Premier-in-waiting Frank Coleman, anointed replacement for Danny Williams, turned up with CBC’s David Cochrane to explain to the On Point audience what he is all about.
Cochrane asked him about Danny Williams and the widespread stories about Williams’ support for Coleman’s candidacy.
What happened next is fascinating.
Danny Williams appeared in Virginia Waters on Saturday to campaign for Danny Breen, the Conservative candidate in the by-election.
Breen’s campaign wasted no time in pushing out pictures of The Appearance, like the one above, another one showing him with some young fellows out posting Breen campaign signs in the district, or the one below showing him with some volunteers in Breen’s headquarters.
Sharp eyes will notice that the shot of the two Dannys is actually from something else entirely, not the campaign, but that’s neither here nor there.
What is important to notice is that this is the first time the Old Man has turned out publicly for His party since Hisself left the leadership in an unseemly haste in late 2010.
That’s what makes The Appearance stand out.
The Old Man has been content until now to do his work behind the scenes either directly or through agents. The fact Hisself is out pressing the flesh among the faithful sends a bunch of potent messages.
On the outside, the spring budget for 2014 looks like a delicious assortment of goodies for everyone. You can tell it is delectable because everyone is shouting for joy and drooling over their good fortune.
There is not a single group who have had their hands out for government money that did not get something. And they are telling anyone who will listen just how happy they are.
Once you bite into one of sweetmeats in the Conservative Quality Assortment budget, though, the result might be a wee bit less tasteful.
The House of Assembly unanimously voted in favour of a bill on Tuesday that gives the government permission to spend $2.8 billion as part of next years budget.
Officially, it is called interim supply. It’s “interim” because the bill fills in the period between the 2013 budget – the last time the House gave the government permission to spend money – and the 2014 budget bill that will give government permission for the next year.
Incidentally, on that basis, you can expect that the 2014 budget will be something like $8.4 billion when finance minister Charlene Johnson reads the budget speech in the House on Thursday.
“Permission” is likely not a word you are used to hearing when it comes to the House of Assembly and budgets but in the Westminster legislatures like the one in Newfoundland and Labrador that’s exactly what the House does. It gives government permission to spend public money.
As it turned out, the “robust” oversight of the Muskrat Falls project that everyone was making a big deal about a few weeks ago is - as your humble e-scribbler suspected – an awful lot less than some thought it would be.
What a surprise.
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Finance minister Charlene Johnson will read the new provincial budget speech on Thursday.
In keeping with the provincial Conservative tradition, though, they’ve been announcing bits and pieces of the budget already. On Monday, for example, justice minister Darin King announced that the new budget would contain money for 20 new sheriff’s officer to provide court security and new lawyers and staff for the legal aid division.
Both news releases specifically indicated that the money was from Budget 2014, that is, money that isn’t supposed to be announced until Thursday. Reporters asked King if the finance minister would have money for these announcements.
It was only a matter of time before the government that says more and more about less and less figured out that its best mouthpiece was Steve Kent, right, the minister of perpetual self-parody.
Frank Coleman told an audience of reporters and supporters in Corner Brook on Wednesday that he was in the Conservative Party leadership race to win it.
That’s novel, given that most people run in an election with the intention of losing.
There’s very short clip on the Western Star website of Coleman speaking.
Coleman apparently didn’t say very much. Let’s see if that changes over the next few weeks.
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Premier Tom Marshall, in the House of Assembly, discussing what the provincial government can and cannot release:
There is nothing in the ATIPP legislation that prevents government, with the exception of some privacy information, from voluntarily releasing information that comes – we release reports all the time. The midwifery report, I think, and the bussing report, those reports were released and we will continue to do so.
There’s nothing in the parts of ATIPPA that cover access to government information that “make it illegal under Bill 29” or any other part of the Act for the provincial cabinet to release information.
Cabinet can hand out an independent audit report, the papers on the FPI prosecution, anything they have on Muskrat Falls, or the recipe for Tom Marshall’s favourite cookies and sleep soundly at night that the release was legal. No one in cabinet will get a fine or go to jail.
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No one could have picked a better panel of three people to review the provincial government’s access to information law than the three announced by Premier Tom Marshall on Tuesday.
The panel will be chaired by former premier and retired chief justice Clyde Wells. The other two panellists will be Doug Letto, a former producer at CBC television, and Jennifer Stoddart, the federal privacy commissioner from 2003 to 2013.
The terms of reference – included with the release – are comprehensive and will allow the panel to review the operation of the provincial access law in all respects.
Only a couple of years ago, national media were writing about all the women running provincial governments across Canada.
No less a pair of authorities as Jeff Simpson and Kathy Dunderdale agreed that politics would be different because all these women were around and, aw shucks, the gals just do things differently from the men.
The experience has proven to be far less than the promise.
For anyone who thinks it is unusual for the provincial Conservatives to backtrack or apologise, recall, the massive deployment of cabinet ministers to the Straits-White Bay North by-election in the fall of 2009.
Then there’s the who transparency thing.
According to a major Telegram story on Monday morning, the provincial government won’t be able to release some information about Muskrat Falls because of the provincial access to information laws.
There’s only one problem: the Telegram got the whole thing wrong.
The story of the 2014 provincial Conservative Party leadership contest is a study in politics on its most basic level.
It is a story of those with influence and of those who have less of it or none at all.
It is a story of how politics actually works inside the Conservative Party, instead of how we imagine it.
It is a fascinating story.
The provincial government will be establishing a committee of senior public servants to co-ordinate information on Muskrat Falls for cabinet.
VOCM faithfully reported Premier Tom Marshall’s comments to reporters outside the House of Assembly. The people want more, says Tom, so the Conservatives are going to give the public more oversight. The new committee will receive monthly project updates and quarterly financial updates from Nalcor, according to the VOCM story. The committee will issue an annual report.
All new stuff supposedly.
Except it isn’t.
“Province to deliver on promise of whistleblower law” read the headline for the CBC’s online story about the provincial government throne speech read Wednesday in the House of Assembly.
About half way down the story, it says that “Premier Tom Marshall is fighting back against the perception” that the government he’s been a part of since 2003 is secretive.
You’ll see the same idea in the Telegram’s story:
In today’s throne speech, Premier Tom Marshall made his most significant signal so far that the government is doing everything possible to be more open and transparent.
What’s interesting about this idea, that Tom Marshall alone did all this, is simply not true.
by JM and EGH
The BBC online news magazine carried an article on March 10 that should be of interest to all those following the Muskrat Falls debate.
“Do massive dams ever make sense?” summarizes the work of researchers at Oxford University. They studied more than 245 large dams completed between 1934 and 2007.
A large dam is one with a wall height of more than 15 metres. Muskrat Falls would meet the study criteria
The researchers found that dams ran 96% over their approved budgets, on average. One Brazilian dam went 240% over budget. With few exceptions, the researchers found that the dams were not economically viable.
“On the outside, Shawn Skinner and John Ottenheimer are still mulling it over, “wrote Des Sullivan last Thursday. “The price tag of running a credible campaign still daunts them; if Frank Coleman confirms his candidacy, both will fold.”
VOCM reported on Monday afternoon that Frank Coleman would make his final decision on Wednesday. CBC’s David Cochrane reported that same information on Monday evening and added an interesting extra bit of information: unidentified Conservative Party insiders told Cochrane that it is looking less and less likely that Coleman will run.
Neither would declare they were in the race until, respectively, Thursday and Friday.