Terawatts for Terra Nova and other fun #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Energy analyst Tom Adams points to some problems with the Muskrat Falls project and, in the process,  turns out one of the biggest bits of critical commentary on Muskrat Falls in a while.

You know because the good folks at Nalcor took the time to write a post for their corporate blog that responded to the Adams piece.  Nalcor CEO Ed Martin wrote at the beginning:

I'm compelled to correct the statements made by you, and request the prompt apology you said you would make if your arguments were wrong.

“Correct the statements.”

Remember that phrase.

Ed Martin made the rounds of the local call-in shows, especially the unquestioningly government-friendly afternoon one. No accident that. The Telly ran a story on Tuesday. NTV ran it on Monday night as a blog fight. 

The funny thing is that Ed Martin didn’t actually correct anything.  Sure he claimed that Tom Adams didn’t get his facts straight.  Sure Martin claimed Adams didn’t cover all the information.  After all, there are hundreds of thousands of pages. 

Persuasion by the ton

You can tell this point, the amount of information Nalcor has pumped is so important – and convincing – because Martin and natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy and just about anyone else backing the project will point you to the boxes of documents like they are auditioning for a shot to replace Vanna on Wheel. 

There is all this information, they will say.

Surely we must be absolutely correct in all our claims because there is this pile of  paper.

Try and lift it.

We dare you.

Can’t? 

Then we must be right.

How much weight is it?

A shitload, for sure.  Some people don’t recognise that one shitload is  the average monthly output of “Minister paves road in district” or ”Premier hands out keys to new fire truck” new releases from a typical provincial government department.

One shitload. 

It’s the internal performance measurement for promotions and bonuses in the public service:  “Nelson produced 13 shitloads of happy-crappy releases this year instead of the quota of 12 usually produced by departments of this size.”

It could all be meaningless garbage that no one understands, but that isn’t important in government circles.

Government types measure persuasion, like work: by weight.

But all that is digression…

Your humble e-scribbler has already demolished Ed Martin’s suggestion that the Smallwood reservoir is really there to feed Muskrat Falls. The actual words on the water management agreement as well as 2007 amendments to the Electrical Power Control Act make that pretty clear.

So what about the other big issue, the question of energy from Muskrat Falls? 

How much will there be?

Terawatts for Terra Nova

According to Ed Martin:

Muskrat Falls will generate 4.9 terawatt hours of energy per year.

Adams comes at it another way in his first post.  He looks at a graph of water flows in Nalcor’s own environmental impact study and draws his conclusion:

My area under the curve estimate of the average production rate over the year is 577 MW (taking into account the nameplate capacity). Assuming a theoretically perfect 100% load factor, this corresponds to 5.05 TWh of production — i.e. pretty close to the project estimate of 4.9 TWh of production.

Adams actually gives Muskrat Falls with credit for slightly more energy (5.05 TWh) than Ed Martin does (4.9 TWh) if the water flows are right. No conflict or contradiction there. So let’s take that and work with it.

Terawatts and megawatts and martins:  oh my!

Some of you have no doubt noticed Tom Adams used a figure of 577 MW while the official rating for Muskrat Falls is 824 MW of installed generating capacity.  That comes from installing four generators each with a rated capacity of 206 MW.

Four times 206 is 824.

Simple math.

To figure out the terawatt hours per year involved, you need to multiply that 824 by the number of hours in a year (8760).  So theoretically, if you ran Muskrat Falls flat out all year, the plant should crank out 7.0 TWh.  That’s what you get when you multiple 8760 by 824.

But Muskrat Falls will produce 4.9 TWh according to Ed Martin.  We can also use another Nalcor figure of 4.5 TWh.  Divide that by 8760 and you get rough numbers to compare megawatts, in this case 570 or thereabouts

How does that compare to Holyrood?

