Public Policy Health Warning: virulent outbreak of Pinocchiosis Politica in NL

At least two provincial cabinet ministers have been stricken with advanced cases of pinocchiosis politica, a debilitating public policy disorder characterized by incredible or misleading statements, usually by politicians. 

Cabinet ministers are particularly susceptible to infection.

Ironically, health minister Ross Wiseman appears to have the most advanced case.

Wiseman, who has been parliamentary secretary to the health minister since 2003 and took on the ministerial job in 2007 called reporters on Wednesday to correct what he felt were media misstatements.

However, when Wiseman met with reporters in a scrum, he experienced a flare-up:

Asked by a reporter about problems at the Waterford, the minister referenced its “facility report.” He later backtracked, saying “there might be” such a report. But he declined comment on the Waterford situation, noting that he had not read it.

Wiseman later acknowledged Eastern Health had completed an evaluation of its facilities, including the Waterford.

The reports  - more than one - on all acute care facilities in St. John's, including the province's major health centre, were released later in the day. They chronicle $135 million in capital costs to address critical and potentially critical problems with the physical plant as well as a range of other problems and issues.

They were prepared in 2005 but kept secret until Wednesday.

Government thus far has not addressed the problems in the two year old report, beyond offering $500,000 to study the health infrastructure needs in the capital region.

In its 2007-08 budget submission to government, Eastern Health asked for $93 million to deal with critical or near-critical repairs.

The board received $3.6 million, according to [Keith] Bowden, [Eastern Health’s director of infrastructure support].

In December 2007, finance minister Tom Marshall announced the provincial budget would finish that fiscal year with a capital and current account surplus of more than $880 million,  In 2005 - the year the reports were received - the surplus on capital and current account was more than $500 million.

Marshall also appears to afflicted with pinocchiosis politica. On a radio call-in show Thursday, Marshall credited the Auditor General's annual report last year with bringing to his attention the provincial government's debt load and the need for a debt reduction program.

Marshall campaigned in 2003 on the public debt.  As a cabinet minister in 2003, he received a full briefing on the provincial government's financial state from government officials.  Along with the rest of cabinet, he received a detailed financial analysis by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.  Both included references to the high level of public debt.

In 2004, Marshall was part of a cabinet that implemented austerity measures based on the financial analysis it received from these two.

There is no known cure for pinocchiosis politica although the symptoms can be reduced through prolonged exposure of politicians to public scrutiny.  Sustained questioning in the legislature and elsewhere is the usual course of treatment. In extreme cases, treatment will require a public inquiry.

Effective treatment is often hampered by open resistance by the infected individuals to questions or to public inquiry .

Left untreated, pinocchiosis politica spreads and may result in public policy crises,  the destruction of individual political careers and ultimately in political defeat for the party with the greatest number of infected members.

Communities where legislatures are closed for extended periods are ripe for major outbreaks which infect not only cabinet ministers but government backbenchers, other politicians and senior public servants.

Long gaps between general elections and the opening of a legislature also present heightened risk for pinocchiosis politica infections. 

The presence of weak, ineffective or fawning news media promotes the development of the disorder and encourages its spread through the repetition of the incredible and/or misleading statements.

Update:  Several e-mails today shed new light on pinocchiosis politica.

As the correspondents noted, pinocchiosis politica is the general term for a family of disorders afflicting the political class.

Several specific local variants have been identified:

• Pinocchiosis rideoutis has been thus far been identified in only one case.  It is an unusual variant in which patients present with obvious confusion about time (today is today, but tomorrow is actually four months from now) and confusion about buildings (a house is referred to as an office), although they appear completely unaware that what they are saying is pure nonsense. P. rideoutis patients sometimes display a preference for unusual headwear, right.

 

• Pinocchiosis politica hickii seems to occur among politicians from northern climes. P. hickii presents as a belief by the patient that he or she has a signed agreement when in fact the agreements don't exist. P. hickii has also been known to manifest as a compulsion to submit expense claims over and over.
• Pinocchiosis stephenvillia manifests with the patient making promises he or she cannot fulfill.  It is named for the Town of Stephenville.  Residents of the town were promised by a campaigning party leader that the major local employer, a paper mill,  "would not close on my watch".  The mill closed. [See Williams Syndrome]
• Humber West Denial Virus, also known as Williams Syndrome, is characterized by the repeated used of certain words and phrases which have no real meaning or which have lost meaning through repeated use.  For example,  "Quite frankly", "nothing could be further from the truth", "you know" or "Steve".  Patients frequently display repetitive shrugs of the shoulders.  Often this physical action is accompanied by a persistent non-productive cough, particularly when in stressful situations such as when being questioned by reporters. While these are the common names for this manifestation, Williams Syndrome is in fact a variant of pinocchiosis known as P. willielmus.

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Slide a sheet of paper: the spend ‘em if ya got ‘em edition

Earlier this week, finance minister Tom Marshall announced a second increase in the estimate for offshore oil production for 2011 and with it an increase in provincial government revenues.

Marshall claims the money will go to paying down the public debt.

It won’t.

Every time Tom Marshall says he’s paid down the debt, his nose grows. Marshall has a case of pinocchiosis that defies medical science.

If his case of pinocchiosis politica swelled something other than his nose every time he bullshitted about paying down the debt,  Tom could do porno as if he was Johnny Wad and Ron Jeremy and Long Dong Silver combined.

The cash will either:

1. go in the bank and be held in the form of short-term investments that will only appear to lower the debt; or
2. cover the gigantic deficit Tommy  - or whoever is fin min - will face next year as a result of the Tories persistent unsound, unsustainable financial management.

Speaking of spending, that’s exactly what the local chapter of the New Democratic party wants to do with the windfall cash.

"This money, I think, needs to be seen as revenue that has come early, and we [should] keep it until we look at how we need to spend our money in 2012/2013," Michael told CBC News.

You will not be able to slide a sheet of paper between the political parties in this election.  They will all have the same policy, especially hen it comes to spending.

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Norm Doyle is nuts

Norm Doyle just told Mary-Lou Findlay that the only way he'll vote for the budget bill (C-43) is if the Prime Minister renegs on his commitment to pass the offshore money bill.

Is there a psychiatrist in the House? Norm is obviously cracking under the strain.

Either Norm is absolutely crackers or he has no regard whatsoever for the intelligence of his electorate.

As I am listening to Norm he just spouted another falsehood claiming that Danny Williams wanted to see the offshore money in a separate bill from C-43.

Wow, Norm. The pinocchiosis virus is obviously now in full bloom. Danny said as recently as yesterday what he has said all along: pass the bill with offshore money in it. Get it done. A vote against the offshore money - i.e. the budget - is a not in the best interests of the province.

As for the theme of "unauthorized spending" that the Norm and Loyola show are spreading, every deal like the offshore one is technically unauthorized until the House of Commons gives legislative approval.

Does anyone smell an "out" here? A Harper government refuses to honour any of the provincial deals because they are "unauthorized" and set a bad precedent and the country can't afford them. Then on the offshore, Harper just goes back to his plan to change the Equalization formula.

If Norm gets elected, we are gonna be supporting some extra staff to help move his nose around. Pinocchiosis is a modern scourge among some politicians far more debilitating than any other condition.

Maybe Brian Mulroney could host a telethon.

