When rights are annoying #nlpoli

There’s something about this frivolous and vexatious thing that caught people’s attention right from the start.

Under the provincial Conservatives’ new secrecy laws, a cabinet minister can refuse to disclose information if he or she thinks the request is “frivolous or vexatious”. (sec. 43.1)

Leave aside the idea that a politician gets to decide on who gets information and who doesn’t.  As we learned from the Cameron Inquiry, Danny Williams and his political staff vetted access to information requests and blocked stuff they didn’t want to hand over or blocked people they didn’t want to give stuff to.  The law didn’t matter.  They refused.  They stonewalled.  They used every other trick in the book.

But that’s a whole other issue.

Let’s just look at this curious choice of words and see what they reveal.

Freedom from Information: the sorry Connie legacy #nlpoli

“We will amend the Access to Information legislation to enhance the transparency of government actions and decisions.”

Danny Williams, Leader of the Opposition, February 2003

There truly is a greater fraud than a promise unkept.  That would be the promise that is consciously and deliberately broken.

In February 2003, the provincial Conservatives – then in opposition – pledged to increase public access to government information.  The latest round of changes to the provincial access to information law suggests they are continuing their practice of hiding as much information they can.

Here are some examples of the sorry provincial Connie legacy of Freedom from Information:

• Ignoring the Black Letter (2005) In 2005, the Tories ignored the black letter of the access law and tried to hide public opinion polls.
• Aural is moral:  (2009)  Paul Oram didn’t have briefing notes, then he had ones with someone else’s name on them and then it didn’t matter because he quit politics.
• Oil Royalties (2009) 
• The Secret Inland Fisheries Review (2009)
• We can’t talk about the process because there is a process. (2009)
• Thousands for public speeches (2009)
• Schrodinger’s Purple Cat: (2010)  files that existed and didn’t exist at the same time.
• Tories hide spending documents from Auditor General (2012)
• Update – Williams afraid of whistleblower law
• Update – Tories hide spending documents from Auditor General
• Update – Privacy commish sues Dunderdale gov over “political” e-mails on gov comps, phones

-srbp-

Tories hide spending documents from Auditor General #nlpoli

The culture of secrecy that is Danny Williams’ legacy in provincial politics is firmly institutionalised. The provincial Conservative’s war against oversight and adequate oversight of their management of the province’s finances now extends to withholding information from the province’s Auditor General.

When the province’s Auditor General went looking for the Conservative’s oft-mentioned infrastructure strategy, he found out they didn’t have one.  You’ll find that gem in the first few pages of the latest report from the Auditor General on how the provincial government spends public money.

A committee of officials was supposed to develop the strategy.  While they didn’t do that, according to the AG, the group did produce a draft “report”.  But the draft report was never finalized.

When the auditor general’s officials started contacting departments to get information on capital works spending, they ran smack into a legal roadblock. The departments refused to release the information to the Auditor General and cited the provincial Access to Information Act as justification. The documents would reveal cabinet deliberations  according to justice department lawyers, and as such they couldn’t turn them over to the Auditor general.

The access to information laws were never intended to cover officials like the Auditor General.  You can tell that because of the way the law is worded.  The purpose of the Act is to make public bodies more accountable to the public by providing the rules under which the public may obtain information held by government and its agencies.

Members of the public – known as applicants in the Act – apply as set out in Section 8. Under section 18, heads of department must refuse to disclose cabinet documents to applicants. 

But the Auditor General?  Not a person as defined by the Act or an ordinary member of the public.

As such there wouldn’t be a conflict between the access law and the Auditor General Act.

The AG’s got his own legal opinions and they pretty much wind up in the same place:  there’s no legal reason for the provincial government to hide information from the AG. Unfortunately, he and his lawyers have taken the weak premise of accepting that the access law actually governs the AG in the first place.

And all the AG has done is filed a report with the Tory-dominated House of Assembly.  That might make the upcoming session interesting and tense but it doesn’t settle the legal issues.  The AG needs to take it downtown and drag the attorney general in front of a judge.

Now this is not the first time the provincial government has misused the access laws to keep information from the public or other officials.  In fact, the current administration is notorious for its efforts to hide information from the public. Around these parts, SRBP likes to call it freedom from information.

In fact, in the seven years SRBP has been around, this sort of stuff is part for the course.

No strategy.

No documents.

No audit.

No surprise.

- srbp -

The question of democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador #cdnpoli #nlpoli

“A democracy only works really well,” according to Kathy Dunderdale, “when people are asking questions.”

Opposition Leader Dwight Ball told a Western Star interviewer that “my job is to ask questions with substance…”.

Not to be outdone in the spate of year-end interviews, New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael tied the health of democracy to asking questions:

If our natural resources standing committee ... were operating like a House of Commons committee or like the committees in Nova Scotia, we’d have a fully open discussion on Muskrat Falls.

Not surprisingly, all three party leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador agree on what constitutes democracy in the province.  They lead parties that agree on everything but the fine details. 

Not surprisingly, the three leaders discuss democracy solely in terms of what happens in the provincial legislature.  The only disagreement they have, such as it is, centres on the questions the opposition parties ask.  The NDP want more time to ask questions.  The Liberals want to ask better questions and the Conservatives claim variously that there is enough time for questions as things stand or that the quality of them is low anyway so more time wouldn’t make things better.

In one sense, democracy is about questions.

It is about people who want power – like Kathy Dunderdale, Lorraine Michael and Dwight Ball – asking the rest of us in the community to support them at election time.  We support them with the one thing that we all have in common:  our individual vote. Everyone in the community has exactly the same kind of vote. And it is our individual vote that is the foundation of everything else that happens in our democracy.

In between elections, democracy is about those people who get enough support to form a government asking “May I” when they want to do something. That’s essentially what they do in the House of Assembly.

They pose the question to the other members of the House, whether from their own party or the other parties and individuals who won enough votes to sit in the legislature. 

You’ll find that quite literally in the procedure.  The Speaker will “put the question” on a motion, a resolution or a bill to the House and ask the members to vote.

Ask a question. 

Vote on an answer.

Decision made.

All starting from the fundamental question put to individual voters at an election to chose individuals who will represent those voters in the legislature.

Things weren’t always that way.  But starting almost 800 years ago, in those countries that follow the British parliamentary tradition, people started to place limits on what the government could do without the agreement of the people ruled by the government.

The 1689 Bill of Rights brought together many of the features of our modern democracy that we often assume have always been around and that people have always accepted.  Freedom of speech,  freedom to stand for and to vote in elections to the legislature and the need for the legislature to meet regularly are all contained in the 1689 Bill of Rights. They survive today: some changed, some the same.

At the core of the whole thing is choice.  People chose their representatives to sit in the legislature.  We select those representatives to stand in for each of us every day between elections.