According to Nalcor, Holyrood has generators that cumulatively produce 490 MW.  That gives us a theoretical maximum energy output of 4.3 TWh.  Nalcor’s numbers for Muskrat Falls - 4.5 and 4.9 TWh – are only  marginally above what Holyrood does.  To a layman, like your humble e-scribbler, that looks like Muskrat Falls doesn't push out much more than Holyrood, despite the difference in installed capacity.

Now check out the Nalcor’s own water flow chart.  It is based on average monthly flows. 

The period when Nalcor will need water the most to feed domestic demand and at the same time feed Nova Scotia just happens to be the same time when average monthly water flows on the river are lowest.

Now this is not a question of whether they need new water studies or not.  This is also not about the water management agreement. It’s about when the most water is available to make electricity compared to when Nalcor will need to make electricity the most.  They don’t match.

Could it be possible that Nalcor missed something that important?

- srbp -

Nalcor promising Boston cheap electricity courtesy of NL taxpayers #nlpoli

Muskrat Falls is over budget, big time. The latest estimate is $7.4 billion and climbing on a project that was forecast at $5.0 billion just four years ago.

The project will wind up behind schedule, most likely.

There’s a good chance Nalcor won’t have enough control over water flows on the Churchill River to meet its forecast firm generating capacity from the smaller dam let alone the theoretical project at Gull Island.

But that hasn’t stopped Nalcor from pitching Muskrat Falls and Gull Island to the good folks of Massachusetts with electricity at prices that would be – conservatively – about one third of what Nalcor’s owners will have to pay for electricity from Muskrat Falls.

Hydro-Quebec to get Muskrat Falls electricity #nlpoli

Under a complex arrangement, Nalcor will send electricity from Muskrat Falls to Quebec in place of electricity from Churchill Falls during some months of the year. 

Nalcor hasn’t disclosed any other details of the arrangement. It appears Nalcor’s Muskrat Falls company will swap the electricity  - possibly free of charge - with its affiliate Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation, which will send it to Quebec under the terms of the 1969 contract at 1969 prices.

And rather than getting electricity from Muskrat Falls, Nova Scotians could receive electricity from Churchill Falls or any of Nalcor’s other hydro-electric generating stations on the island

You can find aspects of the arrangement in a clip from NTV.

There’s more to it, though.

How to say little in 34 slides #nlpoli

• Consultants have consistently reported that the Muskrat Falls project is well-managed and well-led.
• Despite that independent analysis, MFP has been dogged by significant cost over-runs, significant problems with performance on meeting project timelines, and chronic problems with communications/public disclosure.
• Review of Muskrat Falls project by a company called Independent Project Analysis.
• Consists of 34 slides
• Majority of slides (20) contain background information on project and contractor or bland statements of fact.
• No details on research specific to this assessment beyond reference to interviews.
• Remainder of slides (14) provide no evidence to support positive statements or indicate areas of concern...

The Price of Revanchism #nlpoli

Churchill Falls occupies a unique place in Newfoundland and Labrador's political culture.

Most of what people believe about Churchill Falls is just sheer nonsense.  Made up.  Never true. Completely ludicrous.  But accepted as fact and unshakeable truth all the same.  And that's where things get weird. People use all that foolishness nonsense to make decisions in the real world.

One of the enduring legends is that Newfoundland wanted a corridor to wheel electricity through Quebec,  went to the federal government in the 1960s to look for one, couldn't get it, and thus wound up a slave to Hydro-Quebec in 1969.  It's been a popular story since the 1970s,  after the Newfoundland government nationalised BRINCO.

There's never been any evidence that Joe Smallwood ever put the question to Lester Pearson although lots of people will swear to it and swear by the story as evidence of how Newfoundland has been shagged by whatever version of the foreign boogie-man they favour.  

Danny Williams trotted the story out, indirectly, in November 2010 when he announced he had committed the provincial government to build Muskrat Falls.  Our electricity would never be stranded again.  We would never again be held hostage by Quebec.  The new, magnificent power corridor through Nova Scotia was the way that we would break Quebec's stranglehold over our magnificent future.