The Politics of Public Spending

Check the local media for the past week and you’ll see a sudden bunch of stories about the series of fire truck announcements provincial politicians of the Tory persuasion are making across the province.

Voice of the Cabinet Minister’s got one.

CBC’s got one.

Apparently there have been 19 announcements or unveilings of new fire trucks, with three more to come.

Municipal affairs minister Fairity O’Brien insists this is just routine stuff and has nothing to do with the provincial election coming in October.

Now ordinarily that would be such a nose puller of a line that one would involuntarily scream “bullshit” at the top of one’s lungs. 

Except that it is Fairity O’Brien. 

In fairitiness to Fairity, the guy who probably can’t remember the name of the  district St. Anthony is in and who bullshitted about planning and emergency response likely does not know that what he said about the fire truck and the truth are two different things.

So let’s just say he has a particularly virulent case of pinocchiosis.

And that he’s more full of shite than usual on top of that, besides.

The announcements are all about politics and the upcoming election.  Even Fairity knows it.  As Geoff Meeker pointed out, here’s what Fairity said in his rambling answer to a question on an open line call-in show about the pork announcements.  After denying they were political, O’Brien said:

okay, so the question here in my district is, and I am only speaking for myself, do you want four more years of what you’ve just experienced in the last eight, or do you want to sit in the Opposition, or whatever it may be…

Now sending such an incredibly weak minister as O’Brien out to defend blatant pork-barrel politics is a sign of arrogance or cynicism.  Take your pick which it is; either way is bad.

O’Brien threat, however is one thing:  stupid.  Were Fairity and his colleagues to punish a district for voting for an opposition member, they would only be cutting their own political throats. Ask the Tories from the 1980s what that sort of political extortion netted them. 

Better yet, ask the Tories on the Great Northern Peninsula what even the mere perception of a political vendetta – the air ambulance decision – has netted them since the Tories lost the Straits and White Bay North by-election.

Not much of any good would come back the answer.

If Kathy Dunderdale wanted to send a stupid message to voters about patronage and voting, then she evidently picked the right fellow.  Fairity O’Brien did a fine job for her.

The Tories might have a bigger problem.  They might be faced with an electorate that knows full well this is all about pork and that realises they win pork no matter what way they vote. He who lives by the hock might wind up dying by the hock, so to speak.

All three political parties in the province will be running campaigns this fall built around delivering ever increasing amounts of pork in exchange for votes.  All three political parties agree that the provincial economy is going gangbusters.  So basically there’d be no legitimate reason to justify cutting back any spending.

The choice for voters this fall is not between fire trucks and no fire trucks. It is over how many fire trucks they want. 

Or a search and rescue centre.

Or an offshore supply base.

If you want to see naked electoral pork-barrelling in action, don’t look at fire trucks.

That’s old hat.  The first election fire truck announcements came in 2007.

Look instead at Bay Bulls.

The provincial and federal governments held separate announcements this week to give cash to the same project.  They held separate announcements so the provincial minister – in trouble in his own district – could get some free advertising for himself without the original tree hugging federal cabinet minister horning in.

Federal cash of $1.0 million for an expansion to Pennecon’s offshore supply base at Bay Bulls met the investment criteria for a provincial program.  Now the province will kick another half million.

$1.5 million in public money for a project estimated to cost no more than $2.1 million in total.

The job haul? 

Maybe 15. 

$100,000 per job.

The Tories hand out millions of taxpayer dollars to private businesses, often free of charge  The Newfoundland and Labrador NDP want to give Nova Scotians a free university education. The Liberals and the New Democrats want to give rich people in the province a break on their Hummer fill-ups and cut the cost of heating their luxury homes. Next thing you know the Liberals will resurrect that God-forsaken Stunnel idea just to mark themselves as the stupidest of stupid political parties.

But seriously: the Tories ran in 2007 on the argument that the Liberals would bankrupt the province by spending like drunken sailors.

They simply can’t make the argument any more. No one will believe it is possible to bankrupt the place after Fairity and his buddies spent the last four years spending on anything and everything imaginable.  And they really will find it hard to accept that money is tight if every political party in the province wants to double electricity rates in the province and double the public debt at the same time through this insane Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Happy days are indeed here again, b’ys.

The only thing missing is the Fonz.

Now that you are squirming a bit, think about what might happen if at the same time people had three parties offering variations on a pork-flavoured platform, they also realised that neither of the leaders would be in their jobs four years from now.

And then wonder what all that might mean in an election where there is nothing to chose from and turn-out might drop by 20%, mostly consisting of Tory voters.

After all, that’s what happened in 2007.  Liberal vote collapsed.  Tory vote declined and the same New Democrats turned out in 2007 that had turned out in 2003.

It could give new meaning to the politics of public spending.

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Misleading the House: recall the whole recall power story

Why would Nalcor mislead the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, asks finance minister Tom Marshall with all the seriousness he can muster.

Yes folks, the fellow with one of the worst cases of pinocchiosis politica ever seen in this province wonders how people at a Crown corporation who hang out regularly with politicians some of who are infected with P. politica could catch the same disease.

Let’s leave the question of motivation out for a second and look at whether or not Nalcor and the provincial government are misleading people about Muskrat Falls.

The answer is undeniable:  yes, they are.

Take recall power as a classic example.

The province will need more electricity within the next decade, according to Nalcor.  For the sake of this post, let us assume that this is correct.

And what’s more, let’s go with the idea that the extra electricity is measure on the scale of several hundred megawatts.

Where to get that extra juice?

Muskrat Falls, says Nalcor.  Gigantic project, but we have to do it because the power is needed and it will be cheaper in the long run.

Again, for the sake of this post, let us allow all those things.

Recall power, sez someone on a morning open line show.  Bring power back from Churchill Falls.

Not enough.

Only 300 megawatts, total.  Some is already sold and used in western Labrador and the rest just isn’t enough to meet the need.  One of Nalcor’s communications people even sends the radio show host and e-mail making the point.

While the information is correct, it leaves out a whole bunch of other stuff.

And that’s what makes Nalcor’s version of recall power grossly misleading.

Under the law that is supposed to ensure the people of the province get the electricity they need at the lowest possible price, the public utilities board could recall as much electricity from Churchill Falls as the people in the province need.

Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation – the people who make the power – and Hydro-Quebec – the people who buy it – would get paid for their lost power.  They’d get compensation.  

We don’t know at this point how much the compensation would be but the cost would be not even half what Muskrat Halls power will cost people in this province.

Heck, your humble e-scribbler would lay odds it would not even be  even ten percent of what the Muskrat falls power is going to cost local taxpayers.

All the provincial government would have to do to make that happen is tax take back an exemption Nalcor got from the provincial government while Beaton Tulk was interim Premier.  The exemption makes sure the PUB can’t control electricity in the province.  It also ensures Nalcor doesn’t have to deliver power at the lowest cost to consumers, if the company doesn’t want to do that.

All that Nalcor would have to do is run a line from Churchill Falls to Soldiers Pond. And gee, isn’t that line what they already have planned and costed at less than $2.0 billion.

Poof.

Job done.

Total cost:  not even half of the current estimate for Muskrat Falls and all the transmission lines.

No question:  Nalcor is misleading the people of the province about recall power.

But why would they do it, asks the finance minister?

