No US market for Lower Churchill power: NL deputy premier

A VOCM news story running this weekend contains the following comments attributed to the province’s deputy premier, Kathy Dunderdale:

Dunderdale says the power Nova Scotia is buying from Newfoundland will be used domestically and nowhere else.

Dunderdale says the price that Nova Scotia is paying for the power is higher than market prices in the United States. She says there is no market for Nova Scotia to take our power and sell it elsewhere.

Dunderdale says the power will be used in Nova Scotia to replace coal-fire generation and to meet their energy targets.

Of course, if there is no market for Nova Scotia’s Emera to sell Muskrat Falls power in the United States, there’d be no market for this province to do it either.

That’s pretty much what your humble e-scribbler’s been saying about the Lower Churchill as well.

Meanwhile, from a PostMedia News story on last week’s Muskrat Falls announcement, comes an assessment by energy analyst Tom Adams:

However , Tom Adams , a Toronto-based energy consultant, says the once-rich markets of the Northeastern U.S. are now awash in cheap natural gas and demand there is also depressed by U.S. economic woes -- making it difficult, if not impossible, to sell much of the power from the Lower Churchill at feasible prices.

As a result, Adams says the economics of shipping electricity from the remote reaches of Labrador south by sub-sea cable simply won't work. He says Thursday's announcement wasn't a firm deal at all, but merely a "lobbying campaign" by Newfoundland and Nova Scotia for a "federal handout."

"There is a lot less here than meets the eye," he says.

Turns out Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial government had the same thought.

- srbp -

Unpublish update:  Good thing the copy is here because VOCM disappeared that story from its website. See the comments section for more.

NDP votes for “More of the Same” #nlpoli

Gerry Rogers is smiling again now that Earle McCurdy has agreed to be the NDP Kevin Aylward.

If Earle had decided to stay retired,  Gerry was the substitute leader the key inside factions of the party had tapped to fill-in until after the next election.  Rogers would have had to take one for the team, just like her Liberal namesake did in 2007.

Now that McCurdy is in, the party executive will announce some leadership process that either completely avoids a convention (like the Conservatives in 2010) or puts up a sham competition (as in the NDP 2014 leadership review).

Drew Brown recently likened the next NDP leader to the Liberal’s last-minute substitute in 2011.  Fair enough.  Any possible change for the party will come in the future.

Townies and Baymen #nlpoli #nlvotes

Some people were surprised the other night when Danny Dumaresque told the very small audience at a Board of Trade economic forum that:

I would have to say to the mayor of this great city that there are a hell of a lot more priorities outside the overpass that need to be addressed before we start forking more money over to the City of St. John's.

Some people thought his remarks were stupid.

Danny is anything but.

What Danny Dumaresque said won’t hurt him one bit in the Isles of Notre Dame and Danny knows it.

What’s more, what Danny said is true, at least for the people who currently dominate the Liberal Party.  About 12 years ago, they started shifting the party focus away from the province as a whole to one that idealises an imaginary one.

Ruralism started to bloom in the brief period Beaton Tulk served as Premier.  It’s not surprising that Kevin Aylward brought Tulk back to play a key role in the current campaign.

Ruralists believe – as the Liberals’ centrepiece policy for the current campaign states – that:

The fishery is our province’s defining narrative…Our fishery has been our past and the Liberal Party believes it will be our future.

It is not just the fishery, though.  Ruralism, for all its romantic, reactionary beliefs, holds the fishery as the foundation of an entire culture with social and economic components.

The Ruralists flourished after 2003 and their philosophy was firmly entrenched after 2007.  Despite Kevin Aylward’s fervent efforts to pretend otherwise during the debate Wednesday night,  the party he now leads has written off anything east of Goobies.

To be fair, the Liberals aren’t alone in their Ruralist beliefs.  The provincial Conservatives carried on with the Liberals’ Ruralist agenda.  They kept the Rural Secretariat and married its assumptions with Danny Williams’ peculiar version of nationalism.

Again, not surprisingly,  Kevin Aylward proudly declared himself a staunch nationalist shortly after he took over as Liberal leader.  

At its miserable heart, though, Ruralism is really nothing more than old fashioned paternalism and patronage.  Grit or Tory, all the Ruralists really want to do is use public money to keep people in some parts of the province dependent on political hand-outs and therefore firmly under political control.  It’s a miserable, cynical ploy.

To make it clear that patronage isn’t just a favourite ploy for one party, consider that Conservative candidate Keith Russell made it plain enough on Thursday when he said to voters in central Labrador (via the Telegram) that

we have to be on government’s side to access government coffers…

Conservative leader Kathy Dunderdale repeated basically the same line while campaigning on the south eastern coast of Labrador on Thursday.  CBC’s Chris O’Neill-Yates tweeted it:

Abandoning the Avalon Peninsula doesn’t mean the Liberals are doomed as a political party.  They can still win plenty of seats and could well pick up a few this time around.  They’ll likely stay as the Official Opposition. What they can’t do, of course if form a government.  The Liberal strategy is as short-sighted in that respect as it is simplistic. 

Its narrow focus means the Ruralist Party, as it should now be named,  has had way more trouble than an opposition party normally would getting candidates in the last three elections.  In 2011, they’ve had to turn, once again, to dragooning political staffers to fill out the last remaining slots in the candidate roster.  The only thing Beaton Tulk didn’t do in his mad search for names for the ballots on the Avalon was hold a séance.

The Ruralist Party’s focus doesn’t mean they haven’t turned up some good candidates in the process.  George Joyce in St. John’s West is the best of the three candidates running in St. John’s West by a long way. 

In St. John’s Centre, newcomer Carly Bigelow has been kicking Shawn Skinner around. 

During an appearance on Out of the Fog, she popped Skinner’s eyes a bit when she reminded him that Tory policy is to keep public service pensioners on fixed incomes with no increases and then double their electricity rates.  He flipped but that pretty much sums up Skinner’s position. The truth really does hurt, as it turns out.

George and Carly could be easy choices St. John’s voters.  After all, a vindictive, patronage-addled Conservative administration can hardly shag the district for funds in retribution for voting the “wrong way”.  They don’t push pork into townie districts anyway, at least not like the do outside the capital city, so Sin Jawns voters have the opportunity to pick candidates on merit, rather than by party colour.