Yay!  Hooray! people screamed, including more than a few editors and columnists.

The only thing was that what Williams said wasn't true.

And he knew it.

The Hollowmen of Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

Some of you may have been surprised to find out this weekend that Nalcor has a scheme to import cheap electricity into the province.

A couple of Nalcor officials could barely contain their excitement in an interview with the Telegram’s James McLeod. Here’s the idea in a nutshell:

Essentially, Nalcor would slow down or shut off some of its hydro dams and let the water build up in the reservoir, while buying cheap power from the market. Then later, during peak demand times on the mainland, Nalcor would run the hydro dams flat out and turn a profit.

You are probably scratching your head because the provincial government has always insisted Muskrat Falls was the cheapest way to supply the province with electricity.

Well, now you know they lied.

But that’s really the smallest implication of the weekend story.

Always ready for a better tomorrow #nlpoli

Ontario and the faltering Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador are talking about the possibility of developing Gull Island to supply Ontario with renewable energy. 

CBC’s online story on Monday said exactly that:

Ontario eyeing Lower Churchill hydroelectric power from Labrador.

But if you listen to what  grim-faced energy minister Derrick Dalley said to CBC’s David Cochrane during the supper hour news on Monday,  there is a lot less to the announcement than first appeared.

The politicisation of public emergencies

CBC commentator Bob Wakeham [CBC Radio audio file observed Monday morning that:

Also last week the emergency measures organization seemed to keep a low profile.  perhaps its employees were doing what they were supposed to be doing, but some of my journalistic friends working this hurricane story told me EMO seemed more than willing to hand over visual and public responsibility to cabinet ministers, to talking heads all of whom one would think know little or nothing about these matters, certainly a lot less than officials with a specific mandate to deal with, as the name implies, emergencies.

Right after saying that, Wakeham noted that there did not seem last week to be a sense of immediacy to the emergency response.

These two elements are connected.

And they tie as well to an observation made later Monday morning by the host of the morning talk show in the province.  Randy Simms wondered if the province’s fire and emergency management agency had a communications plan and any people responsible for carrying it out. Simms likened the situation to a disaster in the United States or the cougar crash.  He wondered where were the daily  - or even more frequent - technical briefings that featured, front and centre, the people actually delivering the emergency service, telling the rest of us what they were doing.

What Simms is talking about is what one expect in any other part of North America. Effective public communications are an integral part of recovery operations. Priority should go to basic information – where to find shelter, contact numbers to report problems, etc. – so that people who need help can get it.

This is a basic communications principle:  give people the information they need.

Regular operational briefings allows the emergency managers to make sure that accurate information on the entire emergency gets to the public using news media.  A typical briefing would include maps showing local situations and the type of problems being dealt with.  People get information.  They can track progress.  As events develop they can gain confidence that things are getting better. They can also better assess their own situation and make sensible decisions about their own situation;  they may need to just hang tough and weather the discomfort.  Or they can seek help.  Either way, information helps people make the right decision and have confidence.

In the modern age, officials should be using websites, Twitter, and Facebook to help push out detailed information. These can also be ways of feeding information into the emergency management room. 

News media bring pictures.  E-mails and twitter posts can give clues to where problems and that will supplement the information coming to the operations centre from health, fire, emergency, roads and other officials who should be present in the command centre.

The competence of the recovery - readily displayed to the public - instills public confidence.

Another good Lower Churchill question

Ok.

So the political theatre that is the Lower Churchill project is now pulling into a another location already mapped out on the route.

It is a route pre-determined by amendments to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2007 but only put into force this past January.

That’s right.

2007.

Two whole years ago.

Because the provincial government’s energy corporation couldn’t reach a deal on water management on the Churchill River with Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation, the whole thing is headed off to the public utilities board where the Premier’s hand-picked appointee and a couple of other people will oversee the imposition of an agreement.

Hands up anyone who thinks the water management agreement that inevitably results from this process will not be exactly what the government’s energy corporation wants it to be.