Well, only the gang at Nalcor can say for sure, but let’s just recall what Fortis boss Stan Marshall said once about the problem with Crown corporations like Nalcor and expensive projects:

“Simply when things go wrong we’d like to be able to rectify them,” he told reporters.

“If you’re going to go in with a partner you’ve got to know that partner very, very well, have a lot of commonality.

“Governments … their agenda can be very, very  different than a private enterprise.”

Government’s agenda can be different from that of private enterprise.

In other words,  Crown corporations might do things for political reasons instead of sound business reasons. Muskrat Falls gave Danny Williams the political cover he needed to quit politics.  Now Muskrat Falls is the Tory party’s election platform.

Nalcor couldn’t disown this project even if they wanted to.

It’s politics.

So they have to tell only half a story, like the misleading story they tell on recall power.

Or, for that matter, like the story Tom Marshall tells about the public debt.

If Tom Marshall wants to know why Nalcor misleads people, he need only look in the mirror.

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Did his nose just grow… again? #nlpoli

According to Nalcor boss Ed Martin,  the absence of a mere $15 million of old-fashioned 2D seismic was an obstacle to multi-billion dollar global corporations doing business offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

“The strategic investments we are making in our geoscience program in offshore Newfoundland and Labrador is laying the foundation, by lowering barriers, for major international petroleum companies to invest their capital for further exploration in the province,” said Ed Martin, Nalcor Energy’s President and CEO.

Seriously?

Ed Martin thinks people will actually believe that.  People are actually that dim.

Pinocchiosis is truly a horribly disfiguring disease.

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and on the third day, the Premier had no control of anything...

Wednesday turned out to be a day of bizarre contradictions.

Consider, for example, that on Monday the Premier insisted he took full responsibility for what was done or not done by anyone involved in the breast cancer debacle. He spoke consistent with principles of modern, public sector administration.

By Wednesday, as questions swirled around why a briefing note prepared for him was not sent to the minister at the time, he had a different view of control and responsibility:

So, you know I cannot attribute any blame. I cannot pass my own personal opinion on it. What we have seen is we have seen instances where Eastern Health had omitted and deleted information from briefing notes that were being released under ATTIP requests, and that was done. They have gone off - they have actually had press conferences where, in fact, all of the information was not revealed. Those are actions that are beyond the control of the minister. The minister cannot be responsible for every single person all the way down the line in the health care system because they have no possible, tangible means of doing it.

"Those are actions that are beyond the control of the minister. "  How odd. 

The Premier makes this comment after claiming that officials of Eastern Health had edited documents being released under the province's access to information laws. This is certainly news on the order of the allegations of forged documents that led to the Somalia Inquiry.  It's a curious parallel for the Premier to draw, even implicitly, since Somalia was a tale, in part, of great intrigue including the destruction of documents and problems in presenting documents to an inquiry.

But even if this allegation about the production of false documents were true - and there doesn't appear to be any evidence thus far that it is - the subsequent part of the Premier's comment undermines any notion of ministerial responsibility and ministerial accountability which he laid claim to on Monday.

Legally, ministers are indeed responsible for the actions of the department and the people within the department.  They are accountable to the public through the legislature for those actions.  They have tangible means of directing action and of monitoring activities within the department.  Departments are organized specifically to provide direction and control from the minister through to the front line workers of a given agency.

If there is no "possible, tangible means of doing it", i.e. of being responsible, then the department cannot function and government would grind to a halt.  think about it for a minute.  If a minister cannot direct action within a department there is no need for the legislature to pass laws directing a program to be implemented.  If a problem is detected, as in the breast cancer case, then it will be impossible to ensure it never happens again nor is it possible to produce the "best system in the country."  An absence of control and accountability - the essence of the Premier's comment - makes it impossible for government to function.

A minister cannot micro-manage, of course, if that is what the Premier meant.  It is impossible for anyone to direct the specific, detailed actions of every person in any organization, irrespective of its size.  Only fools try to do it and those fools that do usually create a dysfunctional organization full of unpleasant, unhappy and unhealthy people in the process.

The Premier's contention is, on the face of it, sheer nonsense.  Ministers can and do control their departments in a variety of ways. One of them is through the simple issuing of direction on what will be done in a given instance or, when something is not done, to have it sorted out and done to the satisfaction of the minister.

One of the enduring unanswered questions in the breast cancer debacle thus far relates to this simple notion.  Once ministers - including the Premier - became aware of certain issues, such as a failure by Eastern Health to disclose information, they failed to direct other action instead.  For example, if the Premier was aware - as he clearly was - that Eastern Health was no disclosing certain information - he failed to issue instructions to correct the situation. 

That is, by his own account he failed to exercise his legal responsibilities as first minister to direct the actions of government officials or those of Crown agencies.

With regard to the minister’s comment on, if he had it, he would have gone public. Well, I do not know what he had or what he did not have. He did not have that briefing note. The following month there was a press conference whereby Eastern Health disclosed information, even though they did not disclose all of it, and I have no control over that, that was in the public domain. Why the minister at that point did not decide to come to me or go public with it, he is the only one who can answer that. [Emphasis added]

Contrast that with the Premier's words and actions as the House of Assembly scandal broke in June 2006.  He took action.  He issued instructions.  He took credit for bringing the Auditor General into the House of Assembly. He had no executive authority to do so - the House is not a government department -  but he claimed credit for it anyway.

Yet, on a far more serious matter in a department over which he, as first minister had executive control through cabinet and successive ministers, the Premier had "no control over that." One wonders why, if that were the case, he would request a briefing note on a matter over which he had no control. Idle curiosity?  Why would he have bothered to give up the life of a successful lawyer to take on a job where he had no control over anything of substance? How is it that he can be consumed with trivialities enough to threaten legal action against your humble e-scribbler for some still incomprehensible reason and yet he cannot control the actions of government officials nor recall whether or not he received briefings on key issues?

The answer to these questions is, of course, that the Premier's comments in the House today are sheer nonsense.

Some of his other comments though may not be nonsense and, if true, raise far more significant implications for the conduct of government business.  A 1998 description of the executive functioning of the provincial government describes a typical relationship of the Premier and his two chief advisors, his political chief of staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council.

A close working relationship involving the Office of the Premier, Cabinet Secretariat and the other secretariats within the Office of the Executive Council is essential. The Premier meets daily with both his Chief of Staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council. The Premier’s Chief of Staff and the Clerk of the Executive Council work in close collaboration, keeping the other apprised of political, policy, communications and administrative considerations.

At the head of the Office of the Executive Council (other than the Office of the Premier) is the Clerk of the Executive Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. This position encompasses three related roles. As Deputy Minister to the Premier, the Clerk is the senior official reporting to the Premier on all governmental matters. The Clerk receives and transmits instructions from the Premier, and, as the senior official in the Office of the Executive Council, the Clerk coordinates the operation of the secretariats.

The Clerk assists the Premier in setting the Cabinet agenda, arranges meetings of Cabinet, oversees the preparation of briefing materials for the Premier, ensures the records of Cabinet are properly maintained and, under the Premier’s guidance, plans Cabinet retreats. The Clerk is also responsible for process in the conduct of Cabinet business and, from time to time, works with Ministers and senior officials on substantive matters on Cabinet’s agenda.

It would not be unusual for the Clerk of the Executive Council to meet with the premier daily on a variety of issues.  The Clerk is after all, the deputy minister to the Premier and typically reports to the Premier on all matters of government especially those involving the administration of government.