We do not elect a government.  We elect people to the legislature, to the House of Assembly.  Out of those people, we get a group to run the government.  And those people running the government must come back to our direct representatives for approval for what they want to do, especially when it comes to spending public money.

There are two other ideas that go along with choice and who gets to chose.  One of these is that choices must be based on information.  The legislature’s day-to-day business is built around debate and the exchange of information. 

The other idea is that the information and choice must be in public.  The legislature has space for people to sit and watch what happens.  News media and others can report on what happens.  The legislature keeps an official record – Hansard – that people can read.

Seen from that perspective, those political comments about questions and the legislature don’t look all that good or convincing.  Looking at some recent history, one can find a host of examples  – from the spending scandal to the Abitibi expropriation fiasco  - that show the bad things that happen when politicians operate in secret. 

You can also see that the Premier’s excuses for keeping the legislature closed simply don’t make sense.  If she feels that her current job is a “rare privilege”, then Kathy Dunderdale needn’t remind herself of that fact every day, in secret, in her office. 

She can show up in the legislature and demonstrate that she gets the point:  if you want power in this province, the you have to stand up in the legislature and ask “May I?”

The purpose of the House is to subject those with power to public examination and to the test of debate, discussion and disclosure.  The Premier and her colleagues should want the legislature to be open as much as possible.  They should want to tell us about their plans, present their case and convince us all that they have good ideas.

How very odd it is, then, that the Premier admitted at the end of last year that she and her colleagues don’t have any thing ready to present to the House.  This is the case despite the fact they’ve been in office since 2003 and the Premier herself has held her job for more than a year.

At other times, Dunderdale has said that she kept the legislature closed because the House was dysfunctional.  The opposition parties were weak. Who will hold them accountable for what they say, she wondered. 

The answer is simple:  the ordinary people of Newfoundland and Labrador will.  If the opposition political parties are as weak as Dunderdale claims, then they won’t be able to hide away from public scrutiny either.  Exposing yourself to examination works both for those with power and those who want it.

The fact that the Premier and her colleagues avoid the House as they do and denigrate the legislature as the Premier does, she demonstrates nothing less than contempt for the people of the province.

To be fair, though, none of the parties in the House can really escape blame on this point.  All parties have  helped to create the current climate. Dunderdale controls how often the House sits.  But the other parties went along unquestioningly with the special ballot laws that undermine the right of individuals to stand for election.  Some even openly suggested making this a one party state.  Perhaps that explains why they slipped things through the House with a nod and a wink and stood idly by as their colleagues abused the fundamental rights we have enjoyed. Now they may not see it that way. They may believe that what they have done is absolutely right in every respect.

But they were not right.

It is not okay.

The attitude and actions of politicians in the province in recent decades are why the state of democracy in our province is, itself, in question.

- srbp -

The truth hurts #nlpoli

Brace yourself.

Peter Jackson’s column in the Wednesday Telegram is spot on.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

Peter Jackson’s column is spot on the money and the mark and the point and whatever other metaphor you want to use.

The editorial on this page [in the hardcopy layout of the paper] laments how the Canadian electorate seems to be developing more tolerance for less-than-honest statements from our leaders. This is alarming, because cynicism and apathy can only lead to even worse behaviour, and undercut the foundations of our democracy. 

We expect politicians to avoid the unhealthy temptations that come with public office, but we’re not naïve enough to think it won’t happen from time to time. All we can do is remain ever vigilant, and ask those found culpable to own up and move on.

Peter’s especially right on the bit about how the cynicism and apathy that comes out of untruthful political statements eats away at the base of our society.

There’s evidence for this in a recent study that the Star’s Susan Delacourt blogged this week.  The study of voter apathy found that  - as the report put it - “Disengaged people felt that politics is a game that does not produce results for them…. The overall point seems to be that there is very little reason to be engaged.”
You don’t have to go to the United States or mainland Canada to find untruthful politicians.  There’s been plenty of false statements around these parts.  We are not talking politicians who change their position based on new information or a different circumstance.

We are talking unmistakeable falsehoods.

Like the one about the federal government taking 85% of provincial offshore oil revenues. Yes, friends, the entire 2004-05 offshore oil ruckus was founded on a falsehood.

Or, more recently, the claim that the Quebec energy regulator denying Nalcor access to the Quebec energy grid.

Aside from outright falsehoods, there is the cousin:  lack of disclosure.  The current provincial administration is well known for its love of freedom from information for the public.  Access to information debacles?  Failure to produce whistleblower protection laws?  The weakened House of Assembly and its broken oversight committees?

All speak to a political culture that promotes anything but the sort of honesty and integrity that genuine democracy demands.

Ultimately, we are all responsible for the current situation, just as we have to shoulder the burden for change.
The Telegram editorial [board] are right about that, too.

- srbp -

The value of nothing or Pater knows best, redux #nlpoli

Talk show host Randy Simms has a fine column in the most recent Saturday edition of the Telegram.

Our House of Assembly needs fixing, writes Simms.

It hardly sits.

It has no functioning committees.

Laws receive cursory discussion at best.

Simms quotes from an article by Memorial University professor Alex Marland that you can find in the latest issue of the Canadian Parliamentary Review.

Simms quotes:

The House is closed for 88 per cent of the year and talk radio has effectively replaced it as the people’s voice. Legislation is not sufficiently scrutinized. The committee of the whole is greatly overused, there are too few opposition MHAs to assess bills sufficiently and standing committees are embarrassingly underused to the point of being dysfunctional.

Simms notes in another spot that the last time a piece of legislation went off to a House committee for specific review was 2001. Note the date.

All true.

Russell Wangersky adds a couple of other details in a column of his own but  regular SRBP readers are familiar with these issues:

• 2006:  the half-time legislature
• 2007:  Danny Williams muses about taking freedom of speech from the House of Assembly
• 2010:  The Biased Speaker
• 2010:  Paternalism
• 2011:  The Persistence of Patronage Politics

The problem with the current state of the legislature is not just that the members aren’t working as hard as those in other places or that they are among the highest paid in the country.

The problems now are the same one your humble e-scribbler has been raising all these years:

• No one is holding the government to account in public as it should, and,
• The government is making decisions that will affect the province for decades to come without disclosing what they are doing and why.

The most glaring example of the sort of mess the dysfunctional House can produce is the Abitibi expropriation.  But you can equally add the unsustainable growth in public spending since 2003, the Conservatives’ love affair with secrecy, dismantling of the access to information laws,  and the ongoing management problems that have beset the Williams and Dunderdale administrations.

The answer to the problem in Newfoundland and Labrador’s political culture is not to shut down the legislature and have a committee run around to see what others are doing.

