Oram blames Danny for JSS cancellation

When Newfoundland and Labrador becomes the focal point and our shipyard becomes seemingly the best and only shipyard that can be used to do this particular contract, all of a sudden they first talk about going offshore and now they decide to cancel the project.  There is something going wrong somewhere.

"Something wrong with JSS contract, Oram says", Telegram, Tuesday, 25 August 2008

Newfoundland and Labrador business minister Paul Oram is blaming the strained relationship between his boss and the Prime Minister for the federal government's decision to scrap the joint support ship contract.

Premier Danny Williams said much the same thing in a radio talk show Tuesday.

Now of course that isn't what they meant, but, in truth, the very notion that the federal government would deliberately scrap an important contract because Danny and Steve don't get along is ludicrous in itself.  Silly as the thought is, both ministers offered it up to news media with a completely straight face.

In the Telegram story quoted above, Oram related a conversation he claims to have had with federal industry minister Jim Prentice while both ministers attended the Farnborough air show in July.  In the conversation, Prentice reportedly said that the federal government was considering having the hulls built outside Canada and the topsides and other fitting out work done in the country.

That part of the story is likely accurate since it jives with media reports that predate Oram's junket to the world's premiere air show. Oram would have had those reports long before Farnborough if his media clipping service and Our Man in a Blue Line Cab were doing their jobs.

Ottawa Citizen defence columnist David Pugliese reported in late May that both finalist shipyards had advised government they could produce only two of the three required ships for the $2.9 billion budgeted by treasury board for the project.

Pugliese blogged in early August that National Defence was examining a number of alternatives, including building the ships overseas.  That was seen at the time as politically unpalatable given that two shipyards in the country were technically capable of doing the work.

That's where Oram's account of the Prentice exchange and the likely one start to diverge.  While Oram claims the offshore option was considered because yards couldn't do the work, the thread that runs consistently through the story - and the one devoid of the political silliness Oram was trying to flog - is that there was enough money budgeted for either of the Canadian yards to be able to complete the project as tendered.

Big difference.

The joint support ships contract will likely come back and come back quickly since the vessels are needed urgently to replace the worn-out auxiliary oil replenishment vessels currently in service.  One of the consistent criticisms of the project is that the ships were supposed to do too many jobs for one hull.

In addition to providing logistics support for deployed naval forces (food, fuel and ammunition resupply), the JSS was supposed to serve as a transport ship capable of carrying an infantry company plus equipment to an overseas deployment.  At one point, the navy reportedly considered leasing a mothballed American amphibious assault ship for army support role while building conventional stores ships to replace the existing vessels.

There's no question these ships are needed, no matter what the configuration involved. Whatever the reason, the project was dealt a serious blow with the cancellation.  Coupled with the reported financial problems inside the current federal administration, it may not be back on track for some time to come.  In the meantime, the existing hulls will reach the end of the workable life in 2012. 

Something needs to be sorted out and sorted soon.

That will likely need to be done by federal politicians.

This contract may well serve voters as a good test to use when sorting through their federal candidates in the next election. If they are toeing a line - especially the childish ABC one - it might be an idea to leave them on the bench and look for a better alternative.

Unfortunately, the provincial government - through administrations of all stripes - doesn't seem to understand either the importance of defence industries to the provincial economy or what it takes to be effective in dealing with the federal government on defence issues.  Oram's not the first provincial cabinet minister to make asinine comments and sadly he likely won't be the last.

When politicians leap into complex issues they clearly know nothing about - as Oram clearly doesn't - they only serve to bugger up the works at worst or get ignored at best.

The men and women of the Canadian Forces, a great many of them from this province,  can do without that kind of "help".

The men and women of businesses like Marystown can do without it as well.

-srbp-

The cult of personality meets political hegemony

The Telegram is fairly predictable, at least when it comes to chastising other newspapers in the country for editorials that attack the premier of the moment. Undoubtedly one could hunt through the archives and find telly-torials defending Brian Tobin, Brian Peckford or Joe Smallwood with the same vigor used lately to uphold the national honour of Danny Williams.

In the past couple of weeks, the Telly has taken to task both the Globe and Mail and, in today's edition, the National Post.  The mainland papers are criticized for being out of touch or, in the case of the Post, for what the Telly termed "straightforward character assassination."

The Telegram editorials are also fairly predictable - at least on these issues - when it comes to getting it wrong for the most part;  take for example one point the Telly makes, namely the Danny Williams ads last year didn't say "Vote ABC".  This is so small a point as to be insignificant, given that the ads came in the context of Williams' campaign to encourage Canadians to vote for anyone but Conservatives. 

On the only substantive error of fact in the Post editorial, the Telegram is correct. The Post claimed the Nova Scotia deal on Equalization is better than the current Newfoundland and Labrador situation. It isn't.

The Post editorial makes its core point in the last sentence of the first paragraph:  "While his [Williams'] militant schtick has proven wildly popular in Newfoundland --he won re-election on Tuesday with nearly 70% of the total vote -- it will prove toxic to his province in the long run."