With that as background, consider the following comment by the Premier in response to a question about whether the Clerk of the Council had mentioned to him the serious problem at Eastern Health when the Clerk became aware of it in July 2005:

Mr. Speaker, I cannot recall a conversation with Mr. Thompson on that particular issue. Mr. Thompson would brief me, not on a daily basis. It was sometimes on an extended basis, sometimes it could be as long as a month when we sat down for briefings. Mr. Thompson and his staff, I have not made a direct question to Mr. Thompson as to whether I did have it, but it has been requested as to whether there were any conversations with Mr. Thompson, and to my knowledge there were none.

A month between briefings from his own deputy minister? Those familiar with the operations of government would find such a statement leads to only a handful of conclusions none of which are good either for the province or the Premier.

The most obvious conclusion is that he is suffering from pinocchiosis but it would be rash to assume this. He may well be stating his own view of the job and of the reality of how this administration functions or dysfunctions. The Premier may well not bother himself with many of demands of his job, leaving responsibility to his unelected staff and to such cabinet ministers as Tom Rideout.

Of course, that is not the picture which has been described to date nor is it the basis on which he has received such overwhelming popular support. That's one of the political landmines Danny Williams faces:  the Cameron Inquiry may reveal much of how his administration has actually functioned.

If he continues to claim he has no control of anything and attempts to shift responsibility for action and inaction onto other people, the public may well start to wonder why they elected him and his associates in the first place.

No wonder cabinet is trying desperately to find an excuse to stop questions in the House of Assembly on the breast cancer debacle. 

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More like a small gene pool

The local New Democrats are still a little miffed that Karen Oldford decided to run for the Liberals in Labrador West instead of the party of Tommy Douglas.

"I'm quite disgusted.… I've never heard of this stuff happening before," said Nancy Riche, responding to Karen Oldford's decision to run for the Liberals in the March 13 byelection in Labrador West.

NDP president Nancy Riche said she is appalled that the Liberals competed for a candidate her party had lined up to run in Labrador West. NDP president Nancy Riche said she is appalled that the Liberals competed for a candidate her party had lined up to run in Labrador West.

"It really speaks to principles [and] lack of principles and ethics, I think."

That's a quote from the CBC story.

As much as Nancy Riche is a solid commentator and a savvy political operative, this comment suggests the early stages of late onset pinocchiosis.

Now that we have a bit more information, the whole thing sounds like typical daily life in the small gene pool known as Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

I used to be commonplace to see the same person being courted by at least two parties at the same time. That was back before the ice sheet retreated and Pangaea split up; you know back when your humble e-scribbler was actively involved in politics.

Young readers will be excused for googling Pangaea to see who played lead guitar.

In the run up to the 1989 Cucumber Battle between Tom "Shakeylegs" Rideout, right, and Clyde "Unconscionable" Wells, there was one candidate who was fiercely pursued by both Grit and Tory suitors. In the end, the candidate elected to go Tory figuring that Rideout would win. It was a fair bet and had the candidate chosen correctly, well, a cabinet seat was waiting either way. That wasn't part of the inducement; it's just a natural conclusion given who the individual is.

Trevor Taylor ran as a Dipper, if memory serves. Ditto Wally Noel, the former King of Pleasantville who could easily knock off the singularly unimpressive natural resources minister even if he ran again even for the Radical Looney A-ha-ha Party.

Floor crossing is an old sport in this province after an election. Sometimes people start out working with one party only to see the error of their ways and switching to another team.

If Nancy really wants to find the culprit in this little drama, she can look to Jack who hit the road after 16 years as head of the local NDP having done nothing obvious in the meantime to give the part a reasonable shot at being the official opposition, let alone take government.

As good as she is at partisan politics, Nancy couldn't hope to undo a decade and a half of inertia in a handful of weeks.

No Kathy for Kent

Danny’s gone from Steve Kent’s website.

In fact, the website that hadn’t been updated since 2007 is gone entirely, replaced with a new one.

So hasty was the old one hauled down – after it featured prominently here – that there’s even a note apologising for any technical glitches.

Conspicuously absent from it is any reference to the Old Man’s replacement, Kathy Dunderdale.

The old one proudly proclaimed Steve to be a Dapper Dan man, right there in the upper left hand corner where eyes always go on an English language website.

First thing you see on the Old Site? 

The Old Man!

First thing you see now?

Not Kathy.

Where once you had Steve Kent, proud, strong and determined member of Danny Williams’ team. now you’ve just got this bland, generic website for the member of the House of Assembly for Mount Pearl North.

Same URL.

Different content.

Now when asked Steve might say the site is paid for by the taxpayers out of public funds so it can’t bear a partisan label.  The advertising policy, dontchya know, old chap.

Watch out for the early onset pinocchiosis there if he tries that excuse.

Of course, if that old site was paid for by you and me, then it was clearly violating the policy. Something would have to be done to make sure Steve wasn’t breaking the rules.

If it’s out of Steve’s own pocket, then this would be even weirder than it already is, but that’s another issue.

Anyway…

On the old version of the site, all Steve would have to do in order to stay within the guidelines is take off the party logo and delete any references to it in the text.

On the new version of the site - stevekent.ca  - you could have the same sort of thing. But there isn’t anything like it.

Nothing about Steve’s boss in his capacity as parliamentary secretary. 

That’s a government job, not a House one or a party one.

And his boss is the Premier. Steve could mention her – just like he mentioned Premier Dan – and he’d still fit the policy barring partisan advertising.

So why doesn’t Steve-o have his boss’ picture and tons of information about the government on his website?

Really good question.

Aside from one side-on shot at some event or other, Kathy Dunderdale is a big black hole on Steve Kent’s website.

Talk about negative space.  Kathy’s absence just screams at you.

Steve could even have links to government news releases and a reference to the department he works for.

But there’s nada.

Stay tuned, gang. 

Kent’s website could duck into a phone booth and change again into Super-Tory any second now.

Stranger things have happened.

- srbp -

Matthews appointment to offshore board kept under wraps until leak

Flip back to the provincial government news release archive for last December and there’s one thing you won’t see:  an announcement appointing Elizabeth Matthews to occupy a provincial seat on the offshore regulatory board.

That’s because they didn’t issue an announcement despite sending the federal government a letter advising the feds of the provincial appointment. You can find the letter online at the Official Opposition’s website.  They got it from the provincial natural resources department.

In the second paragraph of the letter, natural resources minister Shawn Skinner  also nominates Matthews as vice-chair of the offshore regulatory board. That’s something the federal government would have to agree to.  Apparently they did but only on the condition that the province accept a federal second vice-chair.

One huge difference between the two vice-chairs, incidentally is that the federal one actually was a senior policy advisor in a previous life.  The biographical sketch of Elizabeth Matthews was evidently written by someone in the latter stages of advanced pinocchiosis.  For example, the bio sketch talks about a re-negotiation of the Atlantic Accord.  That never happened so it would be pretty hard for Matthews to have been involved in it at all, let alone at the level the writer claimed.

There’s a story in Saturday’s Telegram on this but sadly it isn’t online. The story includes some quotes from a bizarro news release Skinner issued on Friday, supposedly to correct information in the Liberal release that went out along with Skinner’s letter to the feds.