And what exactly makes this some sort of giant obstacle supposedly thrown by  Hydro Quebec to the development of a project which – as of this moment – has no customers, no financing and which, by the Premier’s own version of things is not even close to being started?

Good question.

-srbp-

TWINCO seeks intervener status in water management decision

The Twin Falls Power Company is seeking intervener status in the hearings at the public utilities board into the water management application by NALCOR Energy for the Churchill River.

In a letter dated December 17, 2009, TWINCO president James Haynes said his company may be affected by any decision in the application.

2. Twinco has a Sublease with Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation Limited ("CF(L)Co") whereby CF(L)Co is obligated to supply 225 MW and 1.97 TWh of power and energy to Twinco, included as Exhibit 4 of the Application. Twinco supplies power to two customers, 10CC and Wabush Mines, both of which are located in Labrador West and as result Twinco could be affected depending on the disposition of this matter.

3. Twinco owns and operates two 230kv transmission lines that transmit power and energy from Churchill Falls to Labrador City and Wabush in western Labrador and as a result could be an affected transmission provider.

Twin Falls Power company is owned by Wabush Mines, IOC and  NALCOR with each company holding one third of the shares.  It supplies power to the mines in western Labrador. 

-srbp-

PUB quietly imposes water management deal

The public utilities board imposed a water management agreement on NALCOR and Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation on March 9, 2010. The reasons for the decision were filed separately ,

The PUB didn’t issue a news release when it issued the order, nor did it issue any sort of media advisory or news release on the half day of hearings it held into the application.

-srbp-

Friday Foursome #nlpoli

1.  Nova Scotian customers protected; this province not. (Telegram, December 11, 2013) by Ron Penney and David Vardy

The UARB has been empowered to protect the interests of consumers against their public utility, Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera. Emera is a publicly traded corporation working in partnership with Nalcor Energy, a non-regulated Crown corporation, to build the Maritime Link. The government of Nova Scotia allowed the UARB to balance the interests of ratepayers and the proponent, a privately owned company, at arm’s length from government.

The government of Newfoundland and Labrador took a divergent course of action. They joined hands with their Crown corporation and made it immune from regulatory control.

They took away the powers of our own PUB, so it could not protect the interests of ratepayers. They sanctioned the Muskrat Falls project prematurely and weakened the ability of Nalcor to negotiate a better agreement with Emera. The result is that we are exposed to a one-sided agreement, tilted in favour of Nova Scotia and decidedly disadvantageous to this province’s ratepayers.

 

Voids and Spatter #nlpoli

Watch too many crime shows and after a while a few of the ideas start to sing into your skull.

Take blood spatter for example.  In some kinds of violent death, lots of blood will fly around.  The drops leave a distinctive spray pattern that can tell you lots about what went on. 

And then there is sometimes the bits of the pattern that are missing.  There is sometimes a void, a gap where something that the blood spattered on is missing.

The void – the missing stuff  - sometimes tells much more than what is there.

The 2018-2019 Offshore Review #nlpoli

In 2003,  the new Conservative administration set as its first task to renegotiate the Atlantic Accord.

They hadn’t campaigned on that issue.  The campaign election platform included a pledged to change the Equalization system in order to address the supposed claw-back of oil revenues.

Still, they started out in office wanting to renegotiate the Atlantic Accord.  That idea sent a few people familiar with the Accord into the horrors.

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

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

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

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

And that’s after five years of desperately trying:

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

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

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

No big public, hair-mussing fuss required.

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

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

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

Anyway, that’s another story.

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

Well that’s no problemo.

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

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

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

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

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

Poof.

Job done.

Pas de sweat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It really bruises the ego to lose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm.

-srbp-

Owing it forward #nlpoli

The provincial government will balance its books this year by borrowing $2.1 billion.

Lots of people don’t know that,  as Michael Caine would say.

The government included in its budget plans this year a hike in the HST of two percent.