There's absolutely nothing new in this at all.  Many people in Newfoundland and Labrador and elsewhere have made the point that ceaselessly attacking the foreign demonios or blaming outsiders for everything is an approach that will ultimately work against both the Premier and the province.

The Post also makes a fairly obvious point, obvious that is to anyone who takes a few minutes to consider what is at the root of the whole Equalization racket between Williams and Stephen Harper, for example.

Williams came to office claiming and he continues to claim that his goal is to make the province economically self-reliant.  In the recent provincial election, Williams and his team members proudly declared that the province will become a "have" one within two years. 

At the same time, Williams major achievement from his first administration was to secure - wait for it - an additional $2.0 billion in federal transfer payments.  His feud with Harper is about - wait for it - continuing federal transfer payments to the provincial government, potentially as he originally sought in 2004 after the province no longer qualifies for Equalization. In other words, after the province becomes "have", which by definition means no longer qualifying for Equalization, Williams has been looking for ways to keep the federal hand-outs flowing.  So obvious is this logical contradiction in Williams' argument that Bond Papers noted it in 2005 in a post titled "The Independence of Dependence."

Ultimately, the shortcoming of both editorials is that they focus on the personality involved rather than on the substance of the policies involved.  This is almost inevitable given that Williams has become the personification of politics in the province.  And if the Telly editorialists missed this other really obvious point, Williams views himself as the embodiment of the province and its people.  As he told Rex Murphy, Williams believes that his party is so popular because he represents in his heart and soul, "the hearts and souls of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians."

The cult of personality has already seriously distorted public debate in the province on any issue of substance.  Given the political hegemony resulting from the recent election, the people of the province will have to see if any genuine alternative points of view arise.

If the Telegram editorial pages are any indication, it is unlikely that local news media will be willing or able to fill a very obvious need.

-srbp-

Pattern behaviour

Faced with the prospect he can't deliver his consistently stated goal of ensuring no Conservatives are elected in Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams shifted the goals of his Family Feud and completely reinvented what it was all about.

He did it a few weeks ago.

He repeated the completely rejigged goal of his ABC campaign and CBC is reporting the shift.

No one should be surprised.

It's part of the pattern.

-srbp-

The New Idiot Box

A few days ago, your humble e-scribbler was wandering through a second-hand book store he used to frequent in Kingston 20-odd years ago.

The city is roughly the size of St. John's but in the 1980s, the difference between the two cities could not have been more stark at least when it came to the number of book stores.  There used to be a half dozen new book stores and almost as many second-hand used book places along Princess Street, in the city's main shopping district downtown.

Today, it's down to an Indigo outlet with its trendiness, a locally-owned new-book store,  and another used store catering to a "higher-end" clientele. Down toward the bottom of the street, between Ben and Jerry's and a health food store, there's this tee shirt, a pair of jeans and comfortable sandals kinda place.

It's getting harder every year to stay open, according to the owner, as he filled out the receipt for a purchase. That comment started a chat about the changing reading habits of Kingstonians. The town is home to Queen's and the Royal Military College, giving the town a distinctly academic flavour.  The downtown shopping district, where all those bookstores used to be is in easy walking distance of the Queen's student ghetto housing and the cadets from RMC.

The politics of strange bedfellows

Bob Ridgley is the Provincial Conservative member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North and part of a family clan that dominates a significant chunk of Conservative vote in the metro St. John's area.

Since his provincial district sits almost entirely within the federal riding of St. John's East where more and more incumbent MHAs (all Provincial Conservatives by the way) seem to be turning out in support of the New Democrat's Jack Harris, it's a fair bet that Bob will be voting Orange in October.

That's hardly surprising given that the Liberal  - Walter Noel - is a former provincial cabinet minister and the Conservative candidate is a guy who has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Premier Danny Williams.  Former journalist Craig Westcott did a game job today of defending Stephen Harper following a speech by the Premier at the Board of Trade,  but it's got to be getting harder and harder for Westcott to keep up a defense of the clearly indefensible.  He said the words but they lacked conviction. It's too bad to see a decent guy like Westcott - the contrarian's contrarian - do this kind of damage to himself.

But that's digression.

CBC News this evening included an interview with some local politicians on the federal campaign.  Energy minister Kathy Dunderdale  - a provincial Conservative - proudly announced she'd be working for the Dipper's Harris.  Not surprising given that she punted Noel to the curb in 2003.

But what of the others, like Ridgley?

While he didn't say so in a Telegram interview on Tuesday, Ridgley made clear a couple of other things. 

First of all, it's pretty obvious he is a Conservative - Provincial and usually federal - right down to being a voter in the merger election that saw Stephen Harper elected. 

Yep.  It is a Family Feud at heart and no one should be naive enough to believe that in a few years time this whole thing won't have snapped back to the usual friendships, relationships and voting patterns.

But here's an even more interesting  turn of phrase in Ridgley's e-mail response to the Telegram reporter:

When Stephen Harper was running to be the leader of the 'new' Conservative Party, I supported Belinda Stronach;  I thought she was as shallow as a saucer but I believed that she was the only one who had a chance of stopping Harper...