The bizarro thing is that he didn’t actually correct anything. Instead, Skinner confirmed what the Liberals said.  he also did a bit of a nose-puller when he claimed that the provincial government had to appoint Matthews to the board in order to nominate her as vice chair.

Think of that as being a chicken-and-egg version. Before now, the federal and provincial governments could successfully agree on an appointment as vice-chair before making an announcement.  The board seat was secondary.  In this case, the provincial government apparently tried to push Matthews forward with a seat on the board and then tried to cut the deal on the vice-chair’s job.

Surprise.  Surprise.

The feds didn’t play along and put forward their own nominee for a second spot in a “I’ll take yours but only if you take mine too” kinda deal.

Both bits of that – the provincial ploy and the federal counter - likely have a lot to do with the fact that Matthews is basically a patronage appointee with no relevant qualifications to take on the vice-chair’s job. She can’t really hold a candle to either the current or former chair and she’s outclassed experientially speaking by the guy she was supposedly replacing.  Had the provincial government opted for a meritorious appointment perhaps with an open competition they might have found one of several qualified women from the province to take the job.

Word of Matthews’ appointment leaked out about three or four weeks ago in the province’s oil community.  It caused a great deal of consternation.  A few weeks after word started to spread, CBC’s David Cochrane reported it.  He only gave the bare bones of the basic story though. Apparently CBC isn’t reporting the rest of these details as they’ve come to light.  It will be interesting to see if anyone adds new details to the story this week or if this is really the end of the story.

- srbp -

Plus ca change: Dunderdale tender blunder

For some reason the provincial government has taken to issuing news releases to challenge questions from the opposition during Question period in the legislature.

On Tuesday, it was transportation minister John Hickey who was caught in an advanced stage of pinocchiosis over federal funding for the Trans-Labrador Highway. He supposedly told someone he had a signed contract. As we have all learned this would not be even close to true since the feds are waiting on the province to get a work plan in place.

Today, it was natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale. The blunder-plagued minister was trying to explain why the Bull Arm Corporation cancelled a tender and then re-tendered.

The Liberal opposition claimed the first tender was cancelled when a local Liberal came in with the lowest bid. They argued the project was redefined so that someone else - in this case the future local Tory candidate's campaign manager could get a piece. The future candidate, by the by, is Joan Cleary; Bond Papers discussed her appointment to head the Bull Arm Corporation some time ago.

But in defending the tender, Dunderdale actually provides us with a pretty convincing example of a complete cock-up. Whether it was politically motivated - as the Opposition suggests - or just a case of mismanagement and incompetence, the whole tender should never have been handled the way it was. Around here, Bond Papers would contend it is evidence that - as we noted last November - Joan Cleary isn't qualified for the job she currently holds.

Here's why.

The original tender at Bull Arm was for the complete replacement of the existing security shack. That is a pretty straightforward project involving labour and materials together as one unit. One can logically conclude that if the first tender was for complete replacement, Bull Arm management had made a determination that the building needed complete replacement. It's an important piece of work, even if the shack is relatively small.

While Bull Arm management may have had a cost estimate in mind, they ran a tender process and a low tender duly arrived. Notice that Dunderdale does not say how much Bull Arm originally expected to see as the bids; she does claim, though, that the prices were such that Bull Arm decided to cancel the entire tender and , presumably, do nothing in the meantime.

And that's where it gets hinky. If the existing security shack was in such a state that it needed to be replaced, there simply isn't any reason to cancel the tender and not do anything about it. This approach suggests the original tender was bogus.

According to Dunderdale, Bull Arm only went to a second tender once some harsh weather caused damage to the shack. Nice try as excuses go, but if the original tender had been let or if the project had been re-tendered right away, Bull Arm Corp would likely have avoided the situation caused by weather. There would be no emergency since proper action was taken from the outset.

Instead Bull Arm Corp now had an emergency on its hands, albeit one that evidently resulted from its own poor management practices.

Rather than go to tender - as normally required under the Public Tender Act - now called the situation an emergency. For some completely unfathomable reason, Bull Arm split the project into two tenders: one for materials and one for labour and then went to three specific bidders for quotes.

Under the Public Tender Act, that is permissible - in a genuine emergency. But the legislation's exemption for emergencies is intended to cover real emergencies, not ones caused by dubious management decisions.

Interestingly enough, the original low bidder didn't get the work and the whole project was completed for over $50,000 less than the original tender's lowest bidder. We don't know if the whole shack was replaced, as originally intended, or if the thing was patched up and repaired. We'll never know since the people involved in the process would never make public all the documents and records to justify the situation.

Instead, we should be suspicious of the facts as described by the minister. On the face of it, the minister describes incompetent management of a relatively small project. On top of that the minister provides excuses for the mismanagement by claiming the proper process was followed. Clearly it wasn't: the cancellation of the original tender suggests something was amiss.

And if that weren't bad enough, we see once again the most familiar of all excuses trotted out by the Williams administration when it is accused of something: the rules allow it.

As Offal News put it last month, in another story related to Bull Arm Corp:

That does not mean it's right, correct, proper or ethical; he merely means it's legal. Legal is a long way from appropriate.

In the case of the security shack, it doesn't matter if Joan Cleary was involved in the decision or not, or whether the inning bidder was her former campaign manager or even that the low bidder on the cancelled tender call was a Liberal.

What Dunderdale has described is a classic example of shoddy management that led to damage to government property, followed by a clever - but all-too obvious - abuse of the Public Tender Act to divert attention away from poor management. They failed to exercise due diligence, to use a phrase the former InTRD minister herself was fond of abusing.

To make it worse, Dunderdale, as minister responsible for Bull Arm, is effectively endorsing the blunders made by Bull Arm Corp as well as condoning the abuse of the spirit of the public tender statute.

We were all told to expect better from our government three years ago, indeed to expect better from this government.

The case of the Bull Arm shack shows just how little changed in local politics in October 2003.

Hearn continues deceit

Personally, I am long since past the point of giving Connie Loyola Hearn, the pretend member of parliament for St. Johns-Mount Pearl, any consideration when it comes to telling - deliberately telling - falsehoods.

The man also known as Blarney the green dinosaur from up the shore has got to know that what he is saying is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts - a giant coprolite. You can't be around politics as long as Hearn and be as powerful and influential as he claims to be, without knowing when you spout garbage. The man is hoist yet again by his own petard.

Hearn even has the gall to call the prime minister a liar. Hearn is the Typhoid Mary of pinocchiosis. He ought to know a lie when he sees one.

Hearn will say anything - regardless of veracity or accuracy - in order to advance his partisan cause.

He proves it every single time he opens his mouth.

I am speaking here of an FAQ on Hearn's web page that tries to explain the parliamentary procedures involved in passing bills. All this is in aid of getting the heat of his backside over the offshore votes.

Anyone listening to the radio on Friday heard a nonstop litany of callers who told Hearn to back off plans to defeat the government before the budget bill passes. The heat is on, but apparently Hearn in unrepentant in his approach of putting Harper and Hearn before province.

Anyway, for the record, here is the link to the offending FAQ.

Hearn says the fastest way to get the offshore money is to split the bill or have an election.

1. Bill C-43 and a stand-alone offshore bill have to go through exactly the same seven steps to become law. There is no way to speed that process up without unanimous consent. Realistically, the budget has to be passed soon or the government lacks the legal authority to spend money.

