The smart guy they could have had – but frigged over twice - told Canadian Press:
“The understanding of the [provincial political] climate isn’t as sophisticated as it should be for those who are working with Mr. Coleman on the strategic side.”
Without knowing what the smart guy said, one of the guys supporting Mr. Coleman said:
“I don’t think anybody ever dreamed in a million years that Frank would take the heat that he has taken over the past few months since he decided to run…”.
The ferry service between Newfoundland and Cape Breton is economically important to the province as a whole, but it’s especially sensitive for Port aux Basques.
Marine Atlantic announced a change in the summer ferry schedule on Thursday. The company will reduce the number of crossings daily and put one of its ferries on stand-by in the event they need it.
This isn’t the schedule the company announced in February for its busiest season of the year but, as the company spokesperson put it in this media interviews, their original projections turned out to be high. As a result, the company has reduced the number of schedules crossings while keeping the option of adding capacity if bookings pick up.
The Telegram’s James McLeod started a story that appeared on 26 May with the following sentence:
Premier-designate Frank Coleman says he wants to run a premier’s office with fewer people, and he’s starting that already — six weeks before he becomes premier.
What neither McLeod, nor his editors, nor anyone else in the province’s news media seemed to wonder is how Coleman did that. They’ve all treated events last Friday evening as normal. They’ve reported it as routine.
According to NTV’s Mike Connors Frank Coleman said that he and Tom Marshall agreed to Friday’s events. That is, they both agreed to sack all but a couple of Tom’s staff members and replace them gradually with people of Coleman’s choosing.
For his part, Tom Marshall insists that he appointed Coleman’s people and that there is only one Premier in the province. That’s all beside the point, though, as Marshall well knows.
Liberal leader Dwight Ball and Conservative leader-designate Frank Coleman delivered speeches in St. John’s last week and you couldn’t have scripted more startling contrasts.
Ball delivered a speech at an event that reflected his party’s standing in the polls: more than 500 people who paid $500 a head to attend.
Coleman spoke to a small meeting of the St. John’s Rotary Club where the audience paid a few dollars to the Club.
Thanks to the Telegram’s James McLeod, you can compare the two speeches. Since James posted the speeches and Coleman’s scrum to youtube, we’ll also give you those links.
Take the time to listen to the speeches yourself, but here are some observations about the pair of them.
From the industry association representing companies that provide sureties and other bonds, released May 26, 2014:
News Release
For Immediate Release: May 26, 2014
Recent remarks by Nick McGrath, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure for Newfoundland and Labrador about the use of surety bonds on public projects are completely preposterous. So says Steve Ness, the President of the Surety Association of Canada.
“Mr. McGrath clearly doesn’t understand surety bonds; nor does he comprehend how they work to protect public construction buyers from serious losses.” said Ness. His comments were made in response to a statement made by Minister McGrath following the ministry’s decision to release Humber Valley Paving from its obligations to complete an unfinished project without making a claim on its performance surety bond. The government instead opted to see to the completion itself and has now retendered the uncompleted portion of the project. In explaining this controversial decision, McGrath stated: "If I had called in the bonds, I would not have got the job done on time and on budget," [sic (comma in original)]
Frank Coleman recorded CBC’s On Point with Peter Cowan on Thursday or Friday afternoon.
During the show, Coleman acknowledged that he had a personal financial interest in a decision by transport minister Nick McGrath to let Humber Valley Paving out of a contract without calling the performances bonds associated with the project. Coleman’s son – connected to the company at the time - negotiated with department officials on behalf of the company.
Auditor General Terry Paddon is currently investigating the contract decision based on a request from Premier Tom Marshall.
Whether McGrath should have called the bonds is another question. But Coleman told CBC that he had personally guaranteed the bonds. As a result, he would have been personally on the hook for the bond despite the fact he had sold his interest in Humber Valley Paving three days before his son contacted the department about the contract.
Whether McGrath would have called the bonds or should have is another matter.
Coleman recorded the show well before it aired. But what happened on Friday evening caught everyone by surprise.
Whatever is going on in the Premier’s Office these days, it isn’t an orderly and organized transition from one premier to another.
That’s certain.
Every transition from one premier to another since 1949 - whether it involved a change of party or not - has happened in a matter of a few days or at most a couple of weeks. Your humble e-scribbler was directly involved in two of them and is familiar with most of the rest.
News on Friday that Tom Marshall had fired all but two of his staff doesn’t look like any transition anyone has ever seen.