Ridgley keeps going, saying next that he was persuaded Harper was alright a little later on.  Ridgley's conversion to the Harper cause survived two federal elections.  Ridgley evidently kept pounding doors or whatever a key local Tory organizer does to get Stephen Harper elected despite the concerns raised about Harper, the evident problems Ridgley had at the time Harper became leader and well, just about anything else that might have given him pause.

Okay?

Well, not really.

You have a guy here who was prepared to get into political bed with someone he believed wasn't qualified for the job  - lacking in intellect is the polite version of what he said - because he believed that candidate was the only way to stop someone else from winning about whom he claims he had serious misgivings at the time.

How serious?  Well serious enough to vote for someone who to him seemed too shallow to be a national party leader.

What's the word for that sort of logic? 

Facile.

Well, yeah. 

But there's a better one.

Shallow? 

Yeah, shallow.

When that first shallow bit of logic didn't work out, Ridgley changed his mind and got into bed with Stephen Harper.

If that's not enough to make you a little uneasy, there's maybe the whole reference to Stronach as being "shallow as a saucer". 

That's gratuitous. 

It's a cheap shot.

It's a pretty low personal attack, along the lines of calling someone a quisling or a traitor or showing a puffin crapping on the leader of a rival party.

If nothing else, it was totally unnecessary in the context of the e-mail on any level and that too says as much about Ridgley's judgment as the other stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Nancy Riche, among others, reacts to having Ridgley knocking doors on behalf of Jack Harris. Does Bob share Jack's views on choice and equal marriage for example?  There's a set of questions to pose to the Blue Crew who are turning Orange suddenly.

Ridgley's backing the ABC thingy  for a very specific reason and when the reason goes away he and the rest of his "progressive" Conservatives will head back home, just as he was prepared to switch from Belinda to Steve when it suited.

Politics can make for some truly strange bedfellows.

-srbp-

And the cliche gets it…

Senator Beth Marshall.

Here’s the view from January 19:

Beth Marshall would be too obvious just because all the spec puts her name up right next to the two Loyolas.  She’s at the point now where her name is on everyone’s list of nominees for everything. Watch out if the Pope drops dead tomorrow.  Local spec will have Beth in the running right behind the two Loyolas;  it’s gotten to be that much of a cliche.

An interesting choice if one that is remarkable for how cliche it really is.

Others have already pointed out that Marshall very publicly declined to join the ABC silliness. That obviously stood her in good stead for this plum.

Others, however, have also over-estimated her lack of connections to the local provincial Conservatives and how this might not help improve relations between the federal Connies and their provincial cousins.  Bear in mind she was handed the plum of over-seeing implementation of the Green report and has been a faithful party player on the House of Assembly management committee.

She’s tight enough with both the federal and provincial crews to serve as a bridge. And it’s not like she hasn’t got experience in changing her tune when it serves her partisan purpose as well.

Don’t be surprised if she goes to cabinet in short order or otherwise gets a neat job to facilitate the rapprochement. The anti-Ottawa hysteria that once was the local Connie stock-in-trade will quickly be a thing of the past.

-srbp-

The Dunderdale Referendum, encore

Pretty well every single conventional media outlet ran a story in the wake of the federal election about how the results might affect Kathy Dunderdale and the provincial Conservatives.

CBC has an online story about a possible “hangover.”  The Telly had a front pager on Wednesday on the same subject. NTV has a bit quoting Tom Marshall who denies there will be any backlash. 

Not surprisingly, the provincial Conservatives all claim things are rosy and wonderful.

But here’s what this is really all about

Kathy Dunderdale and her crowd joined with the argument federally that the provincial Tories have used relentlessly on their own since 2003.  It was all about getting behind the guys in power to get your goodies.  Voters in the province rejected that flatly.

Dunderdale and her team did not produce a single victory other than the squeaker in Labrador.  Everywhere else, their candidates got their asses handed to them. And that guy in Labrador is not one of Kathy’s crew.  He’s got his own mind and his own agenda and it may not match up with Kathy’s. This vote result is a major rebuke for Kathy Dunderdale by voters.

Politically, Kathy herself backed off her position as it became clear voters didn’t buy her endorsement.  She had members of her caucus who didn’t campaign with the rest or who did only the barest of bare minimums. Did Dunderdale herself make any campaign stops other than the one with Harper himself?

Dunderdale’s own statement on the results is exactly three sentences of bland platitudes. There is no reference to the loan guarantee and the Lower Churchill, at all. There is that line again about legitimate aspirations, whatever they are.  Sounds more like a hollow phrase cooked up  by the back-room brain trust rather than something that anyone  - including Dunderdale - actually understands.

Maybe she has finally looked at her own polls that show Muskrat is an issue for a mere three percent of voters.  The biggest issues for people are health care and the economy/job creation.  If she wants to create a connection between Muskrat and jobs, clearly people don’t see it.

But as referenda go, Dunderdale just took a huge political gamble and lost.

Badly.