The budget measures will likely be clear of the House before the end of June, barring another Connie-inspired confidence shakedown in the House.

2. Another election would delay not speed up the bill. Read Hearn's first question and answer: No money until the whole process is complete.

If we have to wait until after another election, who knows how long it will take for the money to flow? Incidentally, this nonsense about last year's budget passing last week is just that: nonsense. Here's the progress of bills section from the parliamentary website. I dare anyone to find a supply bill from last year that passed in 2005, let alone passed in May 2005. Bill C-33 is called a second act for good reason: it makes some amendments to last year's authorization for administrative and other purposes.

But make no mistake:

Budget 2004 was passed in its entirety in Fiscal Year 2004. Here's the link confirming that Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget was tabled in March 2004 and:

Budget 2004 passed on May 14, 2004

Maybe Mr. Hearn can't remember what year this is.

I can assure you the current budget will be longer than the end of June, but only if Stephen Harper and Loyola Hearn get their way.

Given that this release was issued by Hearn's office this week, I think Kevin and the Fair Dealers need to target Mr. Hearn to make sure he votes for this province on the subsequent budget votes due to come before this province collects the offshore money from the Williams-Martin deal.

Let's see if a thousand e-mails an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for three months gets the facts through Hearn's noggin.

The Why Incision

Over the past few months, readers of The Sir Robert Bond Papers have been treated to jabs aimed at Conservative members of parliament (MP) Norm Doyle and Loyola Hearn.

They have heard about cases of pinocchiosis inflicting one or the other and of both of them scoring zero on the Cred-o-Meter (r) on several occasions.

All fine, humourous and undoubtedly as annoying as those comments were to Hearn and Doyle supporters, they are rooted not so much in partisanship as in an acknowledgement of the fundamental gap between what these gentlemen have said in the past and what they have done in the present.

The entire Fair Deal for Newfoundland campaign to pressure Hearn and Doyle, the calls to call-in radio shows, all have their origins in the vocal chords of the two MP.

Here are some samples of what they said on the issue of the offshore revenue deal and how a member of parliament should vote:

"I'’m there to look after Newfoundland, and the six other MPs also, and if we’re not we shouldn’'t be there."

- – Loyola Hearn, July 4, 2004

"We're sent to do a job; we'll stand up for Newfoundland regardless of who's for us or who's against us."

- – Loyola Hearn, November 13, 2004

"Never again do I expect to see the members from our province in such a position of clout. It would be a terrible shame if that clout were squandered by not using it at all."

–- Norm Doyle, October 26, 2004

"Why can we not, just once, stand united for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador? Why can we not, just once, stand on guard for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?"

–- Norm Doyle, October 26, 2004

These two gentlemen never hesitated for one second to conjure the spirits of nationalism and populism when they could be directed against their target: John Efford. They reveled in the damage the demons inflicted inflicted, making a very difficult issue intensely personal.

Mr. Hearn, in particular, proved that perceptions of him as a kind and decent fellow were utterly false. His deeply personal remarks, at times, were nothing short of scurrilous. They were hardly becoming of a former provincial cabinet minister, let alone a member of our national parliament and a potential federal cabinet minister in waiting.

It should be no surprise therefore that some people took delight in his predicament over bills C-43 and C-48. No surprise, therefore that the populist was hoist with his own petard.

The problem for Hearn and Doyle, however, is not a partisan one.

The tragedy of Doyle and Hearn is that they represent an old-fashioned approach to politics which has past. These men learned their politics in the 1960s and 1970s, practiced it through the Peckford insanity and then stumbled into Opposition in the 1990s. They slipped back behind the scenes only to re-emerge in the federal legislature where they sat largely unnoticed until recently.

Events of the past six months have shown both Doyle and Hearn to be mere relics of a style of politics that took voters for granted, that treated them as ignorant, that saw no problem with saying one thing and doing another.

Consider Hearn's recent post office nonsense.

Consider Hearn issuing a constituency flyer before the last election saying that Equalization clawbacks were contrary to the Atlantic Accord, while the clawbacks that existed were exactly the ones he voted to support in 1985.

Consider Hearn's attack on a fisheries matter in another jurisdiction that did not affect this province at all, yet was whipped into an Open Line Crisis. The ship in question, leased from a foreign owner was subsequently bought by the Canadian company thus giving the lie to Hearn's accusation that a Liberal government in Ottawa was letting foreigners take our fish.

Consider Hearn lately explaining how one bill must go through six stages before cash could flow (there are actually seven) taking upwards of a year while another bill could seemingly float magically through the same process in mere weeks.

Consider just within the past week, Hearn and Doyle flanking their Leader as he explained that they had developed a confidence two-step which, as Stephen Harper admitted, was merely a device to prevent Hearn and Doyle from being accused of voting against their province. This sham did not last to see the light of the next day.

Did they really think people were so gullible, so completely stupid?

To be fair, parliamentarians serve many masters with different interests. It is unreasonable to expect that they always side with their constituents, their party or their leader. Our democratic system is built on the expectation that parliamentarians will learn to balance the competing interests and ultimately exercise their best judgment on our behalf.

But here is where the modern democracy differs from the version that Hearn and Doyle practice. Modern democracy is a dialogue. Voters expect that politicians will speak frankly and reasonably. They expect to have discussion and disagreement. They expect that a politician will tell them what he or she plans to do and explain why in plain English.

The jibes to one side, the main reason why these electronic scribbles have poked at Hearn and Doyle is because they failed to measure up, not to their self-imposed standard of populist nonsense but to the baseline for modern democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Hearn and Doyle had ample opportunity to state exactly what they were going to do on Thursday and explain why they thought it best for the country and the province. Let their Leader be hysterical and angry. Seasoned politicians can be strong-minded but relentless in their explanations.

What we got instead from Hearn and Doyle was spin - misrepresentations, half-truths and in some cases contradictory answers from one question to another.

What we got from Hearn and Doyle was weak through and through and relentless only to the extent they both regurgitated their talking points over and over.

Not once did they even pretend to hold an intelligent conversation with their constituents.

To make matters worse, Hearn in particular picked fights - needless fights - with Premier Williams. His "neophyte" crack, if said in the heat of the moment could have been easily forgiven with an apology. Instead, Hearn made the matter worse with further insults, backed, a few days ago by the ever-charming Mr. Harper. To his credit, the Premier displayed restraint when asked to reply.

Hearn and Doyle together persisted in their implausible positions to the point where even their own supporters in the provincial Tory caucus were openly talking of deserting them. Whatever shred of credibility they had even with the most stalwart of Tory supporters, must surely be stripped from them by now. As some have said, how can they go door to door with these guys and sincerely ask voters to support them?

Taken all together, it would be very surprising if either Hearn or Doyle survived to the next election.

Both Hearn and Doyle barely won their seats in the last election. Hearn, in particular, had counted on an easy win in a safe seat; instead he found that a neophyte came within a hair's breadth of defeating him. His weak position in the riding has grown steadily weaker since the last election and in the past several days, one can see that whatever pillars served as his support have been demolished with his own jawbone.

When they stood to vote against the federal government's budget, Hearn and Doyle were seen as voting against their own province and their own people. Neither Doyle nor Hearn bothered to explain themselves to the very people whose support they needed. They left that perception to become reality and it has been their undoing.