The first step would be to acknowledge what the problem is, exactly.  if you missed it, read back a couple of paragraphs.

The second step would be for people to acknowledge it isn’t a problem with the legislature alone.  It’s much bigger and goes into the issues Wangersky points out.

The third step would be perhaps the hardest.  For that one, people would have to recognise that the legislature got the way it is because they placed a higher value on conformity or cheerleading than on democracy.

Danny didn’t do. 

Kathy didn’t do it.

Other people, including the two columnists now calling for reform,  allowed them to do it with comments like this:

“That being said, for the last seven years, Danny Williams has been the right choice to run this province, and, regardless of any number of complaints, he’s done it well.”

Rooting for Danny and/or and otherwise staying silent – even when what he was saying or doing was truly appalling in a civilised society – basically gave Williams and his associates free reign to dismantle the legislature and the rules by which we are all governed.

Kathy Dunderdale is just carrying on with the same approach.

Pater didn’t know best, after all.

- srbp -

Advance voting and other campaign tidbits #nlpoli #nlvotes

If you want to get a good sense of what the advance poll turnout from Tuesday likely means in campaign terms, wander over to labradore.

In the current election, six of the ten highest advance-vote districts were in metro St. John's. In 2007, only three were. The top ten, interestingly enough, were almost all seats heavily targeted by Danny Williams-Government for pickup or hold, …

This may mean that the Tories and NDP are pumping GOTV resources into St. John's, and that the Tories are doing so at the expense of the formerly strenuous GOTV efforts in potential rural battleground districts in the Williams-era general and by-elections.

Yes, folks that would be the real story of the election which the conventional media have decided to avoid in favour of focusing on horseracing.

Luke, Luke, I gotta tell ya, at the end of the day, I am your father on a go forward basis

Speaking of the conventional media, the province’s largest circulation daily newspaper decided to engage in some public editorial self manipulation of the sort that used to grace the editorial pages of the old Spindependent. 

The subject is a poll the Telly commissioned from the same gang that do the provincial government’s quarterly political polling.

What can be said is that it is the broadest and most detailed snapshot in time of the current campaign, commissioned by an independent media outlet.

We can only look forward with bated breath to what will follow in the days ahead.

The Telly-torialist couldn’t resist getting in a little pre-emptive disclaimer at potential critics:

The poll will be received with the usual sniping — undoubtedly by those who have a larger problem with what the results spell out than what the critics honestly have with the methodology.

Nice thought but the People’s Paper is refusing to release any information that would let someone have a look at the poll methodology.

Your humble e-scribbler went asking a few questions on Thursday only to have senior management at the paper issue an immediate and complete ban preventing all Telly editors and staff from discussing any aspects of the poll whatsoever with anyone outside the paper.

Full stop.

After all those years of bitching about the provincial government’s unnatural desire for keeping polls secret, the Telly has finally caved in and joined the secrecy society. Governments across the land will rejoice that one newspaper has finally come over to the dark side of freedom from information.

What a shame too, because the Telly finally had some interesting information, or so it seemed out beyond the stuff that graced the front page of the Thursday issue.

Ah well, we’ll just have to sit back and see if the “broad-ranging public opinion poll with a large sample size conducted by an experienced polling company” lives up to that company’s usual accuracy.

And a large double-double to go…

Politicians’ handlers need to look for what the camera sees when their charge decides to scrum.

In this case, they should have looked at what CBC saw and then used to illustrate a story in which Liberal leader Kevin Aylward claims his party has a shot at up to 30 seats in the election. 

The elderly gentleman and the fellow apparently representing the local hit-man’s benevolent association don’t exactly convey that sense of energy and enthusiasm  - let alone numbers - to back up Aylward’s claim.

The one thing that does stand out nicely is the sign advertising real fruit smoothies for a buck 99.

Was it a campaign swing or a Tim’s run?

He wrote the book…literally

Check out a fine post on the CBC election website by Doug Letto called “Oil, wealth and caution at the finish line”.

Letto’s covered local politics for the better part of 25 years.  He’s forgotten more about politics than most reporters in the province will ever know. Plus, when it comes to the province’s history of economic development and politics, Doug’s written not one but two fine books.

Chocolate bars and rubbers boots looks at economic development during the Smallwood years. Run! is Doug’s account of the 1999 general election.

- srbp -

Welcome to the Echo Chamber #nlpoli #nlvotes

Pretty simple idea, really.

Opinions, beliefs and ideas move around among like minded people in what is an essentially closed space. 

The effect can be amazingly powerful just as it can be amazingly deceptive and distorting.

President Barack Obama talked about the echo chamber in American political coverage in early 2010 during a meeting with Senate Democrats:

"Do you know what I think would actually make a difference.... If everybody here — excuse all the members of the press who are here — if everybody turned off your CNN, your Fox, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics. The topic is politics."

In the United States, the problem Obama is pointing out is not just the idea of people from different political perspectives focusing on politics exclusively all the time. 

This isn’t the Permanent Campaign* as all-consuming.

It’s about political polarization in the 100 channel universe. People chose what they want to pay attention to and, increasingly, that seems to be a matter of picking only the information  - websites, radio stations and television news programs  - that reinforce their existing beliefs.

Princeton University professor Cass Sunstein describes it this way in the 2001 digital book Echo Chambers:  Bush v Gore, Impeachment and Beyond,

Many of these vices involve the risk of fragmentation, as the increased power of individual choice allows people to sort themselves into innumerable homogeneous groups, which often results in amplifying their pre[-]existing views. Although millions of people are using the Internet to expand their horizons, many people are doing the opposite, creating a Daily Me that is specifically tailored to their own interests and prejudices. Whatever the exact numbers, it is important to realize that a well-functioning democracy—a republic—depends not just on freedom from censorship, but also on a set of common experiences and on unsought, unanticipated, and even unwanted exposures to diverse topics, people, and ideas. A system of “gated communities” is as unhealthy for cyberspace as it is for the real world.

Slightly north of the great republic, and in a much smaller place, there’s another kind of echo chamber.  The way it works may be slightly different but the concept is still the same.

The provincial government makes the noise.  Other provincial opinion leaders – other politicians, key interest groups and news media – reflect the noise back. 

The political parties themselves are semi-closed organizations dominated by self-selecting elites. The rules on who can get into the elites and how aren’t written down.  Sure both the Conservative and Liberal parties have constitutions that set out rules about how they are supposed to work.

But as first the Conservatives and the Liberals showed in 2011, their constitutions are fictions.  First the Conservatives twisted and turned before finally rejecting as illegitimate a candidate for leader of the party who followed exactly the same rules the party bosses themselves used.  Then the Liberals switched leaders.  The party executive may have created the process that ended with Kevin Aylward as leader, but what happened in the five weeks before that – secret offers to this one and that one – could only take place in a group where the written rules and the real rules are two different things.