The tax hike will bring in $200 million.

That $200 million will just about cover the interest in one year on all the new debt the provincial government plans to add between now and 2021.

The $2.1 billion this year is the tip of a very big iceberg of new debt, you see. The new debt will go on top of the other $12 billion we already owe. The total cost just to pay the interest on that debt in 2021 will be $1.0 billion.

When people found out about the HST hike, they lost their minds.

Fast forward to 2017.

Why Andy Wells is wrong

In typical fashion, Andy Wells was quick to comment on the municipal election results in St. John's claiming credit for his own success in suppressing the vote for councillor Shannie Duff and others by raising Memorial stadium as an issue. He also criticized two at large candidates, although not by name.

The results don't support Wells contention.

1. Overall, there were about 35, 000 ballot kits returned in this election, down slightly from the 39, 000 returned in the 2001 contest. This decline is easily attributed to the lack of a mayoral race which has traditionally boosted voter turn-out.

At the same time, there were 11, 000 more mail ballots distributed this time. That doesn't mean that there was a dramatic decline in voter turn-out. About the same number of people voted this time as voted last time.

2. In 2001, Shannie Duff garnered slightly more than 21, 000 votes last time out and this time was re-elected with over 19, 000 votes. That decline is hardly indicative of any dramatic decline in her support.

In fact, Duff's share of the votes cast is exactly the same as it was last time out.

3. While Wells may trumpet his own apparent decisive victory, it is hard to take him seriously. This election was a no-contest against a man whose behaviour suggested he may well be experiencing severe personal problems. Such was the contest that Wells stopped campaigning.

But here's the interesting thing.

In the mayoral race there were actually more than 6, 200 ballots that were spoiled or not cast. That's almost 18% of the total ballot kits returned. It is a horrendous number for any election - but if Andy was the darling of St. John's, why was he unable to actually increase voter turn-out such that he garnered the support of more than 33% of the total electorate? That's a pretty abysmal comment on Wells the mayor and the contest as a whole. Had he faced a credible candidate, who can say what the outcome might have been?

Regardless of that, in a head-to-head contest between Andy Wells and a guy who people wondered might be ill, they took Andy. Personally, I wouldn't be writing home about that.

4. Frank Galgay is actually the best proof of Wells' political impotence - that is, if Andy he is trying to suggest that he is the King politico of St. John's. Wells courted Bob Crocker to run against Galgay, may well have financially supported Crocker and certainly publicly attacked Galgay with newspaper ads and a letter mailed to every voter in Ward 2.

Galgay beat Crocker - and by easy extension Wells - by better than two to one.

If anything, Wells crude "campaign" actually cemented Galgay's support and drove them to the polls. Negative campaigning is supposed to suppress voters, especially the opponent's supporters.

That's what Wells is implicitly claiming - he, the master politician affected the results of other candidates. He may have, but certainly not in the way he thinks.

Take that, Bembridge scholars.

5. The Memorial Stadium issue had no traction with voters. It didn't appear to motivate them one way or another, except for a handful of disaffected people in the east end of town.

Wells was challenged publicly on his bizarre accounting by both Duff - who handily won re-election - and by one of the new faces in the campaign, Simon Lono. The media covered it; Wells ignored it, as only Andy can.

6. Wells introduced nothing of substance to the campaign. He did not indicate what he plans to do over the next four years. He did not run on any platform. He advanced no new ideas. Indeed Wells, who was once the candidate of change, revolution and attacking the system is now the ultimate Establishment candidate.

His only foray into the campaign was to attack other candidates and in the effort, every single one of Wells' targets - save one - gained re-election.

7. In the sole exception, Paul Sears defeat can easily be attributed to his own poor performance on council. Andy can hardly claim credit for Sears' self-inflicted wounds.

8. Wells most laughable comments on Out of the Fog came when he lambasted two at large candidates for their platform issues.

