The real political division in society is between authoritarians and libertarians.
06 January 2020
Patronage and pork #nlpoli
28 August 2017
The Quebec Demon #nlpoli #cdnpoli
The fancy word for it is revanchism.
People who study words and language call it a borrowed word, meaning that we use it in English but got it from the French word. In this case, it is the French word for revenge.
People familiar with history are most likely to associate the word revanchism with the struggle between France and Germany that lasted from 1870 until 1945. The Prussians defeated the French in 1870 and took two territories – Alsace and Lorraine – that many in France wanted back.
Desire for revenge for regain of the lost territories was an important aspect of French policy against Germany at Versailles in 1919. The tension between the two countries lasted until, after another world war, Germany was simply destroyed as a single country and France got the territories back.
25 August 2016
Same circus #nlpoli
There is oil and natural gas in the ground under water off our coast.
Never mind that this has been widely reported since the 1960s when someone first started exploring seriously out there. Never mind, either, that we have had oil fields producing oil and filling the provincial government's bank account with billions of dollars since the late 1990s.
Some people might have missed that we have oil and has. And we have a lot more than anyone is currently producing.
It is out of concern for these couple of folks living in a cave possibly in the Annieopsquotch Mountains that the provincial government has held a news conference to announce the latest estimates of how much more oil might, possibly, theoretically be out there.
Well, either that or it is polling month and the politicians are in deep political trouble this year, like their predecessors were last October when they held a news conference to announce last year's estimates of theoretical future gloriosity lurking somewhere underground. Maybe.
05 August 2016
Fernando 2: Liberals start Tory-style poll goosing #nlpoli
On Tuesday, Ed Joyce told the people of Holyrood, Isles aux Morts, and Jackson's Arm that they would each be getting new fire trucks.
No, Ed didn't deliver a new fire truck to each community. He held a news conference to announce that the three communities fire trucks were on order.
Hmmm.
Why would anyone hold a big announcement to say that government had put money aside for a new fire truck for three towns?
Go back and read that first sentence again.
Yes folks. The Liberals - tanking in the polls - are going to try and goose that CRA poll with some happy news.
02 July 2015
John Crosbie and the Last Crusade #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Every story told thus far about Ches Crosbie and the riding in Avalon has the unmistakeable odour of bullshit about it.
The latest twist, namely that Senator David Wells was scuttling a potential rival as The Biggest Conservative in Newfoundland and Labrador, is a bit more in the realm of plausible but it still doesn’t quite ring true.
Jihad against people who dissed Harper?
08 June 2015
Small ball, election dates, and other minutae #nlpoli
Later today, Premier Paul Davis will introduce a bill in the House of Assembly that, among other things, sets the next provincial general election for the last week of November. The most likely day for voting is November 24, with the official campaign starting 21 days before that.
There’s no surprise in this. The Conservatives have been talking about November as an option since January when they introduced the plan to cut public representation in the legislature. Reporters asked Liberal leader Dwight Ball at the time if he thought the election should be delayed to November to avoid a clash with the federal election set for October 19. Ball said he didn’t have a problem with the delay.
For the past couple of weeks, Ball has been insisting that the Conservatives need to have the election done by the end of September. That’s the anniversary of Paul Davis’ election as Conservative leader. It’s also the third different position, incidentally, that Ball has taken within the past six months on the timing of the next election. At the end of last year, Ball told the CBC he thought people should go to the polls in February in order to let a new government deal with the provincial government’s financial problems. A couple of weeks later, Ball had no problem with a November. Now, he wants it all done by the end of September.
20 May 2015
Brain Farts #nlpoli
They come from brain farts.
You can hear that pretty clearly in the most recent episode of On Point. The political panel talked about a couple of cock-ups by the Conservatives last week.
In among the few nose-pullers the panel tossed out, the basic elements of the story were there.
13 March 2015
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
20 November 2014
The Federal Boogeyman #nlpoli
Specifically, Liberal leader Dwight Ball asked Davis for the second day in a row about a joint federal-provincial fund under the deal that would see the federal government spend $280 million and the provincial government drop in $120 million on something to do with fisheries. We say “something to do with fisheries” because there really hasn’t been much substance to go with the announcement in the year since the provincial government announced the thing.