The Liberal Ruralists aren’t the only ones with problems in Capital City.

In St. John’s North, both the Conservative and New Democrat candidates  are running headlong into the problems with their platforms. 

An NTV profile of the district on Thursday evening’s news noted that the district has a very large percentage of people on fixed and low incomes.  Plenty of public service pensioners live there so incumbent Bob Ridgley must be having a hard time explaining Tom Marshall’s cavalier dismissal of their demands for a modest increase in pension payments now that the government has $4.0 billion in cash laying about.

Add to that the Tory plan to use the cash to double electricity rates instead and you have a very tough pill to shove down voters throats.  If you are a Tory that is.,

Meanwhile, Sin Jawns New Dem Dale Kirby is having an equally hard time.  His party backs the Dunderdale plan to force the people of St. John’s North to pay to ship discount electricity to Nova Scotians.

And then there’s the public sector pensions.

Not a peep in the NDP platform about it at all.

Kirby must be having a devil of a time explaining how the NDP party president and his colleagues didn’t think those pensions might be an issue. Talk about treating seniors with the respect they deserve.

Pensioners can take some cold comfort with the knowledge they weren’t the only thing Kirby and his colleagues didn’t know about.  They missed entirely the contracts that prevent them from introducing their new crude oil tax that was supposed to pay for some other campaign promises.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was another glaring Dipper gaffe in St. John’s.

Liberal Drew Brown is running an uphill fight in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi  against  an entrenched NDP campaign that knows which way every blade of grass votes in the district. He’s another candidate who’d be far better than the incumbent.

But facing all that didn’t stop Brown from picking up on a glaring oversight in the NDP policy book: the party of supposed social responsibility has no platform plank on replacing the Dickensian-era HMP that happens to sit in Lorraine Michaels’ district:

“The existing infrastructure at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary is still abysmal, despite the findings of the 2008 ‘Decades of Darkness’ report on the state of the provincial corrections system,” Brown explained. “I find it really surprising that no one is talking about it in this election, especially considering the federal Conservatives’ forthcoming crime legislation is likely going to result in an increased number of prisoners going through the system.”

The Liberals plan to begin work on replacing the prison – and aggressively lobbying the federal government to cost-share the project – within weeks of forming the government.

“Without safe and effective prisons, our system of justice here in Newfoundland and Labrador is seriously weakened. Better conditions for the prisoners aside, the facility workers themselves deserve a safer workplace than the one they currently have,” Brown added. “It’s a government facility – the working conditions for employees at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary should be held to the same standard as any other government institution.”

Wowsers.

So at about the half-way point in the general election, one party  - the Liberals – have voluntarily surrendered  a huge chunk of the voting population to the other parties.  They’ve left some very good candidates to fend for themselves.

Another party has just missed the boat entirely on core issues in the one region of the province where they are supposed to have such amazing support and affinity.

this is not a townie versus bayman thing, as much as some people might like to paint it that way.

It’s really about political parties that operate with limited political vision.

- srbp -

Summer Political Reading List #nlpoli

If you are looking for some political reading over the summer, here are a few books worth checking out.

Tragedy in the Commons by Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan. Here’s the whole Random House blurb: 

In Tragedy in the Commons, Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan, founders of the non-partisan think tank Samara, draw on an astonishing eighty exit interviews with former Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to unearth surprising observations about the practice of politics in Canada.

Though Canada is at the top of international rankings of democracies, Canadians themselves increasingly don’t see politics as a way to solve society’s problems. Small wonder. In the news, they see grandstanding in the House of Commons and MPs pursuing agendas that don’t always make sense to the people who elected them.

NL behind NS in space race

With 120 hectares of Crown land to build on, an American company has put Nova Scotia decisively ahead of Newfoundland and Labrador in the race for space.

When will people be organizing protests about this great slight to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

This sort of venture could have put Newfoundland and Labrador on the leading edge of the 21st century's great challenge.

Surely, this is proof that Confederation was a giant conspiracy to oppress the poor, downtrodden people of a poor downtrodden land.

Nova Scotians are already looking down their noses at us as they take away some of the greatest assets of the province in an unprecedented give-away of our resources. Next thing, they'll be looking down on us from outer space.

And while we are at, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should be lobbying for federal funding to build a museum to this affront to intelligence.

-srbp-

Skinner and the useless provincial lobby law #nlpoli

Shawn Skinner used to be a provincial cabinet minister.

Now he works for a construction company trying to get a major contract at Muskrat Falls. Skinner is the senior director of business development with Aecon.

Presumably that job involves him meeting with or arranging meetings with people at Nalcor and the provincial government in an effort to land the Big Contract.

So why isn’t Shawn  - or anyone else connected to his company – registered as a lobbyist as required by the lobbyist registration law Shawn and his Conservative colleagues introduced in 2004?

Good question.

Pass the word

In Kingston, a new mess at Canadian Forces Base Kingston carries the name of a man who survived internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.  His actions while a prisoner saved the lives of many of his fellow prisoners.  he resisted all attempts to break him.

Two retired army colonels waged a private lobbying campaign to name the mess after Major Ron Routledge, DCM.

Colonel Peter Sutton put it aptly:

"Everybody should be conscious of what's gone before, and do everything you possibly can -- as Ron (Routledge) did with me -- to pass on the word."

Routledge set up a communication network between the Sham Shui Po prisoner of war Camp and British intelligence at Waichow through Chinese ration truck drivers. Without hesitation and fully aware of the dangers involved, Sergeant Routledge [his rank at the time] joined the ration party as the contact for the passage of messages to Chungking agents under the eyes of the Japanese guards.

The channel Routledge set up saved many lives through the supply of much needed medicine and  valuable information. The Japanese discovered the system.  They beat, starved and tortured Routledge mercilessly yet he refused to divulge any information that would jeopardize his comrades. A Japanese court martial sentenced Routledge to 15 years in a Hong Kong prison for espionage, a sentence that ended in 1945. Awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions, the citation for that bravery decoration reads, in part, “The resolute courage of this [non-commissioned officer] NCO in spite of indescribable suffering and his devotion to duty provide an example of the highest tradition in the service.”

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Budget basics: Dealing with the Debt #nlpoli

Public sector pensions in Newfoundland and Labrador are underfunded.  There’s not enough money in the fund account to cover all the likely money they’d have to pay out to people when they retire.