Whether or not the Prime Minister delivers the loan guarantee actually doesn’t matter.  What matters is that Dunderdale launched a political campaign that, on the face of it, was the counter-part to ABC, and she couldn’t deliver.

That got noticed.

- srbp -

WTF?

There are times you read stuff and you just have to wonder what brought that on.

There’s Telegram editor Russell Wangersky explaining how newspapers are still relevant in the world today. He starts bitching the old bitch about how radio stations in town used to read Telegram stories on the air word-for-word without crediting the folks at the Telly who did the work.

Then he starts in on bloggers for some reason.  Russell tells us the “dirty little secret”, namely that “they depend on us more than anyone else. They couldn’t do without us. They are building their sometimes-flimsy logical constructions on the rock-solid work of front-line reporters. The bloggers aren’t working the phones or holding the digital recorders — as much as private radio used to, and still does, rip and read, online commenters grab and gab.”

Yes, b’y Russell and we all live in our parents’ basement, never get out of our pajamas, and rock and roll music is the spawn of Satan.

The ABC campaign by Fernando

Take a good look at this billboard.

It cost $56,000.

That includes over $38,000 for the board itself, another $16,000 for “planning” and another $1,130 for “services.

The money went to a company called Promoworks, Inc, which as some people have discovered is registered to the owner of Target Marketing.

You may recall Target as the agency of record for provincial government advertising. They also did the triffid logo thingy the provincial government now uses.

Promoworks is an interesting company. You won’t find it online. You won’t find it listed in the telephone book.

The only director of the company is Noel O’Dea, the guy behind Target Marketing. In fact, the mailing address for the company is the street address for Target.  Unlike the corporate registry entry for target, Promoworks has a different mailing address.  It’s a law firm – O’Dea Earle - which, among other things, is home to the Premier’s brother Tommy. 

Now there’s nothing unusual in any of that.

What’s odd is that the bills flowed through Promoworks when, by any reasonable deduction, the work was done by Target. It’s not unusual for an advertising agency to do political work like this, even an agency like Target whose client list includes Air Canada Jazz, McCains, A & P, Irving and other major brands. And it’s not like some simple sleuthing didn’t figure it out.

Yet for some reason the bills went through a legally registered company but one without any public face at all.

Odd.

The campaign bills themselves seem a bit odd too, odd if one considers they were supposed to be advertising for a national campaign.

A single billboard in downtown Toronto cost almost half the total budget for the project, if you consider only the actual line item in the financial statement for the billboard. People who know don’t measure advertising by the amount of media coverage it garnered.  They measure it by the impact it had on consumers and by all informed accounts, this sucker didn’t have any impact on consumers outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even allowing for some media coverage of the billboard, the total impact of that money would be negligible in the total amount of advertising, news work and other communications coming from the political campaigns themselves. It had about as much effect as a pebble tossed in the Atlantic in the middle of a hurricane.

It’s almost like this whole thing was supposed to look good even if it didn’t do anything substantive beyond generate billings, a campaign by Fernando if you will.

There are some niggling details that don’t add up here either.

Like the $244.50 for registering the domain “anythingbutconservative.ca”. It went to internic.ca, incidentally, not something called “intonic.ca”.  Registering the domain doesn’t give you content and there’s no bill for the website design in there anywhere, apparently. None of the amounts or labels match up to that.

Like splitting the contract between two advertising companies when Target/Promoworks could easily have handled the whole thing.

Like figuring out what “advertising services” constitutes that wasn’t captured in the rest of the bill or why a billboard required $16,000 in “planning.” 

Like what the heck is an Inbox Factory, anyways? That one still defies the searchers.

Rest assured though, they are still searching, even if all they turn up are more questions.

-srbp-

Impotence and weakness #nlpoli

If you take John Crosbie’s version at face value,  the Conservative Party rejected his son Ches as a candidate for the party in Avalon because of the intervention of David Wells.

Wells,  the son of retired justice Robert Wells,  is a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador.  He is also an influential Conservative, the sort of fellow who normally goes about his business largely out of the public spotlight.  .

Thanks to Crosbie, Wells is in the public eye.  According to Crosbie, Wells didn’t  “want Ches to be elected as an MP in the district of Avalon or any federal district because he would be too independent-minded and [Wells] wouldn't be in control as he has been now for a couple of years of most of the transactions between Newfoundland and the federal government.”

What the venerable Conservative was doing with that accusation was telling us less about the specific events that led to Ches’ rejection and more about a bigger story behind the scenes in Conservative politics.

PC Party voted $180K for 2008 anti-Harper campaign

The provincial Conservative Party executive committee approved a motion to spend up to $180,000 of party funds on the Anything But Conservative campaign in 2008 according to minutes of an executive committee meeting filed with Elections Canada and released under federal access to information law.

At the start of the September 8, 2008 meeting, party president John Babb “made reference to a Provincial Executive Meeting in November 2006 on issues of confidentiality and asked that we keep all matters discussed at this meeting confidential between members of the Executive.”

The minutes show that party treasurer Jim Oxford  - appointed by the Williams administration to the public utilities board in August 2009 - moved a motion to fund the ABC campaign “to the maximum amount of $180,000.00”.

