Finance. 6 Fisheries. 23 Health. …7 Exec Council. 2 IBRT. 10 Justice. 9 Natural Res. 2 Tourism. 6 Transportation. 62 of 98 jobs cut were union jobs.

That’s the way it has been for the province’s political reporters since the end of February. Cochrane, NTV’s Mike Connors, and the Telegram’s James McLeod tweet on how many layoffs happened on that day, the number in each department,  how many belonged to which union and how many were non-unionised.

No planning and priorities: Conservative cabinet committees - 2013 #nlpoli

There’s one little gem in James McLeod’s pile of censored orders in council that isn’t censored.

It dates from January 2013 and gives the current list of cabinet committees.

There’s the economic policy committee:

There’s the social policy committee:


There’s the treasury board:

And there’s the routine matters committee:

Charlene Johnson and Tom Hedderson also sit on that routine committee.

There’s a curious omission in this list and it doesn’t appear to be a case where the committee make-up didn’t change after the cabinet shuffle with Jerome Kennedy and Tom Marshall.

There’s no planning and priorities committee, apparently. That’s odd because P and P is usually the key cabinet committee chaired by the Premier and responsible for the strategic direction of government. Kathy used to have one in her cabinet.  Every cabinet in Canada uses a planning and priorities committee.  Most have had one for the past three decades or more.

At some point, the Newfoundland and Labrador one seems to have vanished without an effective replacement.

That would explain a great deal.

It would explain, for example, why the Premier often seems to be unaware of what is going on inside her government.  She wouldn’t know because she doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the running of cabinet.  And that, more than anything else, is what the Premier is supposed to be doing. 

Rather than being the boss, Kathy Dunderdale often appears to be nothing more than the government’s official spokesperson, the dead parrot as it were.

In the absence of a P and P committee,  cabinet would have to hope that the key committee chairs could sort out among themselves what to do.  They would be:

• Joan Shea, chair of economic policy,
• Susan Sullivan, chair of social policy, and,
• Jerome Kennedy, president of treasury board.

Whatever the government is doing, these three would know about it and approve of it. 
In December 2010, cabinet had a P and P committee.  It’s members were:

-srbp-

The New Secret Nation #nlpoli

On the front page of Wednesday’s Telegram was another instalment in James McLeod’s blockbuster on the provincial government’s policy of censoring public documents.

This one focused on the claim by a spokesperson for the public engagement office that orders in council were not covered by a section of the province’s access to information law that prohibits disclosure of cabinet decisions even though the orders are essentially cabinet decisions.

At the same time, the spokesperson said the orders were subject to other sections of the act that allowed government officials to censor them selectively.

Yes, that is exactly as screwed-up as it sounds.

Exploits on the Exploits #nlpoli

In Nova Scotia, the provincial government has to beat prospective woods companies with a stick to keep them in line in the rush to take control of lands from the former Bowater mill in that province.

Seven groups want to get some part of the 220,000 hectares, a power plant, a mill site and all the timber that used to go into the paper plant.

Pennies and Pounds #nlpoli

In May 2011, the provincial public works department issued a call for proposals to replace the lift bridge in Placentia.

In August 2011, the department scrapped the project and went back for a re-think.  They got only one proposal for $43.25 million, which upset them given that they had figured it would only cost $24 million.

In March 2013, they accepted a tender for $40.6 million to replace the bridge. The release noted that the new tender was $2.5 million less than the one they’d cancelled.

Nice thought, that, but it actually isn’t a true reflection of the situation, is it?

Budgeting Control and Resources #nlpoli

Shortly after the 2003 general election, the newly elected Conservative politicians accepted a proposal to cut down the number of health boards and education boards across the province.

Save money, they said.

Save money, the politicians repeated.

And so it happened.

As it turned out, the consolidation didn’t save any money.  It certainly didn’t reduce the public service payroll, a goal the Conservatives set out in their election platform.

Where once they stood… #nlpoli

Labour federation boss Lana Payne made an interesting comment on Twitter over the weekend:  “there is never a time for austerity.”

Never.

Ever.

You can hear all those Newfoundland politicians from the 1920s applauding her from the grave.  Those were the same politicians who spent the government into bankruptcy in about a decade.

-srbp-

Just when we needed new ideas… #nlpoli

There’s no small laugh to be had listening to Wade Locke, the government’s favourite economist.

He was all over the media on Monday talking about fiscal responsibility, cutting spending and all that sort of stuff.  You can find a tidy summary from the Telegram.

A couple of decades ago, Locke was advising the public sector unions.  Back then he was all in favour of borrowing and spending and spending and borrowing despite the crushing public debt and the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. Fast forward and Wade’s singing a different tune.

The laughs Locke can generate get much bigger when you look at the rest of what he had to say to reporters.

Kent to preside at envelope opening #nlpoli

As we approach the umpteenth anniversary of the internationally-accessible Internet, a website is about as far from news as anyone can get.

That’s why it was so laughable last week to see the junior fart-catcher apprenticed to the province’s minister of secrecy and obfuscation issuing a news release and holding a news conference to herald a completely trivial event like the launch of a new front page (!) to a website..

The only thing left for Steve Kent to do is invite the representatives of the province’s news media to gather ‘round as he opens an envelope. Even the Voice of the Cabinet Minister might not attend that sort of snore-fest or the subsequent events in the series: Kent to check e-mail and Kent posts Twitter message.

