Oil and polls #nlpoli

Two things for Tuesday after a monster snow storm.

Oil:  Brent crude hit a low of $52.50 before rebounding to finish Monday at just below US$55 a barrel.  Newfoundland light, sweet crude trades at Brent prices.

West Texas Intermediate was even lower.  It settled at $43.88 with global production staying high and analysts fearing a glut.

Thus is a reminder of the folly of Conservative policy that ignored historic trends and did nothing to hedge against a rainy day. The people who made the stupid decisions and the people who gave them the crappy advice should be dragged through a public inquiry and account in public for their decisions and advice.

Felix the Half A-G #nlpoli

If politicians are good at one thing, they are usually good at telling a story that serves their purpose even if it isn’t, strictly speaking, actually what happened.

Last week’s cabinet shuffle is a fine example of that. The story started on the day of the shuffle.  The story appears, in its entirety, in a great column by CBC’s David Cochrane.  He’s accurately repeated the story as Conservative politicians and staffers conveyed it to him. 

No one should doubt Cochrane got the story they told him absolutely correctly.

The thing is, the story Cochrane heard from the politicians isn’t what happened.

Here’s how you can tell.

Constable Contempt #nlpoli

Paul Davis fired Judy Manning from cabinet on Wednesday.

He didn’t meet with her in person.

Davis called her on the phone.

Short of sending her an e-mail or a text message,  Davis couldn’t have shown less class, tact, or respect for the job he holds and for Manning herself than in the miserable way Davis he fired her.

To make matters worse, Davis couldn’t even come up with a good reason for dumping Manning.  Take a look at three minutes from the post-shuffle scrum that CBC posted to its website.

David Cochrane asked a simple question.  Davis wandered all over the place and never gave a plain answer.  Even at the end of Davis’ answer to the second question, we aren’t really any further ahead in understand why Davis threw Manning under the bus and then backed over the body a few times for good measure

The Salvation of Bell Island and Other Fairy Stories #nlpoli

The Conservatives rode to power in 2003  by accusing the Liberals of not being able to manage anything.  Ferries played a big part of their narrative of supposed incompetence.

Just to prove that Karma is Payback’s other name,  the Conservatives have proven themselves to be considerably worse at managing the province’s ferry system than the Liberals ever were in the Connies worst lies.

The Conservatives currently running the place have proven themselves to be worse than previous administrations – Liberal or Progressive Conservative - at managing a great many things, as it turned out, but that’s another story.  Let’s stick with the ferries.

The Other Other March Madness #nlpoli

Premier Paul Davis mentioned the prospect of privatizing some public services last week.

This week,  the Liberals started running ads declaring they were opposed to privatising any part of health.

This week, NAPE started an ad campaign that predicted any form of privatization of public services would result in the end of life on the planet and possibly on adjacent planets in the galaxy.

This week,  whatever political staffer it is they have looking pretending to be Paul Davis on Twitter assured us all the future is bright, the fundamentals are strong, and that this financial problem is just a temporary hiccup for which the Conservatives will have a plan.

We’ve heard that before every year for the past three or four years.  It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.

But that’s not you should pay attention to.

Gimme that Old-Time Religion #nlpoli

Kim Keating is the president of the St. John’s Board of Trade this year.

In her Telegram column on Saturday, Keating offered some advice to the provincial government about the upcoming budget and taxes.  “As the voice of business, the St. John’s Board of Trade does not support tax increases.”

Funny that.

A couple of years ago, the Board of Trade enthusiastically supported a new tax called Muskrat Falls. The whole scheme is premised on raising electricity rates in the province to pay for the deal and to generate sizeable profits for the companies involved.  The profit for Nalcor is supposed to go to the provincial government to help pay for government services.

So maybe what Kim said wasn’t entirely inside the Ring of Veracity.  The Board of Trade likes some taxes. Like say ones where its members can make crap-loads of money from government procurement.