But make no mistake, the province’s public sector pensioners are not in any real danger of losing their pensions as a result.  That’s because the Pension Fund Act guarantees that the provincial government will make up any difference between the money owed to pensioners annually and the money available from the fund.  Unless some provincial government in the years ahead changes the law governing the pensions, people will get the money and benefits they’ve been promised.

The provincial government isn’t going to default on pensions any more than they are likely to take the completely irresponsible advice some might give them to change all the plans immediately - unilaterally if necessary - to make them defined contribution plans instead of defined benefit plans.

It’s important that people remember that because there is a concerted effort going on at the moment to mislead people about public sector spending generally, and pensions in particular.

Weak Questions get Weak Answers #nlpoli

Nalcor’s effort to have local taxpayers subsidize electricity exports to Massachusetts came up in the House of Assembly on Thursday.

Well, sort of came up.

New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael asked a couple of lame questions and got – not surprisingly  - a few equally lame answers.

Here they are, in their entirety.

An abuse of our men and women in uniform

The federal Conservatives gave Canadians a lesson in Halifax yesterday, a lesson most of them likely didn't want.

A group of Second World War veterans were trotted before the cameras alongside Peter Mackay, the national defence minister as props in a campaign announcement.

The lesson was Manipulation, Cynicism and Crassness 101.

Ostensibly they were there to announce that the Halifax Rifles - a disbanded militia unit - would be reactivated.  The veterans had fought with the Canadian Forces during the Second World War, many of them receiving their initial training with the Rifles.

But here's the thing:

No one knows what this unit will do.

No one knows where the soldiers for this unit will come from.

No one knows where they will train.

In short, there is no Halifax Rifles, any more than there are the various battalions of soldiers promised by the Conservatives to any town and city in the country that wanted one.

The regional commander of the army stated the problems, albeit in the guise of making it sound like this was a good thing that the army was squarely behind:

Simply getting people to join will "be a challenge because there’s a lot of demand on reserve (units for) folks that are very, very good," he said.

"Both industry here as well as the Canadian Forces and all the other units are going to be competing for the same quality folks. . . . That’s why it’s going to take a little bit of time to actually stand up the unit and get the folks in there."

He expects it will take three or four years to fully re-establish the regiment.

You see the Friends of the Halifax Rifles have been lobbying for years to recreate the Rifles.  They've worked every room they can to get the name back on a uniform.  They are well-intentioned and sincere with a justifiably love of their former unit and desire to see their own cherished memories continued.

But up to now both the Canadian Forces and the politicians who over see the military have understood that we cannot create military units for what essentially amounts to sentimental reasons. 

The military cannot and should not be used for anything other than the reasons we have soldiers, sailors and aircrew.  They don't exist to proper up failing local economies.  And they don't exist in the active military force to serve - essentially - as living relics of another time, looking good on parade, chewing up scarce cash and human resources and no really contributing anything to the defence of Canada.

There is a fine reserve infantry unit in Halifax already, one that has to work hard to keeps its ranks full.  It's not so different from the other reserve units for the army, navy, and air force in Halifax and the surrounding areas or anywhere else in the country in that respect.  All of them have well defined missions and they are set up within areas where the competition for talent is already fierce.  They recruit hard and they train hard all year long to do a job. Adding another reserve unit doesn't increase the capability in the area;  it just sets the military to competing with itself for people. 

At one point, the Friends were suggesting that the Rifles could be a reconnaissance unit, an idea that appears in this latest announcement.  What they had in mind at one point was buying a whole bunch of civilian type jeeps.  Soldiers would spend their training time bombing around the coasts of Nova Scotia keeping an eye out - on the weekends only, of course - for enemy submarines or smugglers.  All wonderful ideas a half century ago but all hopelessly out of touch with the current reality.

What makes this announcement crass, cynical and manipulative is that people involved in the announcement on the government side know there is very likelihood the promise will ever come to light. National Defence has already been through the debate between the professional military and the amateurs and wannabes who came into office a couple of years ago over where the Canadian Forces should put its priority for the defence of Canada.  The whole episode wasted valuable time and chewed up valuable cash resources for absolutely nothing except to show seeds of confusion in some cases.  Thankfully that was short-lived.

There will be no Halifax Rifles in four years times just as there will be no rapid reaction battalion in Goose Bay or any of the other hare-brained schemes cooked up in Conservative backrooms to fool just enough naive voters to get the party elected.

In this case, a group of very sincere and well meaning men have been taken advantage of.  They are proud of their service to the country and Canadians should be respectful of them.

Instead, the defence minister has done little more than stick a "Kick Me" sign on their backs.  He could easily have stuck bunny ears up behind their heads for the cameras and been every bit in keeping with the substance of his announcement.

He certainly couldn't have been more disrespectful or abused them - and us - in any greater way.

-srbp-

The politics and challenges of education reform in post-Confederation Newfoundland and Labrador (Part III)

by Philip J. Warren

The 1990s – Reforming the Denominational System

For those who don't recall, let me provide a little more detail about the denominational system. When Newfoundland joined Confederation, the Province had the most denominational school system in the Country, a system that had its beginnings over a century earlier. Five separate church systems -- Roman Catholic, Anglican, United Church, Salvation Army, and Seventh Day Adventist – had emerged, four with representatives in the Department of Education. In addition, there was a relatively small Amalgamated system, largely non-Catholic. Individual denominations had the constitutional right to have their own school boards and schools, to hire and fire teachers, to receive provincial funding on a non-discriminatory basis, and to have denominational colleges. Pentecostal schools were officially recognized in 1954.

After Confederation, the system became the subject of growing criticism. Increasing enrolments, fiscal restraint, and demands for improved programs, facilities, and services highlighted the problems of duplication inherent in the system. One result was a further increase in the number of Amalgamated schools and the integration of five denominations mentioned earlier. The Integrated system served nearly 60 per cent of the Province's enrolment. After that, Integrated, Roman Catholic, and Pentecostal school boards established a number of shared or joint services, in an attempt to further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the system.