And lest anyone thing the NDP is different consider the special role given to unions in its constitution.  A party with the word “democratic” in its name was hardly democratic at all.

To see how all this works, consider a couple of examples.

Start with the fishery in the current election to see insiders talking among themselves.

Earlier this year, CBC released the results of an opinion poll they commissioned from Corporate Research Associates. CBC found that:

… 60 per cent of the province believes the fishery should be concentrated in fewer locations to be more efficient.

Only 23 per cent say it is well managed and doesn't need change.

The majority opinion is that a smaller leaner fishery would be more profitable.

That isn’t as surprising as it would have been even five years ago. Times have really changed in the industry. And such a poll result isn’t surprising given that the industry leaders themselves agreed that they have to reduce the number of people and plants in the province.

What is surprising is that – even though a clear majority of people in the province support downsizing and the industry representatives themselves seem to agree - both the provincial Conservatives and Liberals want to create a new version of the Fisheries Loan Board in order to get more people into the industry. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives mentioned that this idea came from the union that represents plant workers and fishermen, incidentally.

Amazing, though, this fisheries policy might be, Muskrat Falls remains the finest example of the echo chamber of local politics and the interconnections among the groups inside the chamber that help to reinforce the messages.

Over the past 18 months, poll after poll done for the provincial government showed that only three or four percent of respondents thought it was the most urgent issue for the province.

Health care was at the top of peoples’ list of major issues, across the province hands down.  The economy and jobs came in second.

Nonetheless, Muskrat Falls has dominated provincial politics since Danny Williams announced his retirement deal in November 2010.

Muskrat Falls is the centre piece of the Conservatives’ re-election campaign.

The Liberals have a section of their platform devoted to hydro-electric development issues.

The New Democrats include it as well, although their comments are much more vague that the other two parties’ commitments.

A St. John’s Board of Trade panel selected the Lower Churchill overwhelmingly as the major issue for the election.

And lastly, a poll released last week shows that Muskrat Falls was a major issue for 13% of respondents.

But hang on a second.

As it turns out, the poll came from the firm that polls for the provincial government’s energy corporation. 

And that Board of Trade thingy.  Well, the panel had only four people on it.  While the BOT didn’t release the names of the panel members, M5 was so proud that Craig Tucker had made the cut, they tweeted about his work on the Board’s panel that put together some comments for the election.

Yes, gang, that Craig Tucker.  Co-chair of the 2003 Tory election campaign, former Tory-appointed director of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro after 2003 and now the guy whose advertising firm is the agency of record for Nalcor.

Meanwhile, the CBC uses Nalcor’s lobbyist as an election commentator alongside their own provincial affairs reporter, as if the two were the same sort of independent political observers.  They didn’t even bother mention that the guy is Nalcor’s lobbyist in Ottawa.

What’s most amazing about CBC and those who reported the poll last week without noticing the Nalcor connections is that they didn’t feel the need to notice the Nalcor connections.

For people inside the echo chamber, that sort of detail might be so well known they didn’t feel like it was an issue.

But outside the circle of au courante types, out among the audience?

Not so much information that they’d readily have those details or even that they’d feel the need to go check. They trust the news media to give their all the relevant information, after all.

More than two decades ago, political scientist Susan McCorquodale wrote about the relationship between the media and politicians in this province.  She described it as '”symbiotic”, a close and long-term relationship that works to the benefit of both.

“News originates with the press release, the press conference or the daily sitting of the House of Assembly,” she wrote.  These days she might have added twitter, e-mail or the Blackberry message from a political source feeding tidbits to reporters.

McCorquodale noted the lack of investigative reporting, something else that remains little change these days.   And she also noted the “tendency of reporters to end up in comfortable PR jobs with government.”

What she could not have foreseen was the day when the president of the major commercial radio broadcasting firm would sit as a political appointee on the board of one of the provincial government’s energy companies.

Nor could McCorquodale have expected that this same fellow, so tight with the pols the could receive a patronage appointment, would call his own station to complain about media coverage of his patron’s health problems.

Politics in Newfoundland and Labrador occurs inside a large echo chamber.  While in the United States, there are separate political echo chambers for people with differing political views, in newfoundland and Labrador, the echo chamber tends to separates the opinion elites from the majority of society.

To see it work, you only have to look at the general election campaign.

 

- srbp -

• Permanent Campaign: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Your world. Your choice. Your future.

Memorial University granted an honorary degree on Friday to Edsel Bonnell.

As the official news release put it:

“In essence a man with two careers, Mr. Bonnell has excelled at both.

Fifty years ago, Edsel Bonnell was the first person in Newfoundland to become a professional public relations consultant, winning numerous national awards, becoming in 2002 an honorary fellow of the Canadian Public Relations Society and, in 2005, a life member of the same organization.

From 1989-96 he took these skills into government where he served as chief of staff and senior policy advisor to Premier Clyde Wells, chairing both the Economic and the Social Strategic Planning Groups.

In musical circles he is best known for his role as founder and leader of the Gower Youth Band. This began in 1973 with the support of Gower Street United Church but it was intended to be — and has remained — non-denominational.

Educated at Memorial University, Mr. Bonnell has been recognized for his community service work in being named St. John's Citizen of the Year (1984), a Member of the Order of Canada (2001) and was inducted into the Hall of Honour at the St. John's Kiwanis Music Festival (2004).”

Edsel got the rare honour of a standing ovation from the graduates and their guests on Friday.

The reason is his address. 

At turns entertaining, frank and provocative, it was fundamentally a message of hope and a wellspring of optimism.

The speech was essentially what Edsel is.

In Edsel’s honour and to give you all a fine start to your week, here is Edsel’s convocation address, in its entirety.  It is exactly as he wrote it except in a couple of places where the paragraphing is changed to ease online reading.

 

Address to Convocation

May 27, 2011

Dr. Edsel J. Bonnell

The thing you often notice about people who receive honours and accolades, whether in Hollywood or Holyrood, is their apparent discomfort. The comments you hear are “I don’t really deserve this”, and “there are so many others who deserve this more than I do.” Every now and then, of course, you get a more pragmatic approach, like when Jack Benny said in an acceptance speech: “I don’t deserve this award. But I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that, either!”

When somebody wins an Olympic medal or writes a best-selling book or is elected to a high office, he or she has attained a definable goal for all to see, and deserves whatever praise is due. But when you’re engaged in community service and you are honoured for it, you cannot help but think about the people who have influenced you or who work with you, and all the unsung heroes you have met who have given lifetimes of service without recognition of any kind. So, discomfort seen year after year on occasions such as this is not false modesty, but more likely a reality check of one’s own limitations, and an uneasy feeling about being honoured for doing something that makes one feel so good while doing it!