Gimme that Old-Time Reaction #nlpoli

The only news to come out of the New Democratic Party convention this past weekend is that the party now has not one but two leaders.

Earle won’t be looking for a seat in the House before the next election.  As a result, Lorraine Michael remains the leader of the party in the House of Assembly while Earle is now the leader of the party everywhere else.

It’s the worst possible position for the party, even if it fits precisely with the shrewd game Lorraine’s been playing over the past few months.  She successfully called the bluff of other pretenders to the throne in January. Now she gets to share the leadership with Earle.

Federal Presents, the 2015 edition #nlpoli

November 2005.

The Harris Centre at Memorial University issued a report on the number of federal public servants working in Newfoundland and Labrador.

With a Liberal administration in Ottawa and with a provincial Conservative government that enjoyed shooting at foreign enemies,  the whole argument about federal presence was a big deal.

The Offshore Ownership Fight Examined #nlpoli

Last year was the 30th anniversary of one of the most significant events not only in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador but of Canada as a whole.

The agreement between the federal and provincial governments known as the Atlantic Accord resolved a dispute over the control of oil and gas resources offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ray Blake is a historian at the University of Regina with a research interest in federal-provincial relations.  His latest article is “Politics and the Federal Principle in Canada: Newfoundland Offshore Oil Development and the Quest for Political Stability and Economic Justice.” (Canadian Historical Review, volume 96, number 1, March 2015)

Here are some extracts from the last two paragraphs:

Federalism and the Constitution were not established as simple instruments of coercion to impose a final victory between the two orders of government. They were designed to manage and mediate, not eliminate, conflict, but in the offshore dispute no compromise was achieved between successive Newfoundland premiers and the
federal government.

…

The Atlantic Accord represented a new approach to federalism and regional development. Peckford’s federalist dreams had come in a bilateral political agreement, not a constitutional one, and it applied
only to oil and gas, not to fisheries or electricity. … Peckford succeeded in reducing the power and influence of the national bureaucracy in one sector of the Newfoundland and Labrador economy.

Blake has written a concise account of the dispute and the resolution.  He has also captured the importance of the final agreement.  As recent as this history is,  too many people seem unaware of it.  Blake’s article will help change that.

This article is based on research for Blake’s book - Lions or Jellyfish?  Newfoundland-Ottawa Relations since 1957 – due later this year. 

-srbp-

The Abacus Insight #nlpoli

[Updated:  1715 hrs]

By lunch time today, you’ll have Corporate Research Associate’s latest quarterly omnibus poll.  Odds are the overall numbers on party choice for provincial politics will be in line with all the other polls we’ve seen over the last while.

What sets Abacus Data’s poll released on Tuesday is that Abacus asked a bunch of questions that give much greater insight into local public opinion than what you’ve seen from the other opinion research firms.

Before we get to that stuff, let’s look at the party choice numbers.

Class Conflict #nlpoli

The former Premier.

The premier wannabe.

-srbp-

Obesity in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

A study published in 2014 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal projected that 71 percent of people in Newfoundland and Labrador would be overweight or obese by 2019.

Think about and then reconsider comments by a Norwegian writer working for the New York Times.

-srbp-

The Elephant in the Room, the Astigmatic Seer, and other horrifying budget tales #nlpoli

Has anyone noticed a small problem in all the discussions about next year’s budget?

On Point’s David Cochrane had both NAPE’s Carol Furlong and the Conservative’s pet economist Wade Locke on the show to talk about the next budget.  Carol was warning against cuts.  Locke was talking about a request by Tom Marshall last year to reform the provincial income tax system. Locke and his students – are busily working them up, in close co-operation with the provincial finance department.

Can you see the elephant in the room?

Language Problems #nlpoli

“Increasing taxes is not about solving the deficit, it’s about maintaining our programs and services that we have.”