Norman Doyle and Loyola Hearn represent a style of politics long since mouldering in the ground.

It remains now for someone else to write the epitaph.

This has been merely a political autopsy.

Hearn pinocchiosis reaches terminal stage

In comments on CBC radio today, Loyola Hearn said that he could not stand for spending outside the budgetary process.

He might want to tell us what that is.

The agreement with the New Democrats is obviously within the budgetary process since a bill authorizing the expenditure is currently before the Commons.

Mr. Hearn either doesn't understand how our system of government works or he simply says whatever comes into his head to justify his actions.

A little perspective would be nice

On Day Two of the revamped Fair Deal campaign, over 7, 000 e-mails have been sent to Norm Doyle and Loyola Hearn pressing them to vote for the offshore money on Thursday - put province above party.

I just caught Loyola Hearn desperately trying to avoid dealing with that core issue.

It is everyone else's fault, says Loyola, not mine that I must put party above province.

Let's take a little time out for perspective.

A few short months ago, a motion cam before the House - from Loyola I believe - condemning the Prime Minister in strong language and pressing the government to sign a deal on the offshore.

Some Liberal MPs voted for the motion, something I don't mind telling you I thought was despicable given that the Pm was obviously trying to conclude some sort of deal. I even went so far as to e-mail one of them saying that he should resign.

Well, in hindsight, I will say that I was wrong. Those Liberal members of parliament actually took a stronger stand since they voted on a mere motion which, even though it criticized the prime minister, had little weight. It still took guts to do that.

By contrast, now when the cash is on the line, when it is meaningful and serious, it is clear that both Doyle and Hearn are putting party before province.

A few months ago those Liberal MPs could have sided with the prime minister and voted against the motion knowing full well a deal would be done and the vote would come before the House. The difference between the two positions could not be any more stark.

As a closing point, here is what Stephen Harper said in the Commons last week when he failed to get unanimous consent to split the offshore deals from the rest of the budget bill:

"The government House leader and the Chair will of course know that by what he has done he has ensured no vote on the Atlantic accord for at least a year."

Now what exactly did Mr. Harper mean by that, in light of Mr. Hearn's assurances that a Conservative government would bring the bill before the House shortly after the next federal election?

Credibility gap?

Rampant pinocchiosis?

Take your pick.

Nutty Norm and Michael Harris

Norm Doyle has snapped completely under the strain of people wanting him to put province first, while Norm himself is putting his party before all.

In an interview with VOCM, Norm insisted that had the government supported a motion to split the offshore money from the budget bill, the province would have had its money right away.

Norm is now confirmed as being willing to say anything at all in a desperate bid to prop up his position.

Even if the bill got through the House before Norm and his fellow Conservatives defeated the government, the province can't get a nickel until the bill passes the Senate and gets Royal Assent.

Ok. I just thought about it again.

Maybe Norm isn't nuts after all.

Maybe what Norm is saying is that if we can get the bill out of Harper's clutches and into the Liberal-dominated Senate it will pass irrespective of who wins the next federal election.

Maybe what Norm and the Premier are telling us is that if Norm Doyle's party brings down the government our offshore money is history. But if we could possibly get it past Harper then maybe it would be safe - but only because Liberals are steadfastly behind the deal.

Norm Doyle: pinocchiosis-induced insanity or disloyal to his leader? Geez. This is getting harder to read with every passing moment. What will Norm say next?

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, Michael Harris has decided to kick the crap out of Danny Williams.

Here's a link to his column in the Sun chain.

It contains such comments as:

"First of all Danny, you are the premier of Newfoundland, not Napoleon. There are limits to a local potentate's powers, even one as rich as you are personally. Last time I looked, the province's MPs took their marching orders from Martin and Harper, not you."

or this one:

"He [Williams] even had the cheek to describe his ugly fiat to all provincial MPs as non-partisan. What could be more partisan than supporting a government and party that have made your corner of the world more prosperous while corrupting the highest public institutions in the land?" [Emphasis added.]

Mike, I got a question for you. Did you ever write screeds for John Crosbie? I do know you wrote a fawning book about the former federal governor of the former poorest province.

Maybe Mike has been inhaling Charlie Lynch columns by the snoutful.

But man, Mike's anti-Danny invective in this column will make people appreciate Margaret Wente for her frankness.

Loyola Hearn: Pinocchiosis case zero

Alright, I take the words I use very seriously.

But when I hear Loyola Hearn on CBC Radio spouting nonsense about how a stand-alone offshore revenue bill would pass the House in a second while the current bill will take forever because it is "complicated", then I know we have found case zero in the spread of pinochiosis.

He is telling fibs, untruths, spreading falsehoods deliberately to bolster his political cause. He spews them faster and in greater numbers than any politician I have ever known.

Loyola knows full well that what he is saying is simply not true according to the processes of the House. A stand alone bill will take just as long if not longer than Bill C-43.

Then there's another one he just spit out about supposed problems finding Liberal candidates.

His Connies just closed calls for nominations with not even a single person coming forward.

Hearn's problem with Bill C-43 is that his leader and Peter Kent, their newest candidate oppose the offshore deals.

Hearn knows the money is doomed if Harper becomes prime minister, yet in the meantime, Loyola will say anything to advance his personal interests.

It is long past time for someone to rid us all of this corrupt member. His desire for power outstrips his commitment to integrity in relationships with his constituents.

Up a tree

Two examples of the strange workings in politics and government came today courtesy of the provincial Progressive Conservative caucus and the City of St. John's.

CBC news reported on a demolition order issued by the City of St. John's for the tree house in the backyard of a city resident. TV news had pictures of the structure which is actually sturdier than some of the cabins people spend the May 24th weekend in.

City officials defend their actions on the grounds of safety.

I am thinking they have done one of three things.

Either they have decided to become the treehouse nazis - a la the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld - extending their considerable jurisdiction into even the tiniest aspect of life in the city

or

They are using the national building code as a cheap excuse to quiet complaints from neighbours who may object to the treehouse for other grounds.

or

In light of a complaint they don't want to endorse the structure out of fear that someone can sue them.

Either way - or even if there is another explanation, the city officials have made a decision that is rightly exposing them to national attention and likely considerable national ridicule.

Hint: when the public has a commonsense reaction that a government policy is silly, maybe the public is right.

Over in the other forest known as provincial politics, there is considerable chatter among the tree-dwellers about the ouster of one Fabian Manning from his particular troop of political great apes. The other troops are looking on in bewilderment.

Personally, I am gonna have to wait for this one to evolve a bit or for some people to give me calls with information. The whole thing leaves me gobsmacked, if for no other reason than when you think Tory, you think Manning. The idea this guy has been given the flick is almost too bizarre for words.

Let's put this in political context for you.

In 1968, Clyde Wells and John Crosbie resigned from cabinet and were booted out of caucus for challenging then Premier Joe Smallwood over financing for the Come by Chance deal. Crosbie has dislocated his shoulders over the years patting himself on the back for being the one who stood up to Joe. I have a sneaking suspicion that in the fullness of time another account will emerge that will pop JC's arm back into its socket and set the record straight on this and a whole bunch of other matters. But I digress.

Other than that one, I can't really think of a time when any caucus in the House of Assembly punted one of its members. Some premiers, like Brians Peckford or Tobin, bought the silence of members by giving everyone some extra stipend. Others just tolerated the dissidents.