In my own case, I am very aware of people and organizations who share this honour with me today, and I sincerely thank the Senate on their behalf as well as my own. They are legion, from my parents and wonderful “big sister” who set shining examples in their own remarkable achievements, through teachers (especially a music teacher who instilled in students the passion that is music), co-workers and treasured friends, to our sons and their life-partners, and grandchildren, all of whom inspire and instruct me daily.

The announcement from Memorial referred to my work in two “careers”. The one which enabled us to buy groceries every week was public relations, and I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to my colleagues for more than half a century in the Canadian Public Relations Society who worked with dedication to create and maintain a dynamic profession with a strict code of ethics, a robust five-year accreditation process, and respected post-secondary education programs In Canada.

My other “career” has been involved with music, specifically the Gower Band Program, embodied in the enriching musical and collegial experience of the intergenerational Gower Community Band. I share this honour today with the people of Gower Street United Church who caught the vision 38 years (and more than 900 performances!) ago of establishing a non-denominational community band program which would provide music education and instruments, scholarship support, and opportunities for community service to anyone with a commitment to the love of music and the joy of service --- a truly remarkable gift to community by a church and its supporters and benefactors; and of course the more than 400 musicians who have participated in this program over the years and who continue to touch countless lives with music and community service at home and abroad.

And then, most importantly, there’s my wife Anthea, who has been my life-force for 55 years through both of my “careers”, and without whose hard work and tireless dedication so much of the foregoing would never have happened.

So I don‘t stand here alone. If all the people who have influenced me, given me opportunities, and worked with me could be here, there would be no room for anyone else in this hall. And I am not unique in this respect, because all graduates here today had many people walking across this stage with them in spirit, and I know they acknowledge the support, and often the sacrifice, of parents, family members, and friends in achieving their goals. Truly, “no one is an island, no one stands alone”; we are indeed all “part of the main”.

As an unabashedly proud parent myself, I can assure the Graduates that your parents share your joy and your pride on this special day. But they, like me, come from different generations. Many parents may be from the so-called “Generation X”; others may qualify for what is now known as “Zoomers”. The question is: What kind of world have we of previous generations given to these graduates here today? And the answer is intimidating. It has prompted me to suggest that we are not following “Generation X” with “Generation Y”, but rather with “GENERATION EXPONENTIAL”!

Last month a man died in the southern United States at the remarkable age of 114. He was thought to be the oldest man in the world at the time, having lived in three centuries. Just think for a moment what his life-span witnessed:

We went from “horseless carriages” to space vehicles that send us pictures and information about new planets in the universe beyond our own solar system; from bolt-action rifles and bayonets to nuclear weapons which can destroy life on earth as we know it; from the three little clicks for the Morse code letter “S” that Marconi heard on Signal Hill to Skype; and from silent movies to “tweets” from around the world on the wondrous machines that we now carry around in our pockets.... all in the span of one man’s life.

It was unprecedented. No other human life-time in the history of the world has ever experienced so much change, so much challenge, and so much stress as the past century or so. But the more startling reality is that the speed of all this change has been, and is, exponential. It has grown faster and faster each decade, and indeed each year, until now it is almost incomprehensible. It’s easy to forget that until 30 years ago, there were no personal computers; and five years ago many of us still thought that Blackberries were edible. The old discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin has gone out the window (no pun intended!) because now they can put the contents of the U.S. Library of Congress on the head of a pin. All the wisdom of the world is available to any child who can access a computer. The whole process of education may soon become unrecognizable to those in my generation.

Science fiction has become reality. It is no longer considered futuristic to talk about the age of Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity, when machine intelligence merges with or exceeds human intelligence. Earlier this year, IBM’s “Watson” defeated two brilliant Jeopardy champions. That was truly history in the making!

The questions that arise, of course, are critical. Can we use our technology so as not to be abused by it? Can we master it so as not to be mastered by it? Can we lead so as not to be led?

This is the legacy we have given to you in your “Generation Exponential”.

Scary?

Sure.

Challenging?

Of course.

Exciting?

You bet!

For centuries, generations have talked about passing the torch from one to another with the usual proverb that the new breeds hold in their hands the keys to the future and the fate of the world. Now, however, it has a more urgent ring to it. Graduates, your generation can literally kill or cure the world; you have the tools to do either one, and the choice is yours. And in the case of most graduates here today, you are called not only to use the tools wisely, but to teach coming generations to do the same. It is an awesome but heroic undertaking.

We are already well into the Communications Revolution. It is changing the world order as we speak. Events in Egypt this year have shown dramatically what could be accomplished by people communicating electronically as an alternative to armed rebellion. Throughout history, tyranny has thrived on secrecy and ignorance and fear. But these curses are being eradicated by the little I-phones and other machines we hold in the palms of our hands, where the people of the world can talk as friends instead of fearing each other as enemies. They find that there is more to unite us than to divide us, if we can only respect each other`s way of life.

For those of us in the communications field, it is a dream come true. But dreams can also be nightmares, and progress has brought with it invasion of privacy, hackers, scams, spam, terrorism, slanderous blogs, and a variety of e-crimes unknown in previous history.

As we work and live in constant communication through social media, we diminish our physical human contact. We text a lot, but actually talk very little. We see on Skype, but don’t feel the touch of a hand. Business and professional life is filled with virtual meetings, webinars, and the like, and traditional gathering places such as churches and service clubs and youth organizations may be required to create virtual entities with interactive e-worship services and web-meetings and surrogate activities in order to carry out their missions. Volunteerism is in numerical decline, with fewer people doing more than their share. This new generation will be challenged to preserve the critical element of Community, not as an option, but as an imperative, if we are to maintain our humanity.

In this commitment to community, every individual has a responsibility. No one can move a mountain, but anyone can move a stone. And when enough people move enough stones together, the mountain will be moved. When we live in community, we experience the joy of fellowship and the peace of common purpose. When we engage in service, we share love with others and see the light of understanding. And when we combine the two -- Community Service – we become participants in the hope of the world.

In 2008, Lanier Phillips stood where I am standing now and captivated the Convocation with his eloquent tribute to the people of this Province. Dr. Phillips was the only African American among the 46 survivors of the tragic sinking of the USS Truxton off St. Lawrence during World War II. He had no idea where they had run ashore, and he had suffered so much abuse, hatred, and racism in his young life that he lay down to die on the beach thinking that he would probably be lynched because of the color of his skin. Instead, a kindly voice spoke and strong arms got him to his feet and then up over the cliffs of Chambers Cove. He found love from the good people of St. Lawrence. And even though the abuse and hatred continued in his naval service throughout the war and back home in the United States, he kept the St. Lawrence experience in his heart as a beacon of love and humanity and tolerance, and vowed that he would spend his life telling people all over the world that there is a place where respect and justice and love can heal the wounds of the soul.

