From the Chronicle Herald:
In its letter, the board also points out that parts of the project have been delayed. That includes a 10-month change in the timeline for the transition to start-up and operations. Commissioning of the 180-kilometre cable is slated to be completed by October 2017 rather than December 2016. [emphasis added]
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Writing good speeches is more art than science but even without much experience, you can tell when a part of a speech doesn’t ring true.
There was a spot like that in Kathy Dunderdale’s resignation speech.
Hearing it made you wince.
It just didn’t sit right.
Reading the passage doesn’t make it any better. Here it is:
“Bullshit,” wrote philosopher Harry Frankfurt a few years ago, “is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.”
Enter Danny Williams, Doc O’Keefe, and Tom Hann.
The T’ree Amigos dismissed the Conference Board of Canada’s recent population projection for the province with the simple argument that the booming economy in the province - due largely to oil - would attract people here in droves.
That’s a really interesting idea because we can actually look at the evidence available to see if that might be true. The province has been doing very well economically for the past decade. Arguably, the province was even doing fairly well for the decade before that, compared to the 1970s and 1980s what with oil development that started in the early 1990s.
So what happened?
Tuesday’s scrum with Danny Williams proved at least two things
The first is that the Old Man will say anything that comes into his head and most of it isn’t even close to true. Second is that the local reporters gaggled around him wouldn’t call him on his obvious bullshit if their lives depended on it.
Never have.
Never will.
Among other things on Tuesday, the Old Man claimed that building a new electricity transmission line to western Labrador from Churchill Falls is a “no brainer” because without the electricity the company whose board Danny sits on won’t build the new Kami mine.
When Nalcor needs a bunch of Quebec lawyers, one of the firms they go to is Fasken Martineau. Nalcor has been relying on FM for lots of things over the years, including the infamous series of appeals to the Quebec energy regulator.
Last week, FM issued a news release about the close of the financial deal for the project. It included a quote from Xeno Martis, the lead lawyer from FM for the project:
"Fasken Martineau conceived and proposed a modified "wrap structure" which sheltered the lenders from any project risk and provided them with direct recourse to the Sovereign," added Mr. Martis.
That was important, as one of the underwriters described in a Financial Post story a couple of weeks ago:
“The benefit of the guarantee was that no one had to look at the merits of the underlying project.”
Whatever the provincial government paid Fasken Martineau via Nalcor, that bit of work was worth it. After all, as a result of the way FM structured the deal, investors were protected from any risk and none had to look at the merits of the project before putting money into it.
The provincial Conservatives can also thank FM for other cash.
Timon and Pumbaa turned up at St. John’s City Hall for the rainbow flag raising on Friday.
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After Bill Barry - the only declared candidate - former cabinet minister Shawn Skinner is the least imaginary of the potential candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“What I’m running for is to form the next government,” Skinner told the Telegram’s James McLeod. What I am running for. Present tense. Definitive.
Not what I am thinking about running for. Not what I might run for.
What I am running for.
And yet Skinner hasn’t actually announced that he is running. The main reason he gave to the Telegram is understandable: the party hasn’t announced the rules for the contest yet.
One of the rules Skinner is particularly concerned about is the spending limit for the campaign.
A day after the shocking news that Tim Powers is not going to be a candidate for Conservative Party leader in Newfoundland and Labrador, another imaginary candidate dropped out of a race he was never in.
Charlie Oliver announced on Wednesday he would back Bill Barry, most likely.
And instead of running to be Premier, Charlie wants to fund some sort of “think tank” instead.
Now Charlie might come through with the dough, but the whole idea looks a lot more like something someone gave Charlie to say as a way of saving face.
Dale Kirby and Christopher Mitchelmore shifted their desks in the House of Assembly on Tuesday from the independent or unaffiliated part of the chamber to sit with the Liberals.
They left the New Democratic Party last fall voicing concerns as they left about Lorraine Michael’s leadership and the lack of election readiness in the party that had, in 2012, at one point topped the polls in the province.
The news on Tuesday was probably the least surprising news of any that’s happened in provincial politics in the past six months, but that didn’t stop some people from moaning about it.
A new poll by Abacus Data for VOCM shows the Liberals under Dwight ball leading the governing Conservatives in every region of Newfoundland and Labrador.
According to a new VOCM-Abacus Data random telephone survey of 500 eligible voters in Newfoundland and Labrador, the NL Liberals hold a 15-point lead over the PC Party among committed voters (Liberal 49% vs. PC 34%) with the NDP well back in third at 15%.
But that’s not all.
Two separate e-mails plunked the same article in the SRBP inbox on Friday.
Both highlighted the same quote from this National Post story on Muskrat Falls financing:
“The benefit of the guarantee was that no one had to look at the merits of the underlying project,” says Steve Halliday, managing director and head of global credit trading and distribution at TD.
So the investors bought into the project without looking at the merits of the project.
How many ways can that be bad for the people who will be stuck paying for it?
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Premier Tom Marshall confirmed on Thursday that the provincial government will be doing the review of the provincial information and privacy law a year earlier than scheduled.
They will also be appointing three people to serve as the commission conducting the review. The provincial government is also accepting nominations for commissioners.
While other details of the review aren’t public yet, the news so far is good.
When they got up on Wednesday morning, everyone in the province who was paying attention knew that Bill Barry was going to launch his bid for the provincial Conservative Party leadership later that afternoon in Corner Brook.
Barry made his plans clear the week before. He’s the only one definitely in the race so far. On Tuesday night, Barry posted an invitation on facebook for people to come out and join him if they were alienated from provincial politics and fed up with the way things were going.
Any news hunter scanning the radio dial on Wednesday heard about the Barry newser, but just before 8:00 AM, VOCM news director Fred Hutton played the tape of an interviewed he’d bagged the night before with former Liberal leadership contender Cathy Bennett. No one had heard from her since the Liberals elected Dwight Ball, but there was Bennett telling the audience of the province’s largest privately owned radio network that she was definitely running in Virginia Waters in the next election as a Liberal.
Gone was the Bennett of her campaign, at times brusque and stiff. In her interview with Hutton, Cathy Bennett displayed displayed all the skills she’d learned from her hard months on the campaign trail. She was articulate, confident and professional. Bennett affirmed her commitment to the Liberal Party and spoke confidently of the change she wanted to bring to the province as part of a future Liberal government.
What’s so striking about the race to replace Kathy Dunderdale as leader of the provincial Conservative Party is how spectacularly unspectacular it is so far.
Maybe things will change once the Conservative Party executive meets to figure out the leadership contest rules. But so far the whole thing has been decidedly dull.