Tuesday’s questions led to Davis admitting there was some kind of unspecified problem with the talks. As the Telegram reported, Davis told reporters outside the House that he “wouldn’t say [the funding deal was] falling apart, but having not been able to reach a finalized agreement yet is troubling.”
30 September 2014
Errors in judgement #nlpoli
March 13, 2014 was a Thursday.
Normal cabinet day.
According to Auditor General Terry Paddon’s report on the Humber Valley Paving contract, Nick McGrath, then minister of works and transportation called his deputy minister at 8:45 AM and asked him whether he’d heard that HVP wanted to get out of their Labrador paving contract. (p.39) He hadn’t.
There’s no indication of how McGrath became aware of HVP’s problems. According to Paddon’s report, McGrath told him that he “may have” heard about HVP from colleagues. (p.54) It’s all pretty vague.
The deputy called Gene Coleman at 9:15 AM, according to Paddon. Coleman, son of the erstwhile Conservative leadership candidate McGrath claims he had not heard of, confirmed the company “would not be going back to Labrador” (p. 54) in 2014, at least not without compensation. Coleman indicated that without compensation, HVP would want a mutually-agreed termination of the contract with the government. (p.39)
The Fairity Intervention
At 9:30 AM, the deputy got a call from Kevin O’Brien. He was calling about the HVP contract, too, even though O;Brien had no reason to be involved. (p. 39) Asked by Paddon later how he became aware of the issue, O’Brien - who was also an organizer for Frank Coleman’s leadership campaign - said that he had heard “colleagues” talking, wanted to speak with the deputy about other issues but raised the HVP issue because of the potential connection to forest fires in Labrador. (p. 54) O’Brien was minister of fire and emergency services
29 September 2014
All our yesterdays #nlpoli
They picked Bill Clinton’s 1992 election theme music for Davis to use as his walk-in music during the convention. Let’s leave aside the eventual Bill Clinton of stains on little blue dresses and just look at the 1992 presidential election for a second.
Clinton was the Democratic Party insurgent tackling the other half of one of the more popular Republican presidents in a generation. Ronald Reagan had run two successful majorities and passed on the legacy to his vice-president – George Bush – who had won handily in 1988. Bush himself had become hugely popular after defeating Saddam Hussein in 1991 during the First Gulf War. He’d faltered though, as the American economy faltered. The result was that Bill Clinton won the election in 1992 and ended Republican control of the White House after a dozen years.
03 July 2014
Political Fashionistas #nlpoli
Before the year is out, we will have yet another strategy from the provincial government.
We were supposed to have this one on July 1, however like pretty well everything associated with the current crowd running the place, it is a day late. The minister responsible for the strategy – Fairity O’Brien – says we will now have it some unspecified time in the fall. That will be after Fairity releases a document that tells us what the government heard during some sort of consultation process that they are almost as fond of as they are of strategy writing.
The thing will likely also be a dollar short, as well, if recent experience is any guide. You see this “population growth strategy” is actually the second kick at the cat for the provincial government. Their existing strategies aimed at dealing with some of the factors affecting population were all dismal failures.
Avoiding a cabinet shuffle #nlpoli
By the end of the week, Premier Tom Marshall will be short at least two cabinet ministers.
Paul Davis quit as health minister on Wednesday and Steve Kent is expected to follow on Thursday as both vie for the party leadership.
On top of that he’s missing Joan Shea who quit last month.
Some think Tom will shuffle the cabinet. He could do that, except that he doesn’t really have much to shuffle with. On top of that, he’d also be stuffing people into cabinet who the new leader might not want to face as a cabinet minister in the middle of September.
Tom doesn’t have to shuffle his cabinet at all. This is the slow time of the year as Trevor Taylor laughingly put it or, to be more accurate, everything is on hold anyway while the party sorts out its leadership mess.
Therefore, Tom can rely on his table of alternate ministers, established by order in council at the last major shuffle in May. That’s the official list of substitutions to cover periods when the appointed minister of a department is out of town or incapacitated.
Paul Davis is gone. Between Susan Sullivan as first alternate and Sandy Collins as second, the job of health minister will get done. And if Susan goes, Sandy can get the job as stand in.
Over in municipal affairs, Fairity O’Brien will fill in.
And if Susan Sullivan jumps into the race – as she should given Paul Davis’ weak, amateurish launch on Wednesday - there’s someone to replace her, using the same table.
Pas de sweat.