A new Government was elected in 1989, with a caucus that included several political activists (Hubert Kitchen, Rex Gibbons, Chris Decker, Pat Cowan, Roger Grimes, myself, and later Ed Roberts). After considering all the options for improving education (and we did consider every option), the Government decided to establish another royal commission, to study, among other things, the denominational system. The Commission's main recommendation was the establishment of a single interdenominational system as the most cost-efficient and effective way of dealing with the demographic changes and educational challenges confronting the schools, while retaining many of the benefits of denominationalism,

The Commission also recommended that, where numbers warranted, children should be provided with opportunities for religious activities and instruction in their own faith; that the 27 denominational school boards be replaced by nine publicly-elected boards; that the three denominational education councils be dissolved; and that school councils be established at the local level to encourage local, collaborative decision-making and site-based management. If implemented, these recommendations would, in effect, end the denominational system as it had existed since the mid-1800s.

In what may have been a bit of wishful thinking, the Commission pointed out that, just as, in 1969, five churches joined together voluntarily to form a single Integrated system, now, in 1992, it was possible for all churches to create a new system which would preserve the valued Christian character of schooling, and, at the same time, recognize the educational, economic, and social advantages of participating in a fully co-operative venture. The churches strongly rejected these denominational recommendations.

For six years, following the release of the Report in 1992, there was extensive lobbying, long periods of negotiations, periods of stalemate, two provincial referendums, a provincial election, a change of Premiers, several court cases, and political threats and counter-threats. In 1998, legislation was finally adopted in the House of Assembly, leading to the abolition of the denominational system. The story of that period in our history is a most interesting one.

Forces Influencing the Reforms of the 1990s

There were many interrelated forces that influenced the denominational reforms of the 1990s. Four of the most important were: (1) the growth of secularization and the declining credibility of the churches, (2) the influence of special interest groups and the media, (3) the Royal Commission, and (4) sustained political leadership.

The Growth of Secularization and the Declining Credibility of the Churches

The reform of the denominational system in the 1990s was influenced by a major ideological transition in the Province – the growth of secularization. Secularization is the process by which traditional religion and religious rituals lose their influence over society as a whole, and other institutions take over their functions. In Newfoundland, religion once permeated all aspects of our way of life, even athletic activities, the selection of many government employees, and even the appointment of cabinet ministers.

While in the early 1990s, many citizens considered themselves religious, and identified with a particular denomination or religion, the extent to which religion influenced their lives had declined. This was reflected in the decline in church attendance in most denominations, the difficulty of raising funds for church use, the shortage of students for the priesthood and the ministry, the significant growth of interfaith marriages, and the unwillingness of an increasing number of people to see the church as the preeminent ethical and moral authority in their daily lives.

This growth of secularization, of course, was associated with urbanization, industrialization, and a higher level of formal education. It was also associated with the controversies surrounding abortion, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, and the role of women in the churches. More important was the impact of the highly-publicized sexual abuse cases involving priests and other clergy, and the subsequent hearings and reports of the Winter Commission and the Hughes Inquiry. Some say that, at that time, the churches lost their moral authority, in a province in which, until the 1960s, they had retained power almost unknown elsewhere in Canada, even in Quebec.

These forces, among others, resulted in a change of public opinion about denominational schools. That change was reflected in many surveys, particularly those by Mark Graessar of Memorial University and my own studies. While the findings were sometimes ambiguous, and even contradictory, we found growing support for a single, interdenominational system, and almost unanimous support for interdenominational sharing, provided religious education was included. More and more people criticized the traditional system because, they believed, it resulted in too many small schools, the duplication of facilities and programs, excessive school busing, the discrimination of non-Christians and non-religious, and the discrimination of teachers in hiring and firing. These survey results were widely debated, as were publications such as Bill McKim's book entitled “The Vexed Question: Denominational Education in a Secular Age.”

The Impact of Special-Interest Groups and the Media

Many special-interest groups supported the school reform movement in the late 1980s and the 1990s. One such group was the Newfoundland Teachers Association (now the NLTA). With the publication of “Exploring New Pathways” in 1986, the Association launched the first major criticism of the denominational system since the 1964 Royal Commission Report. Roger Grimes was the President of the Association at that time. The criticism was based largely on efficiency and economic grounds, rather than ideological ones.

The fact that the NLTA supported the Government in the 1990s was important because the Association was made up of teachers of all denominations. While Pentecostal teachers had a separate voice within the Association, and sometimes disagreed with the Association's stand on denominational issues, such was not the case for other teachers, including Roman Catholics. I've done some research on why that was so, and will report accordingly in the future.

Another association that became increasingly involved in the debates of the 1980s and 1990s was the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Association. During and after the entrenchment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that Association strongly criticized the denominational system for limiting (1) the lifestyle rights of teachers, (2) the rights of non-adherents of the system, including non-Christians, and (3) the rights of non-adherent parents to run for election to school boards that educated their children.

Other groups, such as the business community and various coalitions of parents, also played an important role in supporting the reform. The St. John's Board of Trade, for example, echoed the views of the 1986 House Commission on Employment and Unemployment, linking education with economic growth and calling for the reform of denominational education. The NL Home and School Federation and the Education First Group, a diverse coalition containing persons of all religious and political persuasions, were very influential during the referendum campaigns. Change which tapped into that kind of public support was likely to be successful.

And, then, there was the influence of the media. For three or four decades after Confederation, few journalists criticized the denominational system, and those who did received little visible public support. That changed over time, for obvious reasons.

The media played a very significant role in the promotion of the work of the 1990 Royal Commission. They gave extensive coverage to the hearings, the recommendations, the negotiations, the referendums, and the court cases, often supporting the Government's position. Through newspapers, radio, television, and films, the media became a powerful influence on how people saw the denominational issue and how they responded. There was no doubt that they helped to set the reform agenda in education, greatly influencing policies, politics and values. Many supporters of denominational education believe, to this day, that they were unfairly treated by certain journalists and certain media outlets.

The 1990 Royal Commission

The Government believed that having a Royal Commission study the very sensitive denominational issue as part of a more comprehensive review would not only demonstrate the Government's commitment to providing a better education, but also its willingness to provide strong leadership in these challenging times. The Government knew that there were political risks associated with the Commission's appointment, but it was prepared to take that risk, knowing that when the report was completed, it could choose to take no action, some action, or accept the recommendations entirely.