Graduates, you are in that place, and you are of that place, whether you were born here or chose to come here. You are in Canada, a bastion of freedom, democracy, and human rights; where we are so modest that we feel a little embarrassed by saying that it`s the best place in the world to live… but it is! Where citizenship and social justice are treasured. Where we don`t make war, but we keep peace in the world, often at a dear price of brave young lives who win respect for Canada’s red maple leaf in every part of the world.

And within this great nation, you are in this province of Newfoundland and Labrador with its noble heritage, its generosity of spirit, its sense of community, its incredible wealth of talent and human resources vastly disproportionate to the size of its population, and its fierce dedication to fair play and justice. You are in this awesome place of courage and courtesy, survival and success, wit and wisdom through half a millennium of continuous settlement.

But you are also in and of this great university, a university which cares about community and shares with community, to which I can attest from the musical community’s symbiotic relationship with our remarkable School of Music for more than three decades. Today you have become alumni of Memorial, the latest generation of a proud tradition of academic excellence which has sent its graduates to teach others, to provide leadership, and to serve humanity around the world as well as here at home.

That`s why I know that you all have what it takes to tackle the challenges that will flow exponentially around you in the coming months and years. You have already achieved much, and you will achieve much more. You are from the best of stock, nationally, provincially, and academically, and it is both a profound honor and a humbling experience for me to be included in your ceremony today.

So by all means, celebrate today with family and friends. You deserve it.

And then, follow Memorial’s time-honored motto: “Launch forth into the deep”.

Use the knowledge and tools which are at your disposal, turn your challenges into opportunities, and save the world.

Because the world is truly yours, with all the blunders and blessings that you inherit.

Your world. Your choice. Your future.

Enjoy the voyage!

- srbp -

Undisclosed Risk: the cost of freedom is loss

You won’t hear the provincial Conservatives talking too much about an April 2009 deal to sell surplus power from Churchill falls to Emera in New York.

They talked about it a lot when they cut the deal. 

Back then, Danny Williams said the five year contract proved that Labrador hydro power wasn’t isolated any more.  Nalcor wheels Churchill falls power through Quebec to markets in the Untied States.  Nalcor pays Hydro-Quebec a fee for wheeling the power.

And Danny Williams was absolutely right.  Labrador hydro power isn’t isolated.  if Nalcor had customers for Labrador hydro, they could send the power through Quebec tomorrow.

The reason Nalcor isn’t developing the Lower Churchill and shipping the power through Quebec is because there is no market for the power.  Everything else you’ve may have heard from provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador and from the local media about a big Quebec conspiracy to block Nalcor is – in a word – crap.

You can see that the Conservatives wouldn’t want to talk about the Wheeling Deal.  it proves that their more recent line, the one that supposedly justifies the Muskrat falls project is – in a word – crap.

Turns out there may be another reason why they aren’t talking about it.

Danny Dumaresque, a former director of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, issued a news release on Wednesday claiming that Nalcor is losing money on the Wheeler Deal. The story got decent media coverage across Newfoundland and Labrador and even made it onto the Radio Canada website. There’s also a short story about 20 minutes into the CBC’s Here and Now broadcast on January 5, 2010 and on NTV News from the same date.

Dumaresque looked at the Nalcor annual report and calculated that the company lost money on the deal compared to the previous deal to sell the power to Hydro-Quebec:

Over the past 18 months I have been told various figures of costs and revenue but because these figures were much different than the previous contract with Hydro Quebec, I was reluctant to cite them. However, today I can confirm that this province has lost $15 million in the last 9 months of 2009 under this ‘historic arrangement’ than we would have received from the contract with Hydro Quebec, a reduction of 40 percent.

My information is that results have not been any better in 2010 and up to $20 million will be lost. Therefore, in less than two short years we have lost $35 million of precious taxpayer’s money and the potential to lose up to $100 million over the life of a 5 year agreement which we had with Hydro Quebec!

In addition to this loss of revenue to the province I am also able to confirm that NALCOR has paid nearly $34 million to the Government of Quebec since this deal was done and $7 million to Emera Energy of Nova Scotia. [bold in original]

In the media interviews, natural resources minister Shawn Skinner doesn’t dispute the losses.  In fact he admits that under the deal, Nalcor would lose money when electricity prices are low but it could make them back if prices are high.  Even he uses the line with CBC to the effect that losing money is the price of freedom.  When a politician has to use complete bullshit like that you know he’s been caught out.

There are three things to note from this.

First of all, this is pretty much what you might expect from the deal.  It was clear at the time Nalcor inked the deal that – based on the numbers they released – the deal would only deliver about the same price per kilowatt hour to Nalcor that they were getting under the old fixed-price deal with Hydro-Quebec.  Sure electricity retails for 20-odd cents per kilowatt hour in New York city.  But by the time you take off the wheeling charges to Hydro-Quebec and all the other middlemen, and allow for Emera’s cut, the net for Nalcor was 3.5 to 4.0 cents per kilowatt hour.

As it turned out, electricity prices dropped in the United States what with the 2008 recession and all. They are so low that American producers can sell electricity produced by natural gas from the United States across the border into New Brunswick.  And as it stands right now, prices are going to stay down for the duration of this first contract. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro considered wheeling the power in 1998 but figured out exactly what has happened.  They opted for selling power for the best return as opposed to going the Danny Williams route and losing money.  Pure business genius at work there signing a deal that only works if prices stay high or keep going up.

Second of all, you have to appreciate that this is exactly the same sort of financial wizardry that underpins the Muskrat Falls deal. 

In order for Danny’s retirement plan to work and for the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador not to take it in the derriere, oil prices have to double from their current level within the next decade and keep going from there.

If anything else happens, then the taxpayers get jammed up badly.  The reason is simple:  Nalcor is building the whole project based on the only guaranteed sale being for power inside Newfoundland.  They can sell power to other provinces or to the United States and if the prices fall far short of the cost of production, then the taxpayers of this province will cover the loss through their electricity rates.  That’s exactly what provincial laws – amended since 2006 – require.

Notice that none of the other players involved lose anything.  Emera gets cash no matter what.  For $1.2 billion they get 35 years of essentially free power to sell to Nova Scotia.  They can sell other power for less than the cost of production and even at the end of the 35 years they will pay less for the power than it cost to produce it in 2017 when the first power is supposed to flow.

It’s the same as the Wheeler Deal.  Hydro-Quebec gets its fees for carrying the juice to the border.  Emera gets its fees and commissions.  The only people who come up short on the deal are the taxpayers of this province who – one way or another – have to cover Nalcor’s losses.

Not bad, eh?