According to the minutes, Oxford “felt it was incumbent on all of us [on the Executive] to lend the Premier full support in this campaign effort.’

The executive passed that motion unanimously along with another motion to register the provincial party as a third party under the “federal Government Elections Act.”

 

- srbp -

Connie bitch-slapping intensifies

The Family Feud continues unabated.

There must be a federal election coming.

The latest volley is a statement released by federal fish minister Loyola Hearn this afternoon:

It's interesting to hear the Premier say today that he was simply "stepping up to the plate" to fund arts initiatives within the province, and to highlight his own commitment to the arts.

Residents of Mount Pearl may find this message a little bit confusing.  The original proposal for Mount Pearl's Lifestyle Centre included a local theatre.  With federal and municipal money on the table, the Williams government responded that they would not fund the project if the federal government was involved. 

In the end, the Lifestyle Centre became a victim of the ABC campaign, and will proceed without a theatre.

Hearn's a scrappy old silverback politician.  You don't have to agree with his politics to appreciate that he's unlikely to take the sort of pokes Danny Williams has been making without hitting back.  And it's not like Hearn has been afraid to go right up Danny's nose if need be to make a point.

But at this early stage of the campaign, it won't be too long before the Universal Rule is broken and someone's mother gets dragged dragged into the whole fracas.

Oh dear.

Fights in the family are always the ugliest.

How ugly?

Well, there's always this video of a very young, but no less irk-filled Danny Williams telling CBC's Deanne Fleet what a great premier Loyola Hearn would make.

 

-srbp-

Trevor's duck and cover explained

Trevor Taylor, part-time substitute fisheries minister in the Provincial Conservative government has been busily ducking a looming issue in the fisheries world.  In a system already grossly overstocked with processing capacity, Taylor's department has a recommendation under consideration to add a few more licenses.

The local CBC fisheries broadcast has been trying desperately to get Taylor on the air.

He's been unavailable.

Apparently, Trevor's been too busy campaigning against Fabian Manning, not in his free time or anything mind you but during the day time  - normal government working hours - when one might expect he could have found a few hours to devote to his custodial responsibilities in the fish department.

Seems Trevor has been joined on the hustings by attorney general Jerome Kennedy and intergovernmental affairs genius Tom Hedderson. 

You will recall Hedderson as the guy writing letters to Ottawa last June lobbying on a decision that was made...18 months earlier.

Trevor sees no problem with this carrying on partisan family fights during daylight hours.

Trevor also decided on Monday to issue a news release criticizing the federal government for a deal giving 1500 tonnes of yellowtail flounder from Canada's NAFO allocation to the Americans.

But sure Trevor and the boys are supporting the ABC campaign, you say.

Yes, sez your humble e-scribbler, but don't forget the real motivation for all these cabinet ministers to join in the Family Feud.

There's a big cabinet shuffle coming very shortly.  Being seen out there hammering away at The Boss' favourite cause is much better for the old career path than spending time doing other things, like say the job you get paid to do.

Oh.  That's right. 

Trevor did find time in his hectic hectoring schedule to call the Fisheries Broadcast and do an interview.

But that was after one of his predecessors outed him on the Family Feud thing.

-srbp-

Kremlinology 10: Ah to be a Tory in Gander in October, when the dogs are fit to wag

When the political going gets tough, what better way to handle it than to launch a phoney jihad against a completely imaginary enemy over a completely imaginary dispute:

The Premier is gearing up for another fight on the national stage. Danny Williams says Hydro Quebec continues to try and block this province from developing the Lower Churchill, now refusing to sign onto a water management agreement for the Churchill River in Labrador.

For starters, Danny Williams is only pissed at Hydro-Quebec because they aren’t willing to take the ownership of the Lower Churchill he offered then. It’s not that they are so interested in the LC and Danny that they are blocking him, it’s really bothering him that Hydro-Quebec just isn’t interested at all.

And that’s after five years of desperately trying:

[Natural resources minister Kathy] Dunderdale told VOCM Open Line show host Randy Simms on Friday morning that over the past five years, the Williams administration “got a path beaten to their [Hydro Quebec’s] door” in an attempt to have HQ become what Dunderdale described as an “equity partner” in the Lower Churchill.

Dunderdale described the Lower Churchill “piece” as a “win-win” for Hydro Quebec. She said that despite efforts by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador there was “no take up [from Hydro Quebec] on the proposal.”

But the biggest thing you have to consider on this water rights agreement thingy is that if the two parties – NALCO and Churchill Falls-Labrador Company – can’t reach and agreement on their own, the whole thing will be settled legally and finally by the public utilities board.

No big public, hair-mussing fuss required.

Danny Williams knows this because that’s what he amended the law to say in preparation for just such an event.

Well, okay first the provincial government tried to screw with the contract – as someone else tried in the 1980 water rights case - but they got caught red-handed in that little bit of tomfoolery.

While Williams and his ministers tried to downplay it at the time, they were caught so far in the wrong they even had to call an extremely rare emergency session of the legislature to deal with the mess created by someone’s childish legalistic game.