Looking back, perhaps the most important contribution of the 1990 Royal Commission was that it provided, at a very important point in time, a vehicle for the public discussion of educational issues. In the process, the Commission captured a surprising amount of public attention and provoked the most lively debate in years. School boards, teachers, students, parents, and the general public were truly engaged. The Commission conducted a considerable amount of research and traveled widely to examine developments elsewhere. In addition to its recommendation on the denominational system, it made recommendations on improving the operation of school boards, the curriculum, instructional time, teacher education, the education of children with exceptional learning needs, and even the way we fund education. In the end, unfortunately, the implementation of many of these latter recommendations was overshadowed by the debate on reforming the system.

Sustained Political Leadership

With few exceptions, politicians and political parties in Newfoundland have been careful in their dealings with the churches. Even after Confederation, a political “understanding” between the churches and politicians remained in tact, where one seldom criticized the other. The churches often remained quiet on social and political issues about which they should have been concerned. And few politicians publicly questioned the authority of the churches.

The Governments of Premiers Wells and Tobin were responsible for providing leadership in the reform of the system. As a rationalist in policy development, Wells, like Trudeau, believed that the state should aggressively promote economic and social justice. He saw a modernized school system as the key to our future in a knowledge-based economy. That philosophy was reflected in the Government's newly-developed Strategic Economic Plan. To achieve the new order, the school system had to be made more efficient, more cost-effective, and more responsive to the needs of children.

While Wells preferred the single, unified, interdenominational system proposed by Williams, and wanted to reach a consensus with the recognized denominations, his Government negotiated what he considered a compromise Term 17 amendment, between what the Commission recommended and what the churches were demanding. That proposed Amendment provided for separate denominational schools where it could be demonstrated that such schools had sufficient numbers of students to provide quality education. Under the proposal, the Province would have both uni- and inter-denominational schools, operated by common school boards. The proposal was unacceptable to the churches.

While the constitutional amending formula did not require a referendum for approval of the compromise proposal, the Government decided to hold one in 1995 to give the public an opportunity to debate the issue and decide. Wells refused to aggressively campaign in the referendum. In the end, the proposed Amendment was approved by a narrow majority -- 53 to 47 per cent -- with a relatively low voter turnout. Much more could be said about the Wells Amendment and the referendum, but I'll leave that for another time.

The essence of political leadership is knowing when to think and act quickly and when not. Building on what Wells had accomplished, Tobin (with Minister Roger Grimes) acted quickly and decisively to complete the reform process. After the Barry court case in 1997, which halted the implementation of the Wells proposal, the Premier sensed that the political mood of the Province had changed, and support for the Government had increased. So, he called a second referendum on a fully public system, eliminating denominational rights entirely, with some provision for religious education.

While not being critical of Wells, Tobin sought to distance himself from the first referendum campaign. He presented a clear and straightforward question to the public, and campaigned aggressively, focusing not only on the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the denominational system, but also the philosophical arguments on which it was based, particularly that Christians should be educated in separate schools. He claimed that the real issue was the correction of a “moral wrong” inherent in the system. By using this argument, he shifted the campaign from primarily economic grounds to the greater welfare of all students and society generally.

With the enthusiastic support of many special interest groups, and individuals of all religious and political persuasions, the referendum was successful, with 73 per cent voting in favour. The Government was assisted by the fact that, unlike the first referendum, the Roman Catholic campaign was not well organized, had few funds, and had lost some of its supporters and enthusiasm.

In my research, I've reviewed the political campaigns of the churches to preserve the system, and the Government to reform it. I will comment on these findings in the future, including the important debate concerning minority rights.

Part 4...

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Too cute by half

Dean MacDonald's defence of his lobbying to gain a $15 million government buy-in for his cable deal doesn't hold water.

Here's the Offal News take on it.

Political lobbying trying to reconcile Gulf drilling bills

Lobbyists are hard at work trying to reconcile to bills passed recently by the United States Senate and House of Representatives that would open significant oil and gas reserves to development.

Businessweek online reports that industry watchers are adopting a waiting posture to see if the political issues in the bills will ultimately kill the initiatives.

Sue Kelland Dyer - come clean on your political lobbying

When will some intrepid reporter ask Sue Kelland Dyer, local political gadfly and radio call-in regular, what she was doing on Stephen Harper's advance bus during his recent campaign visit?

She is turning up on local radio praising the Conservatives and defending Connie incumbents Loyola Hearn and Norm Doyle. It's noticeable given that Dyer hasn't had a good thing to say about Connies since she was on their payroll in the 1990s.

Dyer used to advise the local provincial Connies, once ran under the banner of her own political party (but bombed at the polls), was a senior advisor to Liberal premier Roger Grimes and in her last publicly confirmed gig was trying to keep smoking in bars.

So far though, Dyer hasn't indicated if she is a volunteer on the Connie campaign or a paid worker for Steve Harper. She appears to be just another citizen calling in to talk to Randy or Bill. But if she has any other connections, then the public has a right to know, even if they are unpaid ties.

In the interests of full disclosure, Dyer needs to come clean and admit to any official relationship with the Connie campaign.

After all, the Moon Man doesn't get to lounge on the Harper advance bus while waiting for The Man to come and save Petty Harbour.

Poll dancer - update

Update: a faithful reader sent me a quick e-mail to point out that Tom Rideout is actually a graduate of Ottawa U law school not the Halifax legal temple. I double checked Tom's online biography and yep, I goofed. Then I noticed Tom used to work in Fisheries and Oceans in the international directorate. Anyway, I corrected the law school mistake.

That just makes what I will post tomorrow all the more interesting.

For those with a passionate interest in access to government information, there is a curious story on the front page of today's Telegram. It's also online here.

For those who may not be able to access it, here's the complete text courtesy of The Telegram and reporter Rob Antle.

As someone who has dealt with access to information issues from boths sides in the course of my 16 year career, I have a few thoughts and observations on this story. I'll save them for tomorrow morning's post, along with some links to the legislation itself and the recent rulings by privacy commissioner and former finance deputy minister Phil Wall.

Transportation Minister Tom Rideout is quoted in the story that follows. he is currently acting justice minister. In a previous life, he was premier of the province, even if it was only 43 days in the spring of 1989. After leaving politics, Mr. Rideout went off to Ottawa U law school and was a practicing lawyer before he went back to politics again.

The only other thing I'll say here, before letting you get to the full story by Rob Antle, is that I'd be dumbfounded if The Telegram didn't take this one to the Supreme Court.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Page A1 (above the fold)

Polling data stays secret
by Rob Antle, The Telegram


Opinion polls are secret cabinet documents not to be released to the public, the Williams administration has decreed.