Now the thing is that nobody mentioned this at the time Danny Williams announced the deal in April 2009. Danny never said taxpayers could lose money at all. He never even vaguely hinted at it.  In fact, while he acknowledged prices at the time were low, Nalcor boss Ed Martin said that

[b]ased on current electricity prices, Newfoundland and Labrador could earn about $40 million to $80 million in profits annually….

That’s the third thing and it is the biggest thing of all:  it’s called undisclosed risk. And in business circles, failure to disclose significant risk to investors -  or the de facto owners in this case - is a pretty big deal.  It goes straight to the trust that the ordinary people of Newfoundland and Labrador have placed in these politicians who are now acknowledging, in effect, that there are very important things about these deals that they haven’t bothered to tell people about.

It makes you wonder what other little secrets, what other little time bombs there are ticking away.

What other undisclosed risks are the people of the province facing that they didn’t face before 2003?

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Freedom from Information: Not exactly the news

For starters, there is no news in telling us that the provincial Conservatives are not delivering on their promised whistleblower legislation in 2010.

Thanks, CBC, for that bulletin.  Maybe we can get an update on that Lindberg guy flying the Atlantic next.

What really stands out in this bit of non-news from the provincial legislature’s extremely short fall sitting is what the mighty Ceeb tells us about Danny Williams and this bit of legislation.

Williams committed to bringing in whistleblower legislation during this term in office, but would not specify when the public might expect to see it.

There’s no question Williams promised it.

There’s also no question he promised it for the very first sitting of the legislature after the October 2007 provincial general election.

Here’s what the Telegram reported on October 7, 2007 [quoted at labradore]:

Progressive Conservative Leader Danny Williams pledged Saturday a new Tory government will implement whistleblower laws in the first session of the legislature after the Oct. 9 election.

"We'll get that on at the very earliest opportunity," Williams said in response to questions from reporters at a Carbonear shopping mall.

"The very first session of the House that we have, that's something we'll have a look at. As a matter of fact, there'd be no reason why we wouldn't get it on."

In other words, CBC’s claim is factually incorrect.

Then there’s the line that in 2009 Williams “reiterated his government's promised [sic] to create the legislation.”

That would be a huge “not exactly” on that one too.

In June 2009, Williams started inventing excuses for the lack of legislation.  He claimed that there wasn’t much experience with whistleblower laws even though the first one was enacted in the United States in 1863.  By one count, there are no fewer than 18 separate federal whistleblower protection statutes in the United States.  Then there are ones in various state jurisdictions, provinces, the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere.

What the Ceeb is referring to in its story are comments Williams made in may 2009.  At that time he linked whistleblower laws to access to information legislation.  The record shows he had a chronic problem with those laws that allows people to access such secrets as his public speeches.  Williams said he was worried about people with a personal vendetta against the government.

So basically the real story is that we are now long past the third anniversary of Williams’ broken promise. Williams has skedaddled and his former caucus colleagues are left holding the bag.

CBC might not be quite that blunt, but at least they could try and report accurate information rather than things that are – quite obviously – false.

- srbp -

Traffic Drivers, September 27 – October 1

1. 24 French
2. The Politicisation of Public Emergencies
3. Cringeworthy 2
4. Jane Taber – Twit
5. Court docket now online
6. Recovery effort continues
7. Cringeworthy
8. For all the perception problems…
9. Freedom from Information Week:  the colour of invisibility
10. NL only province to post jump in EI claims in July

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Freedom from Information Week: the colour of invisibility

As labradore notes, at least one member of a Reform-based Conservative Party administration likes to use purple files to denote sensitive material to be given special attention as part of an access to information request.

Not surprisingly, another Reform-based Conservative Party in power likes to use purple files to denote sensitive information.  And, as regular readers will recall, that sensitive filing system officially does not exist.

Even though it does.

And the Premier admits it exists, but he refuses to release the information.

Because it officially doesn't exist.

When it comes to public access to government information the public has a legal right to obtain, it seems that purple is the colour of invisibility. Whatever these two Conservative administrations are afraid of, there's no doubt that fear lies at the heart of their obsession with secrecy.

That's why the Premier told reporters that if he had to release information people were looking for he'd "be outta here". Lest new readers get confused at this point or think the requests were intrusive, understand that one of the requests the Premier found unbelievably intrusive was one that asked for all his public speeches as Premier.


One big difference between the two Conservative approaches to secrecy, though is in the role played by political staffers.  In Ottawa, political involvement in the access to information process is considered controversial.

In St. John's, bureaucrats will testify under oath that it is perfectly acceptable for responses to information requests to be dictated by politicians and political staffers. Interestingly enough, while reporters covered that testimony as it it contradicted other claims about political interference, the reality is that the testimony suggested the level of political interference was routine.

But still, there are signs of sanity.  Your humble e-scribbler had a pleasant experience this past week.  One access co-ordinator in one department answered a simple inquiry with a simple answer.  Plus, she did so promptly and professionally.  Compare that to the refusal of three other more senior officials to even think about the same request and the lengthy delay it took to get them to refuse to provide simple information.

That's the difference between a culture of politically-driven secrecy  - call it a purple culture - and one that shows a respect for the law and for the public's right to know. Hats off to a public servant who does an honour to her chosen career.

What a fitting way to mark Right to Know week.

- srbp -

Traffic Drivers, Unlove Boat Edition

1. Cruise ends abruptly in St. John’s
2. Process Stories or real insiders don’t gab
3. Cruise ship sale and passengers “not even an issue”: St. John’s mayor
4. Freedom from Information:  thousands of bucks for Premier’s speeches, redacted
5. Transparency and Accountability:  Speeches
6. Time to retire the old schtick
7. Court docket now online
8. Bury my lede at Muskrat Falls
9. Fiscal Discipline
10. Who speaks for cabinet?

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Taking responsibility – comments, courts and disclosure

A Nova Scotia court decision last week ordering The Coast to cough up details of people who left comments on the newspaper’s website caused a bit of a stir in some communities over the weekend.

The Telegram Saturday editorial takes up the issue, as does Telly editor Pam Frampton in her weekend column.  There’s also an editorial in Halifax’s major daily the Chronicle-Herald.

Each focuses on the the idea that people making comments online should not expect complete anonymity.  They should be expected to take responsibility for their words. As the Herald editorialist concludes:

The bottom line is that freedom of speech online has no exemption from the same legal limitations that exist everywhere else in society.

Amen to that, brothers and sisters.

But with your head suitably swollen with such lofty thoughts, go to The Coast website and look at what is actually there in the stories stories about the Halifax regional fire department and allegations of racism.

That’s where things get a wee bit more complicated.