When Wells became Premier he eliminated the raft of parliamentary secretaries jobs and loosened the reigns on government members. After all, reasoned Wells, they were elected to represent their constituents. Since they weren't in cabinet they needn't be constrained by any rules of confidentiality and solidarity. Besides, except on crucial matters like money bills, government had such a sizeable majority that one or two voting with the other guys wouldn't harm anyone.

Before Tobin bought him off with a made-up cabinet seat, for example, Wally Noel used to be one of those dissidents who frequently spoke against a particular government policy. He was still a welcome member of caucus though since he never ever sided with the opposition when it came time to vote. Plus he made a valuable contribution to public debate by raising ideas and issues that otherwise wouldn't have been raised most likely.

If I can presume to give some analysis on Wells' policy, Wells could hardly criticize a contrarian after being one himself. More to the point though, his actions reflected a view of what members of the House of Assembly were sent there to do. It also reflected a fundamental respect for the equal status of individual members.

The Premier, for his part, seems never content to let things be as they are. His opponents or those he opposes must be working a conspiracy. In this case, the conspiracy is supposedly Manning's plot to run federally. Chaulk this up as completely inane theory number five or six now; I have truly lost count. The fact Peter MacKay, DDS, himself has publicly disavowed the Premier's comments should speak for itself.

Another telling factor is the Tory Slander Society which has taken to attacking Manning from the time the phone lines opened on VOCM this morning. One caller, who claimed to watch the House every day, reported having noticed on the TV broadcasts the shocked look on government member's faces as Opposition members asked questions supposedly containing sensitive inside information.

Whoever sits in the Confed Building earning tax dollars spreading these pinocchiosis baccilli better do some fact checking.

On TV, you can't see reaction shots since the camera is focused on the ones doing the speaking. When a question is asked, it isn't fixed on the government side. When a minister answers, their looks of shock would have dissipated in the minutes it takes to ask a typical Opposition question.

Apart from that, spreading the idea that Fabian the Ultra-Tory must be some sinister traitor either by flat out statement or shitty innuendo - like the cookie tossed by the open-line puppet - is just beneath contempt. Deal with the facts, people. When you attack a guy's character so blatantly, I question your motives and your personal integrity.

I can't say I know Fabian well enough to invite him to dinner at my house but I can say this. In my dealings with him, he has been a fairminded, decent guy. He has been a staunch spokesman for his district and its people. His brother, likely the one Danny got mixed up about, is also a stand-up guy with a lot of well-earned respect out there.

The truth will emerge.

Let's just hope Fabe doesn't do anything rash in the meantime like resign.

Meanwhile, across the country, the political jungle is growing ever more tangly.

Where did I put that machete anyways?

Don Martin: cartooning as news

Over at the National Lampoon today, their resident comedian..errr...reporter...errr...columnist Don Martin has adopted the Pinocchio theme to talk about the Prime Minister.

This is obviously another entry in Don's campaign to be a communications director for some future CPC cabinet minister.

Regular readers of these e-scribbles will recall that Don appeared in a less than flattering moment in CBC News Sunday's doc on the last days of the last federal election campaign. Don was a tad miffed in one memorable scene because he had to go back and re-write a column or news story in which he had become ecstatic at the newly-elected Harper majority government.

Don was miffed at the Canadian public who, for some strange reason, had decided to follow their own decision rather than conform to Don's time-saving efforts.

Ah, well, Don, here's a little test to see how well you can diagnose pinocchiosis:

Which federal party leader said he would go to the polls only if Canadians wanted it?

I'll help you out, Don. He wasn't a Liberal, New Democrat or BlocHead.

Don's namesake was much funnier and he knew how to dig deeper.

Does Norm listen to his Leader?

For the second day in a row, normally sensible Norm Doyle has sounded out-of-touch with reality.

Today he was interviewed by Ramona Dearing on CBC Radio's afternoon drive show, On the Go.

Norm made a number of points - I am paraphrasing here - :

1. The Conservative Party has not decided to bring down the government. Norm needs to start reading the National Lampoon, the unofficial propaganda organ of the Conservative Party of Canada. His Leader is quoted saying: "As soon as Parliament gets back, I will be asking our caucus to put this government out of its misery as early as possible."

Harper's rhetoric is increasingly vicious. The Lampoon quotes him as calling the arrangement between the Liberals and New Democrats to pass the budget as a "deal with the devil." Try acting like a potential prime minister, Steve. It might boost your own personal standing in the polls.

2. The Conservatives haven't decided to vote against the budget. Geez, Norm. A national caucus chairman who sleeps through meetings will get noticed. Norm's Leader has been speaking about bringing down the government over the budget for...what is it... three weeks now at least?

3. You can't cherry-pick the budget. Ok Norm. I'll buy that. So why did your Leader want to have the Kyoto provisions taken out of Bill C-43 in order to gain Conservative support? After the Kyoto provisions were out, why did he continue to complain that the offshore deal money was being left in?

Why are you and Secret Agent 86 Post Offices still rambling on about cherry picking the offshore money out of the budget bill? Scroll down for the answer.

4. The Atlantic Accord is safe. Norm added a rant that the New Democrats didn't do anything to pressure the Liberals to take the offshore money out of C-43 and have it passed as a separate bill.

Watch for a public tender to widen the walls in Norm's office to accommodate his pinocchiosis.

Norm knows full-well that even if the offshore money was a separate bill it wouldn't make it into law before his power-crazed Leader forces the country into an unwanted election. It couldn't pass both the House and Senate and get vice-regal approval in such a short space of time.

Norm also knows his boss wanted all along to handle the matter another way. What is going to stop Stephen Harper, prime minister of a majority government from taking us all back to square one? After all Harper is the guy who flatly stated in writing he wants to sell Ottawa's Hibernia shares and use the money for the good of all Canadians.

Norm also knows that his boss has talked about guaranteeing passage of the agreement if he makes it to the prime minister's office, but hey: can we get that in writing Steve? It's not that we don't trust you, Steve, but any guy who has changed his party position on so many issues in such a short space of time just can't expect to get by on a smile and a hand-shake.

As for the bit about the New Democrats, Norm, they didn't need to take the offshore bit out of the budget bill since now they get to support Newfoundland and Labrador and advance their own issues at the same time.

Here's what it all boils down to: Norm and his colleague, the shadow member for St. John's South- Mount Pearl, are badly jammed up. Their leader is hell-bent on pushing an election no one wants, including their own constituents.

Norm and Loyola know that if C-43 comes to a vote they are screwed. They either vote for it and potentially save the government (Steve remembers these things).

or they vote against the budget and get people in the supermarkets and the churches and the Open Line shows taking strips off their hide for putting Stephen Harper's wishes before the interests of their own province. Suddenly all the Liberal MPs who have supported the provincial government's position on the offshore despite the views of their prime minister look a whole lot better than two guys who made the wrong choice when things got tough.

I'd hate to be those two knocking on doors in St. John's if they voted against money for children, students, seniors...

and Newfoundland and Labrador.

No wonder Norm Doyle keeps trying to separate the offshore money from the budget bill. He is frantically trying to save his own political skin.

No wonder he is sounding a tad squirrelly.

A political jam-up like the one Norm faces would drive anyone nuts.