The decision overrules the findings of a report issued Tuesday by the province's information commissioner.

"We disagree with the interpretation that's been put on this by the information and privacy commissioner," said Tom Rideout, who is acting justice minister while Tom Marshall is out of the province.

"We don't feel that his interpretation is within the confines of the spirit and intent of the legislation. Š Based on that belief, we will not be releasing the information."

The province says releasing public-opinion polling commissioned over a 14-month period would reveal cabinet confidences.

Information Commissioner Phil Wall ruled Tuesday that the government should release the documents under new open-records laws, with some small exceptions.

"Quite simply, Section 18 of the ATIPPA cannot be treated as a 'blanket' exception to disclosure," Wall wrote, referring to the part of the act dealing with cabinet confidences.

"It specifically states that only those items which would reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet can be severed from the record, and it gives examples of what such items might be, such as advice and recommendations."

Rideout said Wall is wrong.

"There are still certain protections for the system, and one of the protections has to do with the confidentiality of cabinet documents," he said.

"That's one of the underpinnings of our whole system, and we're certainly not prepared, at this stage of the game, based on what we think is an error in interpretation by the privacy commissioner, to undermine that process."

The commissioner has the ability to make recommendations to the government, but cannot force the province to act upon them.

In making his ruling, Wall cited case law and precedents in Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

"We feel that case law is fairly clear in its conclusions," Sandy Hounsell, executive director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, told The Telegram Tuesday.

Government officials now have 15 days to respond to Wall's report.

The only recourse after that is Newfoundland Supreme Court.

The information commissioner can decide to take the matter to court. The applicant - in this case, The Telegram - can also decide to do so.

"We will wait until we get formal representation from Executive Council on their position, and then make a decision as to what we will do with this particular report," Hounsell said.

That decision will likely be made within days of receiving the final response from the government, he said.

On Jan 18, a Telegram reporter requested a list of public-opinion polls done by, or on behalf of, Executive Council between November 2003 and January 2005.

Executive Council is the wing of the public service which oversees government policy and decision-making.

A month later, the province supplied a list of 12 polls, broken down by pollster and date.

However, the government refused to disclose the subject of the polls, or their content.

On March 10, the province decided to provide two of the polls in question.

Several weeks ago, after fighting for nearly five months, the province released two other polls. Both dealt specifically with the Atlantic Accord.

Wall had recommended the release of that information.

But the other eight polls must remain secret, the province maintains.

Comfortable with stand

Rideout said Tuesday the government is "very comfortable" with that position, even though Premier Danny Williams campaigned on a policy of openness and transparency in 2003.

"My government will provide real financial management, real transparency, and real accountability," Williams said in the Conservative pre-election "blueprint" of promises.

"Ours will be a new approach, and one which will benefit every Newfoundlander and Labradorian in a positive and powerful way."

The Tory campaign document said that "a comprehensive and effective freedom of information act is the best safeguard against the tendency of governments to descend into official secrecy and elitism."

In December 2004, the Williams administration tabled its "accountability and transparency agenda," updating laws governing lobbying, government purchasing and the tendering process.

"In our blueprint, we committed to set the bar on transparency and accountability much higher, so that government is truly open and transparent in decision-making and accountable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador," Williams said in a statement issued Dec. 2.

In January 2005, the Williams administration finally enacted new open-records laws - laws which had languished on the books since 2002, and the days of the previous Grimes administration.

The premier's office steered inquiries about Tuesday's decision to Rideout.

rantle@thetelegram.com

Now stop that! It's silly

While looking for a Canadian Press story on a death overseas, I came across this column by Sun defence writer Peter Worthington.

Apparently, Liberals are to be blamed for the purchase of the Upholder class submarines from the United Kingdom.

Ok.

But then Worthy adds a litany of other fiascos, some from the Chretien era and others - much larger ones - from Brian Mulroney to bolster is argument.

And what is that argument? That defence decisions are inherently overly political. Therefore the subs are another reason to vote out the Liberals.

Apparently, this isn't the first Worthy missive against the subs. Here's a letter from a retired admiral from 1997 responding to one of his earlier columns.

Worthy rightly points to the overly political nature of Canadian defence procurement decisions. We buy stuff for reasons other than military necessity or operational requirements. Hunt around long enough and you'll find a paper I wrote a decade or more ago that carried a litany of asinine procurement decisions. They were asinine for a variety of reasons. The chief one was that the item bought was either inferior to other stuff available for the task, took too long to get into the system or was just flat out too costly when other stuff was available that was better and cheaper.

That said, voting out Liberals won't change that. In 1993, voting out the Tories who were responsible for some of the idiotic equipment purchases and a whole bunch more Worthy didn't find worthy of mention didn't change anything. That's because the roots of the defence procurement problem are much deeper than Worthy's superficial appraisal shows.

In order to tackle defence procurement you need to sort out priorities. Figure out the defence tasks, then buy accordingly. Resist the lobbying from interested parties and get the right tools once you have figured out the tasks.

If Worthy took a step back and off the soap box he'd notice the massive changes within National Defence in the past 10 years. New management, and real leadership from guys like Rick Hillier, have given us a much better military force and a solid set of plans to give Canada the defence capability it needs. Oddly enough, that is oddly if you adhere to Worthy's logic, National Defence is actually in better shape now than in was in 1990. I'd say that's actually a powerful reason to keep people like Bill Graham where they are.

Worthy thinks subs are useless. Ok.

Well, a lot of people thought tanks were useless in the 1970s when we bought Leopards, but more to the point today there are people advocating we buy tanks again. Maybe Worthy is among that group pushing for tanks, given his family background. Maybe Worthy favourably quotes the Conservative defence critic because Gordon O'Connor is... wait for it... a former tank guy.

Of course, Worthy forgets to mention that Canada was offered Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks in 1990 yet the Mulroney government turned the idea down on cost grounds. That sure doesn't fit into Worthy's rant today in which Liberals are to blame for everything including stuff they didn't even do.

But guess what, guys? Tanks aren't needed either.

Let's see Pete write a column that argues against buying tanks.

I am not holding my breath waiting for that one.