For starters, the two people who sought the identities of the commenters were not just “two firefighters” as both the Herald and the Telegram opted to describe them. Rather they were the chief and deputy chief of the department.  Both are directly involved in a human rights case launched by a group of black firefighters that alleges not only that racism takes place with the regional fire department but also that senior officials did not act promptly to deal with the issues.

Next, take a look at the comments under the various Coast stories dating back to last spring. Unless the Coast has removed the comments – there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that -  it’s pretty hard to find one which connects the two applicants directly with alleged actions.

With that done, you should realise there might be more to this story than meets the eye.  Someone might want to take a hard look at the speed with which the judge in this case issued the order.  A similar case in Ontario – as the Herald notes – is still awaiting decision.

If nothing else,  people might want to consider the implication of any such easy order for whistleblowers, especially in a province  with no legal protection for disclosure of confidential information in the public interest. 

Again, the Herald raised that point but did nothing with it in the editorial. 

Nova Scotia provincial public servants are protected by a set of regulations but it doesn’t appear those protections extend to municipal employees. In Newfoundland and Labrador, public interest disclosure is looked upon, apparently, with the same disdain as any disclosure of information under the province’s access to information laws.  Although the current administration promised a whistleblower bill in 2007, there’s no sign one will come to the legislature while the current administration is in power.

Some commentators criticised the editors at The Coast for stating they will quickly comply with the court order.  The editors are right to do so.  If there is libel in the comments, then those defamed have the right to seek redress. No one should be able to make scurrilous, defamatory comments with impunity:  speech online ought to be subject to the same law as speech everywhere else in this country. 

At the same time, though, those same commentators ought to realise that free speech isn’t really threatened in this case.  Even in the worst scenario where now or in the future someone tries to silence legitimate speech with the chill of legal action, the Coast editors are likely to pursue that issue with the same vigour they have used thus far in tackling the allegations of racism within Nova Scotia society.

A free press stands alongside free speech as a means of ensuring that those in power are held to account.  Both are secure in this Nova Scotia example.

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Freedom from Information: Joint federal-provincial edition

Now you know things between the two Connies are good when they co-ordinate a joint freedom from information program on a national park/provincial park combo that actually doesn’t exist yet and then carefully control the release of information about it.

Now, a curious and enterprising body might well wonder, hey, what are the boundaries of these proposed protected areas, especially given that the national park would be the largest in Canada contained wholly within a province (as opposed to a territory)? which lands are included and which are excluded? how do the proposed protected areas relate to the newly-opened highway or to lands subject to Aboriginal land rights?

Apparently, however, there aren't that many curious and enterprising bodies.

Which is a good thing, because good luck finding such information from either the official provincial or federal eBumpf.

However, if you are really keen to see the long-awaited map, it is available.

On the website of National Geographic, a private organization located in another country.

The signs are there if you want to see them.

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Freedom from Information: The Two Connies

Not only do the federal and provincial Conservative parties in power have very similar attitudes toward the legislature, they also share a common disregard for public access to government information.

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Freedom from Information: oil royalties version

After two e-mail requests to the provincial finance department yielded nothing but delays for two weeks, a simple e-mail to the federal natural resources department produced information on the provincial oil royalties the provincial finance department had trouble releasing.

And it only took four working days.

The request on October 21 to the provincial finance department was simple enough:

What is the total offshore royalty received by the provincial government from 01 Apr 09 to 30 September 2009?

The first response (October 23) from the department spokesperson said:

The information you are requesting is provided at the end of the year in the public accounts and can be made available to you at that time.

Of course, the estimates are publicised at the end of the fiscal year but the audited financial statements  - the public accounts -  for 2009 won’t be released until February 2011. 

That seemed like an unusually long and unnecessary wait for information that should be readily available.

Oil royalties are collected each month by the federal natural resources department (NRCAN) under the terms of the 1985 Atlantic Accord.  The amounts collected are set by the provincial government through its own royalty regimes for Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose.  The royalties collected are turned over in their entirety to the provincial finance department monthly.

A second request (October 23) to provincial finance asked for the reason the information was being withheld.   The reply to that inquiry came on November 4, 2009 and gave a new, more curious response:

For the particular timeframe of your request, the department is still receiving the relevant information.  When the data collection is complete, the information will be made available. 

Still receiving information?  Now that’s a bit of an odd idea since the finance department should be in the process of completing a mid-year financial update for public release.  The figures on oil royalties would be sitting right there on someone’s computer, presumably since they form a very big part of the provincial government’s annual revenues. 

If nothing else, finance officials produce monthly statements of account showing revenues and expenditures both for government as a whole and for individual departments.   It would be exceedingly strange if the finance department didn’t have the figures for at least April to August. 

As it is, your humble e-scribbler went looking for the information in October.  It might have been a bit optimistic to get even the September figures.  At this point – early November - provincial officials should have September done and October should be well on the way.

But nothing at all until the whole thing was complete?  Highly unusual, to say the least.

Your humble e-scribbler turned instead to NRCAN.  An e-mail inquiry to the NRCAN manager of media relations on November 5 for the year to date oil royalty figures produced the response on November 9:  the oil royalty figures for April to August 2009.  September is in the pipeline and even October might be available within a few weeks.

It was that simple and that fast.

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Governments are afraid of their people after all

Well, afraid of their people getting their hands on information and then daring to ask questions.  Good heavens, imagine the time that would take.

Take for example, this quote from a weekend Telegram news story (Correctional Update:  Yeah it is online.) on Danny Williams and his attitude toward disclosure of public records:

“If things get out and they have to be known, and we can be questioned on it, absolutely but if we had to have an open book on absolutely everything we’re doing, I’ve got to tell you, I’d be out of here.  I’d be gone.”

In the front end of that quote, Williams was expressing his concern about the drag on his time if he had to explain things once documents and other information were released.

This is really old hat by now and it is really old hat to note that Danny Williams was a huge proponent of open records laws before he got elected.  Once he took the oath, he very quickly thought it a bad idea for the public to know what he was up to.

Take for example his very first great foray into freedom from information.  The telegram asked for copies of polling Williams commissioned from one of his favourite pollsters.  Williams refused to disclose them despite the fact the law stated in plain English that polling couldn’t be withheld.   In another instance, the telegram asked for files it knew existed.  Williams admitted there were “purple files”.  The official reply to the request was that they didn’t exist and no documents were disclosed. 

Funny, then to see him quoted in the Telly six years later as saying:  “we go through the process and we vet what we’re entitled to vet by the rules. ”

That purple file one is still lost in the “process”, incidentally, almost two years later.

-srbp-

Freedom from Information: Right to Know Week 2009

labradore lays waste once more to the annual event called Right to Know Week.

At least this year the thing is pushed by the guy who actually cares about your right to know.

Last years’ release was from a guy more inclined to be concerned about frustrating your right to know.

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