If Tom needs to have someone fill in on a temporary basis other than the alternates table, he can do that using powers in the Executive Council Act and something called the Crown or Royal Prerogative. It takes a cabinet order but surely the crowd running the place can manage to do that, as they did in 2013, all without the show of a cabinet shuffle. It’s really just paper work after all.
-srbp-
27 January 2014
Forget the rinse. Just repeat. #nlpoli
The same people saying and doing the same things as they have always done won’t change anything
A provincial Conservative started out the week explaining why he cut a deal with a couple of provincial Liberals so he could get re-elected.
As part of his speech on Monday, Paul Lane said:
While there are indeed many people doing quite well in this economy…there are still many people who are not experiencing the positive impacts of our economy. As a matter of fact for many people, this economy is causing many people to fall further behind…
Those people include seniors, people with disabilities, people on fixed and low incomes, and in many cases, children. Government must focus on matters important to these people and the “everyday person”, said Lane.
Another provincial Conservative changed his political life last week. On Friday, Tom Marshall became the 11th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. After talking the oath of office, Marshall said:
So it is therefore very important to me that all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians shall share fully and fairly in the benefits of our newfound prosperity, and have a voice in the way it is distributed.
So let us ensure that the fight against poverty and inequality intensifies in our province and we never forget the needs of those who are aged, who have disabilities, who are infirmed [sic], and who live on fixed and low incomes.
The words may be slightly different but there is no make that they both said the same thing: government must now turn its attention to something new.
There’s also no accident that the two said pretty much the same thing. Tom didn’t figure out what to say after hearing Paul. Far from it. Much of what Paul said - like when he spoke about “our” government - sounded like a speech he had planned for a Conservative audience.
What they were both reciting is the last script the Conservatives are turning to in their effort to find the magic message that they think will make the polls bounce upward again.
There was a lot of that - reciting talking points - among provincial Conservatives last week.
25 September 2013
The Beast #nlpoli
It’s a time to “raise awareness of an individual’s right to access government information, while promoting freedom of information as essential to both democracy and good governance.”
People who are genuinely interested in a healthy democracy and in the effective operation of our federal, provincial, and municipal governments support freedom of information.
It’s that simple.
20 September 2013
poopourri - Friday Funny #nlpoli #nsfw
Forget all the heavy talk about pension liabilities, debt, Fairity O'Brien and the Liberal leadership.
Let’s talk about crap, or specifically one of the most hysterically funny commercial in a long time.
The product is called poopourri. It’s a type of bathroom deodorizer.
-srbp-
17 September 2013
Unfairity but sadly all too true #nlpoli
Last week, municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien denied having anything to do with having a couple of New Democratic Party politicians “uninvited” from a community breakfast organized by the Gander Chamber of Commerce at the annual Festival of Flight.
O’Brien told reporters:
I don't hold any power over them as the MHA. I don't fund them. I can't pull their funding or anything like that. So the NDP nor anybody can say that.
This week, we learned that nothing could be further from the truth.
09 September 2013
The Bunker Door is Welded Shut #nlpoli
Kathy Dunderdale cannot quit as leader of the provincial Conservative Party, says Fairity O’Brien in an interview with NTV.
He stresses it over and over. The caucus is solidly behind her.
He stresses it so much – right down to telling you that he wants to stress the message in this interview – that where you’d start to believe that what he is saying is the literal truth: Kathy wants to go but the caucus won’t let her.
16 August 2013
August is Money Month #nlpoli
August is polling month for Corporate Research Associates.
In the first 15 days of the month, the provincial government announcement machinery has been running in overdrive. Realistically, though, there have only been 10 working days if you pluck out weekends and Regatta Day,when the provincial government head office in St. John’s shuts down.
17 June 2013
Montana Time #nlpoli
Both CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane and Telegram editor Russell Wangersky had opinion pieces this weekend telling the provincial Conservatives that they have a big political problem now that they are in third place in a CRA poll.
The Conservatives need to change what they are doing.
Wangersky had some specific suggestions on changes. Cochrane added the tidbit of news that there is a cabal inside the Tory caucus that is growing increasingly frustrated with the inaction of people running the cabinet and caucus. They live inside The Bubble apparently.
This is pretty much the same thing SRBP has been on about for the past year or so. The Tories are in a hole. They need to stop digging.
Great minds think alike, eventually.
The fools differ.