Moving CHHC offices: all that is solid melts into air

"Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air. " Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Purists will rightly point out that Marx and Engels are talking about the impact of bourgeois economies in producing the conditions necessary for the political awakening of the proletariat.

However, the notion can be applied in another context, namely that constantly disrupting established relationships - whether of people to work, or ideas to the material world - produces the effect of unsettling the foundations on which human society functions.

Political dialogue is no exception.

Modern political discussion, especially as we have seen locally in recent months, often relies on pure emotion divorced from history and any other meaningful context.

Newfoundland nationalists and many others can be easily roused by the symbol of the Upper Churchill without most of them ever appreciating the long history and the particular context in which the Upper Churchill hydroelectric project was developed. Similarly, the Real Atlantic Accord can be assailed on the basis of myth and misrepresentation and even those who authored the agreement can simply discard established fact in the face of current expediency. On this point see anything written or said by John Crosbie in the past five years.

There is more to this than the abuse of history. It removes events from a human context which can be appreciated and assessed and in the process serve as a guide to deeper understanding of current problems or issues. As some wit once remarked, history is not so much what occurred as what we remember. In Newfoundland and Labrador, our memories are exceedingly dim. In a place where so much of our history remains unexplored, the record of what occurred transmogrifies into mythology and in some instances it is deliberately transmogrified by those wishing to influence wider public opinion in favour of or against one cause or another.

Ours is largely an oral culture, as it has been for centuries. There is a well-known communications exercise of whispering a message to one person who whispers it to the next in a long series. The humour comes in hearing first what was said at the beginning and then what emerges at the end after the message has passed through umpteen "listening and repeating" iterations. Such is oral history and oral culture.

Recall how easily Brian Tobin evoked the Upper Churchill in his sham-fight with INCO, or how readily Danny Williams whispered the same words during his recent offsets campaign against the federal government.

All this may overload a simple news release with too much political theorizing but I will take the risk.

Consider the second news release in two days from Liberal Opposition leader Roger Grimes on the federal shares in Hibernia. Grimes states:

"I call upon government to update the people of the province as to what actions have been taken to ensure this important asset is secured. Lobbying efforts should also continue to have the headquarters of the Canadian Hibernia Holdings Corporation (CHHC), the crown corporation that operates this 8.5 per cent share, moved to this province from Calgary. It is an insult that a federally run corporation that makes their profits from our resource is based in Alberta, not Newfoundland and Labrador. This is not acceptable and government should fight to have this office, and the jobs that go with it, transferred to the province."

Grimes is continuing his pseudo-nationalist posturing from his days as Premier. It was Grimes, after all, who funded the expensive and largely vacuous Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada. The Royal Commission's final report is, in many respects, merely a summary of the standard nationalist complaints about what former Tory cabinet minister Bill Marshall called "the rack of Confederation". Little effort was expended to provide a deeper understanding of this province in its current context or to offer a richer understanding of events like the Upper Churchill contract negotiations. The Accord offset section of the final report is a particularly odious example of fact being twisted and distorted for a purpose other than the furtherance of understanding.

That said, Grimes' releases on the federal Hibernia shares pander to the misunderstanding of a simple subject. Grimes transmogrifies the location of an office, of all things, into an insult, into yet another wound on the scarred psyche of Newfoundlanders (but not necessarily Labradorians) The reality of the Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (CHHC) office becomes air for Grimes' purposes.

CHHC staff comprise a handful of people, four of whom are traders who, to the best of my knowledge, are engaged in the business of selling oil to generate the revenue from the federal shares of Hibernia production. They work on the Calgary exchange, again as far as I know, but even if that were not true, they are simply located in a city which is the centre of the country's oil and gas industry. Pretentions by Halifax and St. John's are obviously to the contrary.

So what value, beyond the purely symbolic, comes from relocating this tiny office? The answer, in short, is none. The office may bring a handful of new salaries to an already prosperous city and the office itself may generate some modest rental revenue. It would bring no great economic benefit and may well disrupt the simple - and cost-effective - functioning of the office where it is.
As a rule, government salaries produce no substantive economic benefit, as the Tobin experiment of dispersing provincial government offices around the province showed. Relocation was a symbol, but merely of the government's inability to foster economic development outside the metropolitan St. John's region. The expansion of government - as advocated in the revamped Independent - merely serves to increase the taxation burden on the whole society and, more often than not, stifles the imperative to deliver needed services effectively. After all, if the mere presence of the salary is the valuable commodity, then that is all the government need produce. What incentive exists to do something actually?

As for Grimes other issue, acquisition of the federal shares themselves, the overall context needs greater examination to determine if the idea is even feasible. The corporate partners may not be willing to see the simple transfer take place. They might insist that it be transferred but at fair market value. This is something which the provincial government simply cannot afford - without using the new offset money and given that the Hibernia project is halfway through its productive life the chance of recovering the purchase cost plus produce a real profit is slim. Were we somehow to engineer the transfer for a token sum, one can only imagine the national repulsion at such a generous gift on top of what is widely perceived as an already overly generous gift in the January deal.

What we might find, in a detailed analysis, is that acquisition of the shares would produce no substantive financial benefit. In the last scenario mentioned above, it might come at a more significant political price in the long term. Such is the history of this place: long on symbols, short on the practical.

Then we wonder why we are not more prosperous than we are, either economically, or politically.

The simple answer is that we reduce everything to air.

Air is free.

Something’s missing: Powers, Hydro, Danny, Abitibi and The Globe

Tim Powers is a well-known Conservative activist who, in his work-a-day, is a professional lobbyist.  As we’ve noted in this space before, he’s a smart guy and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro was well advised to retain his services to help deal with the federal government on Lower Churchill and the national electricity grid.

According to the lobbyist registry in Ottawa, Powers is still lobbying for Hydro, which is, it should be said, a provincial Crown corporation controlled entirely by the provincial government.  It is no more arms length from cabinet and the Premier’s Office than the natural resources ministry.

The lobbyist registration was just renewed a couple of months ago so it is pretty fresh and there’s no indication it has been suddenly cancelled.

That’s a good point to bear in mind when you read Tim’s comments over the past week on the AbitibiBowater expropriation.  Aside from anything else, he writes a regular blog over at the Globe and Mail.