Censoring Public Documents… or not #nlpoli

Not only does the provincial government now censor public documents called orders in council, they can’t get their own scheme right.

Public engagement minister Keith Hutchings published a letter to the editor claiming that government had always censored orders in council.  The Telegram dutifully went back and asked for some of the same documents they’d received before with censored sections blacked out.

A front-page story in this Saturday’s edition (March 2) lays out the details.

Party Spending on Polls #nlpoli

Over the past decade, the provincial Conservatives have consistently outspent the other parties in the province on polling and similar research in both election and off years, according to figures filed with the province’s elections office.

The table below shows the amounts each party reported as spending on research and polling. In general election years, the figures are the reported figures for the general election periods.  Parties also may have spent money outside the election period. That isn’t included here.

General Election Cost Per Vote - Updated #nlpoli

Last fall, we looked at cost per vote for provincial general elections.  At the time, Election NL hadn’t released the 2011 general election figures but with those numbers now available, it’s time to update the earlier comparison.

Two things to note:

• first, these comparisons are only for election period spending by each of the three parties.  Last fall we looked at total spending by the parties throughout the year.
• second, the chart is a bar instead of a line graph.  This is a better visual presentation since the individual yearly comparisons are still there without implying any connection from one year to the next.

Some evidence #nlpoli

A few years ago, some people believed that comments left on news stories and in online discussion groups could influence public opinion.

As it turns out, no one took any advice about anything from some person called newfiesexgod27.

Who knew?

Influence and Manipulation #nlpoli

Public opinion changes.

Individuals don’t hold exactly the same attitudes about things throughout their entire lives.

That’s true of how the typical man or woman feels about clothing styles, cars, movies, books, politics, or just about anything else.

Not surprisingly in a society like ours, there are people who want to try and change opinions and attitudes.  They want to persuade people to buy a product, support a political decision or stop doing something like smoking.

Also not surprisingly, we have some basic ideas about how people should do that.

Copper-fastened #nlpoli

According to the Telegram editorialist argued last week, this fuss over renovations was nothing at all.

At any rate, renovations planned long in advance — to keep the legislature from falling apart — are hardly a fair target for criticism.
It’s fair to say if the Opposition’s roof was leaking, they’d be singing a different tune.

This conclusions assume one thing not actually disclosed in media reports on the need to relocate three floors of the Confederation Building tower and another thing that’s actually preposterous.

Some Free Advice for Paul Lane #nlpoli

Paul Lane.

Paulie.

Pepsi-man.

Snook-ums.

You are embarrassed.

Someone ratted you out and made you look like bad.

You hid out for four days.

Not the smartest strategy ever, but hey.

You got pissy with people on Twitter and your performance on Here and Now was…well…vintage Paul Lane
.
Just remember:

Politicians have survived far worse scandals than a leak of a few text messages that show you and all your colleagues treat totally irrelevant online polls like they actually mattered.

Politicians have survived acting like far bigger jerks than you could ever be in your wildest dreams.  They have made it through sex scandals, assorted other personal indiscretions, financial shenanigans, electoral irregularities, and a raft of other things infinitely worse than what has happened to you in your very short political career.

But…

once the public starts laughing at you … in public … to your face … well…

you are screwed.

Totally.

Just sayin’.

-srbp-

A Record of Manipulation #nlpoli

With a tip of the hat to Gerry Rogers and Andrew Parsons, here are some posts from the SRBP archive that all bear on the current political mess in which the provincial Conservatives find themselves.

“Playing the Numbers”  (August 2006) One element of the program involves aggressively pushing out their own message, especially when their pollster is in the field.   The first of the original three-part series that described the Conservative media strategy.  There’s a lot more to it than just online polls. Follow the links for the other two.

Freedom from Information  (Various)  Bill 29 was just the latest in a long string of efforts by the Conservatives to restrict what the public knows.  Controlling information is another key element of the government program.

“Mark Griffin:  traitor”  (February 2009)  A third element of the program involved efforts to suppress dissent.  Mark Griffin was an especially glaring example. There have been lots of others, reported and presumably unreported.  Write a letter? Get a call. 

“Everything else is advertising”  (December 2009) News is everything they want to keep you from seeing.  There’s no story here.

“Deep Throat” (February 2010) Someone inside the provincial Conservative crew leaked the messages about poll goosing. Earlier, someone (else?) dropped a quarter and ratted Danny’s secret heart surgery out to NTV.

“The Screaming of the Banshees”  (February 2010)  NTV broke the story.  The Conservatives mount an organized attack on CBC.  Some people still think that the who horde of people saying exactly the same thing arose spontaneously.  Sure it did.

“Planted Calls and Personal Threats Against Talk Show Host Revealed”  (August 2010)  Randy Simms, interviewed by Geoff Meeker, included a text-book definition of a planted caller.

“Enough of the Political Day-Care” (March 2012) As soon as you read it, you will remember the episode.  What might leap out more for someone of you now than before is the idea that calling Open Line was a threat that struck fear into Tory hearts.

-srbp-

Live from the Orchestra Pit #nlpoli

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians got a vivid example on Thursday of the Orchestra Pit Theory of Political reporting.

For those who don’t know the story, the Orchestra Pit theory goes like this:  two politicians are on the stage.  One announces a cure for cancer.  The other falls into the orchestra pit.  The media will cover the guy in the pit.

Well, the guy in the pit on Thursday was Brad Cabana.