For those who missed it, here’s the podcast from the Fisheries Broadcast for May 22, complete with your humble e-scribbler talking about politics and the fishery.
-srbp-
If you want to get a sense of how the New Democratic Party convention actually ran last weekend, take a few minutes and listen to Tony Adey’s interview on CBC’s Corner Brook Morning Show.
Adey attended the convention but announced afterward that he was leaving the party. Adey believes that the convention was stacked and that more New Democrats want to see major changes in the party than the convention vote suggested.
He noted that the chair of the meeting wouldn’t allow debate on the motion about whether or not hold a leadership convention. For all that, they still had to spend 45 minutes answering questions as many of the delegates couldn’t tell if a yes vote would mean the party wouldn’t have a leadership review. Adey also said there was a discrepancy between the number in the room for the vote and the tally of ballots. More people voted, apparently, than were officially in the room.
The most forceful point Adey made in the speech is that Lorraine Michael believes she can be Premier while many people in the party believe that Lorraine has to go so that the party can attract new candidates and move forward.
-srbp-
Is anyone else having trouble trying to figure out what all the fuss is about Cathy Bennett, Nalcor, and conflict of interest?
Seriously.
Here’s the story in a nutshell.
According to New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael, the party convention this past weekend was “a room of people who are saying, 'we're new, we're moving forward.'" [quote via CBC]
Would that merely saying the words made it so.
The reality is that the party isn’t new. They aren’t moving forward either, except in the sense that time moves only in one direction and the province’s New Democrats are willing to watch the clock.
The Conference Board of Canada released a report last week that assessed economic performance in each of the provinces in Canada.
“The resource-driven economies of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador can boast A+ grades for their economic performance,” read the first sentence of the news release accompanying the report, titled How Canada Performs: Economy.
Amazing stuff and more than a few people - most likely provincial Conservatives – stuck their chest out in pride. They should have read the big print in the report. The first sentence is more than a wee bit misleading.
Senator Fabian Manning says that the 2008 Anything but Conservative campaign is stilling hurting the province in dealing with the federal government.
“There's no doubt in my mind that the ABC campaign,” Manning told CBC’s Fisheries Broadcast,” [that] we pay a price for that, and people can shrug it off and say, 'That's just an excuse,' but I've been around this game too long now to not know that without a voice here at the table we are at a major disadvantage." [via CBC]
The disadvantage Manning referred to was the lack of a regional minister in the current cabinet who represents a riding in Newfoundland and Labrador. Some people might be tempted to dismiss Manning’s comments at sour grapes. After all, the ABC campaign cost Manning not only his seat in the House but also his chance for a seat in cabinet.
On that point, though, Manning is right. The regional minister is a key player in Ottawa and the province has undoubtedly suffered to one degree another by not having such an influential voice at the federal cabinet table.
Frecker Drive is a well-designed residential street in the west end of St. John’s. The street is wide: you can park cars on either side and still have space left for two cars to pass abreast easily along its entire length.
This is a residential street. As you might imagine, it has its fair share of cars and trucks as well as the odd bicycle. They’ve been able to live together safely on the street because it is wide and the traffic flow is relatively light.
When the city planners decided to bring bicycle lanes to the City of St. John’s a couple of years ago, they settled on Frecker Drive. They banned parking from one side of the street. And on both sides of the street they marked out two bi-directional bicycle lanes for the full length of the avenue.
In light of the controversy about Humber Valley Paving, here are some of the Conservative promises made in 2003 about contracts and public tendering, controls on political donations, special committees of the legislature, and disclosure of lobbying activities.
Each of them bears on the HVP tendering controversy in one way or another. You humble e-scribbler has highlighted some of the sentences in bold because they contrast so starkly with that the Conservatives did once they got into office.
Note the bit about revising the Public Tender Act. The Conservatives promised it in 2003. They gave notice that they planned to introduce a new public tendering law in the spring 2012 session of the legislature. And then it disappeared. They promised campaign finance reform and did nothing once in office.
Enjoy!
Part of the problem the folks at Nalcor have had in trying to build support for on Muskrat Falls is that they never explain things completely, in plain English.
The result is that they look like they are hiding something .That is, they look like they are not being candid or sincere. They often come across as if they are not telling you the whole story.
Take as a fine example, the war of words that is erupting between Nalcor board chair Ken Marshall on the one hand and David Vardy and Ron Penney on the other. Marshall had a lengthy op-ed piece one Saturday, Vardy and Penney had a rebuttal on April 19 and now Marshall is back again.