Over the past week, Globe online readers have been getting comments like this, for example:

History provides a great guide into Newfoundland and this Premier's disdain for broken contracts, apparent or otherwise. Was anyone paying attention to the battle between Ottawa and Newfoundland over the Atlantic Accord?

Perhaps one of the reasons Newfoundland is now a "have" province because she does not sit quietly by and accept that a company can abandon its responsibilities regardless of global circumstances.

For those of us who were paying attention back in 2004/05, we know that there were no broken contracts involved, apparent or otherwise.  And that second bit really doesn’t make any sense since there is no evidence that the company involved- AbitibiBowater – has abandoned any responsibilities.  It’s decided to shut an expensive mill in the midst of global recession and in the face of tough financial times within the company. The mill has been operating for 103 years, with Abitibi running the thing since the 1970s.

That all might be a matter for debate for some people but there a subtext to this that just can’t be ignored and that has to do with the relationship between Powers, Hydro and Danny Williams.

The expropriations involved in last Tuesday’s sudden move by the provincial government involved hydroelectric generation.  The new custodian of those assets is the province’s energy corporation  - NACLOR - and its subsidiary, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. 

Subsidiary isn’t the right word, really.  The whole thing is so tightly interconnected, the directorates so tightly interlocked, that it is hard to distinguish one bit of NALCO Reborn form another unless you are a lawyer.  It’s so closely tied to the provincial cabinet that Danny Williams habitually makes all the major announcements for the company. This is not like a Norwegian Crown corporation; it’s more like a Nigerian one for the level of direction it receives from the political end.

At no point, does the Globe point out the connections and Powers doesn’t either, at least not as far as your humble e-scribbler can see.

And just so there’s no mistaking the role Powers’ client is playing in this whole expropriation, let us look no further than the words of Danny Williams himself.

The Premier said it in his statement announcing the unprecedented expropriation:

The Provincial Government will also be taking control of the power plants of Abitibi as without these power plants the hydro power would be wasted. Nalcor Energy will now manage this asset.

The Premier expanded on the point during Question Period the same day:

The Premier:  A good question, Your Honour.

The way that this has been constructed, I indicated in my remarks that the assets, particularly the water assets, would be managed by Nalcor Energy, because obviously Nalcor Energy are now the parent company of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, so our expertise lies at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. They would be, obviously, the appropriate ones to move in and to oversee the water assets particularly and then also to work in partnership with Fortis and Enel on the two partnerships that are on the river. The assets themselves actually revert to the Crown, so the Crown, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, is actually standing behind this, so we would basically be repatriating our water rights and also repatriating our land and timber rights back to the Province.

If, at some point in time, on a go-forward basis, then for purposes of the efficient operation and management of the hydro assets, for want of a better term, then, in fact, an arrangement would be done with Nalcor, but the ultimate liability and the ultimate responsibility very clearly rests with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Something’s been missing this week from the Globe and Mail:  it’s the disclosure of this apparent conflict of interest.

-srbp-

Lower Churchill: US and NL taxpayers might help subsidize costly big hydro project

Premier Danny Williams is promising a Lower Churchill deal before the end of the year and one way he could finance the project is by offloading the cost onto American and Canadian taxpayers.

Some American politicians are trying to redefine state environmental subsidies that currently don’t include hydro megaprojects like the Lower Churchill.  In Massachusetts, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker not only advocated for big hydro as part of the state’s energy future, he also favoured giving big hydro projects the “renewable” status that would make them eligible for state subsidies. 

According to the Boston Globe, the subsidies in Massachusetts alone could be worth as much as six cents a kilowatt hour.

Incumbent Democratic governor Deval Patrick  - who won re-election last week - opposed the idea:

“It does not make sense to give renewable energy incentives to a foreign-owned enterprise for something that needs no subsidy,’’ Patrick said in a statement to the [Boston] Globe. “It would amount to a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars for Canadian ratepayers at the expense of Massachusetts customers.’’

That doesn’t mean the idea is dead in Massachusetts, though.  Energy giant Hydro-Quebec is lobbying hard for the “renewable” status for its own projects. Earlier this year, the company won a battle in Vermont to make hydro eligible for subsidies. That’s all part of HQ’s push to take its share of the New England energy market from 8.5% to upwards of 12%.

Lowering the cost of Lower Churchill power by six cents a kilowatt hour could make Muskrat Falls financially viable, especially if NALCOR left the American marketing to a private sector partner and let that company keep the subsidies.  NALCOR already sells power at the Quebec-New York border to Emera.  Under a deal announced in 2009, the Newfoundland and Labrador company apparently gets about the same rate per kilowatt hour it got from a similar deal with Quebec that expired in 2009.  Any other financial details, like profits from seasonal price fluctuations, seem to flow to the private sector.  It’s hard to know for sure since details of the 2009 detail are confidential. 

And while Danny Williams claimed last week he’d lay any development deal for the very expensive Muskrat Falls version of the project in front of the public, he hasn’t lived up to similar promises yet on other projects.  Many of the key details of the 2007 Hebron deal remain shrouded in secrecy.  Amendments to the province’s open records laws in 2008 shield the publicly owned NALCOR from disclosure of its financial dealings even though it receives public funds to run the company and its subsidiaries.

Foreign tax credits aren’t the only way NALCOR could subsidise the cost of building Muskrat Falls.

Under the most recent version of the Lower Churchill described recently by Premier Danny Williams, 40% of the power from Muskrat Falls would come to eastern Newfoundland. NALCOR’s environmental submissions on the project make it clear, however, that the island portion of the province doesn’t need the power now or in the foreseeable future. The company also plans to keep its diesel generators at Holyrood running even after it builds any new lines to the island from Labrador.

Shipping power to a part of the province that doesn’t need it would give the public utilities board the legal basis to offset any losses from sales to Nova Scotia or into Quebec by offloading them on local ratepayers.  That’s because provincial laws require that the public utilities board to set rates that protect NALCOR’s financial position from its entire operations.  But that rate-setting power only applies to domestic rates. PUB doesn’t regulate export prices.  By using Lower Churchill power in the province – even when it isn’t needed - NALCOR could use local ratepayers to subsidise power exports. 

Taxpayers could get hit another way on the deal as well.  Any NALCOR debt for the project – likely to be at least $6.0 billion – will wind up on the balance sheet of the provincial government, one of the most indebted provincial governments in Canada on a per capita basis. 

- srbp -