Anyway, that’s another story.

CFLCO not interested in the deal on water rights Williams wants?

Well that’s no problemo.

The whole thing just falls along according to amendments made to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2007 by none other than Danny Williams’ own administration.

The public utilities board – headed by Williams’ new buddy Andy Wells – just imposes a deal on the two sides:

5.5 (1) Where 2 or more persons to whom subsection 5.4(1) applies fail to enter into an agreement within a reasonable time, one or more of them may apply to the public utilities board to establish the terms of an agreement between them.

(2) Where an application is made to the public utilities board under subsection (1), the board shall establish the terms of an agreement for the purpose of achieving the policy objective set out in subparagraph 3(b)(i).

(3) An agreement established by the public utilities board under subsection (2) is binding on the persons named in the agreement.

Poof.

Job done.

Pas de sweat.

And lookit, the company involved here isn’t Hydro-Quebec, it’s the Churchill Falls-Labrador Corporation. That’s the company in which the provincial government’s energy company – NALCOR - owns a 65% stake.

And if you are still not convinced this is all yet another case of Tory dog-wagging, just consider that this evil foreign demonio Hydro-Quebec hates Williams so much and is working so hard to block the Lower Churchill they were will to sign a deal allowing energy from Labrador wheel across their province.

Wheel power and they make millions off the wheeling charges. Gee, that’s really putting obstacles in the way of the Lower Churchill. Yep, what better way to block the Glorious Lower Churchill project than demonstrating that Danny Williams can wheel power through Quebec to some other market than Quebec without any obstacles.

So what is all Danny Williams’ puffed chest really about?

Not even Ed Martin - the head of the provincial government’s energy company - seems to know.

But if one Ed doesn’t, maybe your humble e-scribbler can offer some easy suggestions on what issues are causing the provincial Conservatives to go hunting for a distraction:

- The by-election in the Straits is really not going well at all for the Tories. Then there’s Terra Nova to fight where the Tories haven’t even got a candidate yet and the Liberals wound up having two to pick from. Eight cabinet ministers in one day and four trips by the premier Hisself don’t seem to be working on the voters, at least not the way it is supposed to work.

Very frustrating when the old tricks don’t work any more.

- It’s really, really, really painful to make one decision and then be forced to make another. Think Danny Williams and the whole lab and x-ray thing. Jerome Kennedy confessed just this past week to what some of us have known all along: the decision to chop service was made by the entire cabinet.

That’s why they all stuck so hard to the line about “improvements.

That’s why they resisted changing their minds right up until the point they had no choice.

That’s why they tried desperately for weeks to try and blame someone else for the shag up rather than the people who actually shagged up.

It really bruises the ego to lose.

- And that’s on top of a string of “losses” including the Gros Morne one. Again, as much as they tried to downplay it, the whole emergency session of the legislature must have deeply embarrassed cabinet.

- There’s also the ongoing embarrassment of Paul Oram coupled with his decision to up and run when the going got tough. A cabinet minister resigns hot on the heels of another, thereby creating a mini-crisis in the government? Not a way to make the leader feel cheery. Paul Oram took himself off a raft of Tory Christmas card lists with his poorly executed exit.

- Unflattering comparisons to Roger Grimes? Lighten up a bit, people. It’s a joke.

- Let’s not forget the admission that the provincial Conservatives haven’t been doing such a fine old job of managing the public purse as they’d claimed. The word Oram used was “unsustainable.” Finance minister Tom Marshall said much the same thing.

- Then there’s the revelation that the government’s satisfaction rate ain’t what it was purported to be by the government’s own pollster. Between the opposition and local media, three recent CRA polls – never released publicly before – show that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador told CRA one thing but CRA told the public something else. The truth is sometimes painful but it does come out.

- Then there is the ongoing frustration of the Lower Churchill. As a story in the Telegram noted [not available online], NALCO has to go back and answer a whole bunch of questions for the environmental review on the Lower Churchill and that is now behind schedule. That’s on top of the lack of partners (see above), lack of markets - think Rhode Island - and the huge embarrassment to the government of being forced to abandon their original plan of slinging power lines through a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On the whole it has been a very rough patch for the ruling Conservatives, at least from their perspective over the last six weeks and a bit more.

And what better place for provincial Conservatives to engage in some traditional Tory dog-wagging than the annual convention in Gander.

After all, that’s where ABC was born, at a time – as the House spending scandal broke in 2006, among other things – when things didn’t look all that rosy for provincial Tories in the short term.

Come to think of it, Loyola Sullivan packed it in not long after that, as did Paul Shelley and a few others.

Hmmm.

-srbp-

ABC Comedy Central: The Skinner File

From the annals of the Anything But Conservative Campaign there’s this little bit of independence displayed by current natural resources minister Shawn Skinner back in 2008.

Danny bitch-slapped him into submission PDQ for this one:

Not for me, it isn't. My boss can vote for who he wishes. He can mark his 'X' where he wishes to mark it. From my perspective, I have a job to do. I'm elected by the people of St. John's Centre. I'm in cabinet representing the people of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and I have a job to do. And I'm going to do that to the best of my ability.