That’s what Labrador and aboriginal affairs minister Keith Russell told the handful of people who showed up for the government’s pre-budget consultation in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

The Conservatives are perturbed that the turnout for these sessions has been small.  Part of the problem was the tight timeline:  they only announced the dates last week and started the first session on Monday.  Another part of the problem is that everyone knows that the things are a farce. They aren’t interested in wasting their time.

People should turn out to these things, though, if only for the entertainment they offer,  not to mention the practicality of it.

Nova Scotia won’t get Muskrat Falls electricity #nlpoli

As part of its deal with Nalcor,  Emera will get its electricity from Bay d’Espoir, not Muskrat Falls. 

The Business Post’s March 2015 edition reported that confirmation of the arrangement came from Emera Newfoundland and Labrador chief executive Rick Janega following a speech to the St. John’s Board of Trade on February 23. Janega took the view, though, that the company will get power from whatever source of generation was operating at the time.

As the Business Post reported, the “deal between Nalcor and Emera is not specifically to supply Nova Scotia with Muskrat Falls power, but
rather to supply the equivalent of 20 per cent of Muskrat’s generating capacity from any source.”

Bond Raters and other things to wonders about #nlpoli

Cast your mind back a couple of years and you will probably remember finance minister Jerome Kennedy told us a couple of things.

One was that he expected the government would run deficits for three years, totalling about $1.6 billion.

The other was that surplus would follow after that.

Well, here we are three years later and the latest finance minister – we’ve had four in three years – is now saying we can expect to see another  five years of deficits before maybe, possibly, getting the budget into surplus in Year Six ALE. 

That’s ALE as in “after the latest estimate.”

The Unsustainability Problem #nlpoli

The annual budget consultation farce started on Monday with a couple of sessions.

This year the provincial government has turned out a budget simulator that is supposed “to illustrate the tough budget choices” the provincial government is facing and “to promote a public dialogue on how we can set a sustainable fiscal course.”

The simulation can’t really do either of those things.  The information is relatively recent but the options to adjust income and spending don;t cover the full range of policy choices the government can make.  The ones it does offer are artificially limited to presented increases or decreases.  That’s a programming choice as much as anything else, but the reason for the artificial limitations is not important.  The fact is that the choices are deliberately limited.

The result is that people can’t really see what sorts of choices the provincial government might make to set a “sustainable fiscal course.” In that sense, the current “consultation” is as artificial as all the other ones the provincial government has run over the past decade or so.   People aren’t stupid.  They can handle the truth.

The politicians and bureaucrats can’t.

The theory of everything #nlpoli

People are talking about the budget.

People are talking about Bill 42, the politicians’ decision to cut public representation in the House.

People are talking about the recent polls.

People are talking about the next election.

People have predictions about how this one or that one will play out.

But they are not looking at everything.

They are not looking at the whole board.

And you gotta look at the whole board, Sam.

A cunning plan it ain’t #nlpoli

The whole “Paul-Davis-Decisive-Leader” thing doesn’t seem to be working for the provincial Conservatives.

The latest NTV/MQO poll puts the Liberals at 42, the Conservatives at 20 and the NDP at seven,  with 30% undecided.

In October 2014,  it was Liberals 37,  Conservatives 16,  NDP six, and undecided at 40.

In October 2013,  the Liberals were at 35, the Conservatives at 20, the NDP at 12, and the undecided at 32.

You can see the trend there of Liberal growth – up seven points -  while the Conservatives hover around 20.  The undecided is down.  Most of them won’t vote anyway.  And the New Democrats have dropped from 12 to seven.

Stragedy and Polls: Chop House version #nlpoli

Public opinion polls are a really useful thing in politics.

The Liberals did a poll the weekend before the Liberals and Conservatives voted to slash public representation in the legislature.  They bought into the scheme in largest part because it looked hugely popular.

The problem with the poll results is that they didn’t tell the Liberals anything useful. You can see the same fundamental problem in the poll commissioned by NTV from MQO.