If and when there is a federal election, we all as individual citizens can make up our own minds what we want to do. I'm here today as a provincial minister and I'm carrying out my duties as a provincial minister.

- srbp -

The ABC campaign we can all support

anythingbutconservative.com.

-srbp-

The uncivil Civil War #nlpoli

At the heart of the ongoing civil war between Danny Williams’ provincial Conservatives and Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives is the claim by Williams that Harper broke his 2006 election promise on Equalization.

Williams wrote to each of the federal party leaders and asked the leaders to state their party’s position on Equalization.

De-spinning the New Family Feud newser

Q:  When did Premier Danny Williams announce that Newfoundland and Labrador was a have province and  - by definition – wouldn’t be receiving Equalization any more?

03 November 2008.  Bond Papers de-spun the scrum two days later.

Q: When did the provincial government decide to opt for the O’Brien formula and start receiving Equalization again?

Well, that isn’t clear, but on November 3 the Premier told reporters that the provincial government was looking hard at it.  He said a decision didn’t have to be made until March 2009.  The Premier confirmed in his Tuesday night scrum that the province had already decided to opt to start receiving Equalization again this fiscal year, something that hadn’t been reported publicly thus far.

Q:  When did the provincial government learn that the feds were planning to cap growth in the Equalization program to keep the costs under control?

03 November 2008, if not earlier:

In today's meeting, Flaherty will reveal the Conservatives' plan to place a limit on what Ottawa sends to poorer provinces under one of its key revenue-sharing measures, the $13.6 billion equalization program.

Q:  Which provinces are affected by the cap?

Any that receive Equalization.  Ontario will be capped just the same as all the rest, including Newfoundland and Labrador, if Newfoundland and Labrador opts to start receiving Equalization again. That’s the money the Premier mentioned in his scrum. Quebec will reportedly lose approximately the same amount.

Q.  What does the Equalization formula now provide as reported by VOCM legislative reporter Cheryl Gullage?

100% exclusion of non-renewable resources from Equalization calculations.

Q.  What was the ABC campaign – better known as the Family Feud  - all about?

The federal Conservatives promised to exclude 100% of non-renewable resource revenues from Equalization calculations but they didn’t put that in place initially.  Williams went on the war path over the issue promising to work for Stephen Harper’s defeat.

Q.  How big will the provincial government’s deficit be next year?

Even before now, it was pretty clear the provincial government would be short upwards of $1.5 billion in cash based on reduced commodity prices if spending remained where it was in 2008. A cash surplus this year  - of maybe 500 to 700 million - may have helped defray that somewhat but a deficit of $500 million on a cash basis – the largest in the province’s history – was a likely figure given some spending cuts and some borrowing.

Q.  So what’s the fuss?

The Pattern of blaming someone else. It’s a stock provincial government approach.

In this case, the provincial government is in a financial bind largely due to its overspending of the past two or three years based on unreliable income.  They were warned repeatedly by the province’s auditor general. The government made spending commitments – including 20% wage increases for public sector workers  - that it may not be able to afford.

Spending cuts will have to come to keep the deficit from ballooning to unmanageable proportions.

Far better politically to blame that on someone else for provincial government problems. The facts of the situation likely won’t matter since they likely won’t be reported in the conventional media, at least if the past is any guide.

Beyond that, five years of conditioning the public might pay off.  Some initial comments – like from provincial labour leader Lana  Payne – would suggest that some knees are already jerking across the province even before the full story showed up anywhere.

Speedy Gonzales Update:  The Premier turned up on CTV apparently to make sure everyone got the story the Feud was back on:

Williams made the comments on CTV Newsnet Tuesday evening. He says the federal budget will cost his province $1.5 billion in equalization over three years because of changes in the formula used to make the payments.

"In an economy the size of Newfoundland and Labrador, at a time when they are spending a lot of money on stimulus, it seems like an attempt to basically cripple this province," Williams said. "In a time of economic downturn, I'm at a loss at why (Harper) would do it.

Words matter.

The economy of Newfoundland and Labrador is running at something on the order of $25 billion annually.  The $1.5 billion noted here – over three years – is a drop in the bucket compared to the $75 billion the provincial economy would produce in the same time frame.

A change to Equalization doesn’t cut anything from the economy per se;  it just affects provincial government spending. 

And a half billion dollars is a lot of money to a government staring at a record deficit even assuming they had somehow completely forgotten they were told about the cap last November.

Yep.

The Pattern repeats.

The Morning After Update:  Just how confusing could the Premier’s middle-of-the-night rant be?  Read CBC’s version which is short on details but long on the nasty, vindictive – and inexplicably angry  - language the Premier apparently used.

The iPod People update:  Listen to the really short clip on the CBC website. It includes the Premier’s comment that the Equalization changes will affect Newfoundland and Labrador.  Apparently, they’ll have a “pretty crippling effect in the sense we’ll survive it.”

“Pretty crippling effect in the sense we’ll survive it.”

That’s exactly what he said.

Go figure.

 

-srbp-

Steve and Danny meeting: more stuff

Well, you read it here already, but the rest of the world has picked up the harper and Danny Williams meeting story.

The Premier issued a short statement today confirming the meeting, although it will happen friday and not on Saturday as Bond heard it originally. "Premier Williams said his office confirmed the meeting two days ago," according to the statement.

Hmmm. No wonder the premier they were so testy about Brian Peckford's comments and had his plants suggesing some collusion between Peckford and the Prime Minister's Office. The 8th Floor blackberry drums knew about the Harper meeting before the rest of us did and likely assumed - in a paranoid way - that the two unlinked things were linked.

The Globe notes that provincial Tories have been trying to find ways to mend fences already, something that likely was at the heart of Shawn Skinner's recent comments. That is, before Danny yanked Skinner's chain and made the guy "apologize" and then publicly declare his commitment to the ABC nonsense.

-srbp-

$794 million deficit: the ABCs of provincial government budgeting

If crude oil averages US$87 per barrel through the current fiscal year (ending 31 March 2009) and the government performs exactly as budgeted in every other respect too, the provincial government will wind up with a deficit of more than $794 million this year.

That's right.

Almost eight hundred million dollars in the hole.

It's not a state secret.

Your humble e-scribbler did not have to go through any contortions - mental or otherwise - to figure it out.

The figures are there, in black and white, in the provincial government's current budget.  Hidden in plain sight, you might say.

But no, some of you are saying, the provincial government is forecasting a surplus of a half a billion dollars. The media reported it in April and they've kept saying it so it must be true.

Yes, the did and they have.

But that isn't the official budget of the provincial government approved in the House of Assembly any more than all the talk by politicians about surpluses the past few years was accurate either.

That forecast was done separately by the department of finance and repeated by the finance minister countless times.  It is based - evidently - on the hope that oil would actually spend most of the year well north of US$87. They were hoping on oil revenues being almost double the $1.7 billion used to make up the budget. An extra $1.3 billion would wipe out the forecast deficit and leave another $500 million or so besides.

The recent drop in oil prices below US$100 could throw that hope out the window, coming as it does a little less than half way through the fiscal year.  Oil would have to drop quite a bit further than its current price in the mid nineties to wipe the anticipated surplus out entirely, but don't count on there being too much cash left in the till next April.

There are a couple of reasons for that beyond the drop in revenues compared to the Atlantic City dice roll projections. 

For starters, if revenues are already up by about $800 million or so, government might be able to bring in something close to a balanced budget. Any less than that and something's gotta give to stay in the black.

The other thing is that - contrary to the popular view - government hasn't actually produced a real surplus in three years.  Again, eyes are rolling, but all you have to do to see the truth is look at the government's annual financial statements.

Last year, for example, the government spent every nickel it originally budgeted, every penny of the $1.5 billion surplus and on top of that had to borrow another $88 million just to make ends meet.

Just to make it really plain, that table above is  taken from a Bond Papers post last June that lays the whole thing out in a picture.

This administration, like pretty well all the ones before, likes to spend public cash.  If there isn't enough coming in, hitting up the banks is just as good as money earned in other ways.

As the Auditor General pointed out in his report earlier this year, the provincial government has consistently boosted public spending based on the mountains of oil cash flowing.

They've  built the province's spending on some pretty shaky ground, namely highly volatile commodity prices.

At the same time, very little attention has been paid to paying down the large amount of debt - the accumulated deficits - that now runs upwards of $8.5 billion and is expected to climb higher this year.

That's the table at right, with the figures taken from the finance department's budget document, The Estimates.

For those of you whose mind has not just boggled into the "off" position, this has some pretty significant implications for what is going on in the province.

The province's finance minister told reporters today that salary expectations from groups like the nurses are based on high oil prices.

No, they aren't. 

High public expectations for new spending and public sector union salary demands are based on the government hype about its own financial plans and its own cash flows.  The people of the province believed all the stuff about surpluses and happy days finally being here. They believed because that is what they were told by politicians.

People have even been lulled into believing that the Hebron project - all $28 supposed billion of it  - is coming right along any day now. 

The reality is starkly different.

Oil revenues will decline over the next decade because of dwindling production and prices that are returning to something approaching the norm.  The three existing fields will be well on the way to shutting down by the time Hebron gets into production.

Rather than adding to current cash flows - as most people likely believe - Hebron will simply take up some of the slack from that dwindling production.  If construction starts on Hebron in 2012, the cash from its oil won't hit provincial coffers until about a decade from now.

The reality is that the next decade is going to be considerably more difficult than people imagined;  difficult that is for the provincial government.  They have made a rod to beat their own backs by creating a climate of expectations that simply can't be met with likely revenues.  At the same time - through the energy corporation and the equity stakes - they've committed to a steady stream of new government borrowing over and above what it may cost to sustain the existing spending levels after the oil money drops off.

There's nothing overly complicated about the whole business.  The information is readily available to anyone who cares to look.

Understanding what is going on today and what looks very likely to happen?

Well, that's as easy as A-B-C.

-srbp-