Although he didn't mention names, one was obviously John Fisher who talked about fighting crime. Ok, Andy, I'll grant that. Fisher was talking about crime and the police when the city can do exactly diddly squat about it.

But the second candidate was Simon Lono who Wells' thought foolish for "attacking city hall".

Here's some meat to chew on, as opposed to Wells' characteristic gristle.

Of all the at large candidates, indeed of all the candidates, Lono was the only one who put substantive policy issues on the table for discussion.

He gained media coverage that was second to none, except for Boss Andy himself.

In the singular, substantive moment of the campaign, Lono embarrassed Wells by drawing public attention to the week-long Duckworth Street water main fiasco. The city delivered its own coup de grace on that one by letting the thing fester for more than a week until a 15 foot high geyser erupted in the east end of town.

It was a public embarrassment not just for Wells and his supposed record of infrastructure management but for the whole city. Hundreds of cruise ship visitors, one of them a retired municipal water engineer, looked in amazement at the evident lack of proper maintenance and the profligate treatment of the city's precious water supply.

Wells then supplied further proof of his lack of a grip when he attacked a deputy mayoral candidate during a television interview. According to Wells, the city's water problem were caused by people drowning their lawns; that interview aired the same day the water main broke and a week before the geyser shot up.

Talk about hubris.

The night Lono's media coverage appeared, city council was in heavy damage control mode. Council crews scrambled from sight when the cameras arrived and - surprise, surprise - a geyser that was apparently unfixable until a new part arrived and couldn't be tampered with for fear of cutting off water to businesses and residents suddenly vanished. The thing was gone the next day and fixed within two.

Lono also talked about crumbling sidewalks and borrowing from next year's capital works budget to patch problems that emerged this year, all of which are accurate.

But Andy needn't take Lono's word for the infrastructure deficit.

Last week, no less a public body than the Board of Trade included the municipal infrastructure deficit as one of the major challenges facing the new council.

Yeah, Andy. Lono doesn't know what he is talking about.

Neither does Marilyn Thompson, president of the Board of Trade and her members.

Andy Wells may be a lot of things, and he is right about things once in a while.

But as far as his comments on the municipal election results, he is actually the one who doesn't have a clue, let alone a sweet one.

Are you smarter than a cheese grater?

You have to wonder sometimes how the province’s natural resources minister might fare if she had to go up against a crowd of fifth graders in the popular television game show.

Wednesday people were agog at her blinding ignorance about when the provincial government negotiated major offshore oil deals that delivered all the cash she and her colleagues have been spending the past seven years.

On Thursday, she pulled not one, not two, but three enormous gaffes at the same time in an exchange during Question Period:

Mr. Speaker, let me say it is very difficult to have a discussion with the Leader of the Opposition about responsibility for the environment when she demonstrated in the House earlier the week she does not even understand what level of government environmental responsibility for the offshore comes under. She was attributing to the Minister of Environment and Conservation, who has no responsibility beyond the high water mark.

It is really disturbing, Mr. Speaker, when it comes from a former Minister of Fisheries for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador who should have understood that her responsibility did not go any further than that either as far as the offshore was concerned. [Emphasis added]

1.  The federal jurisdiction adjacent to coastal provinces is the low water mark, not the high water mark on the shore. 

2.  Of all the provincial governments in Canada bordering water only one has a jurisdiction which goes beyond the low water mark.  Hint:  It’s Newfoundland and Labrador.

Under the Terms of Union, and as affirmed by Supreme Court decisions on the offshore, the boundary of Newfoundland and Labrador extends out to sea a distance of three miles, the territorial sea recognised by international law in April 1949.

3.  Now that doesn’t mean the provincial fisheries minister can suddenly regulate cod stocks inside three miles.  The reason is that fisheries regulation is a federal responsibility.

But – and here’s where Dunderdale made her third gigantic shag-up – the conservation and environment minister can exercise her responsibilities out to three miles. Johnson can and certainly should take an interest in a variety of environmental issues related to offshore oil operations.  After all, the provincial government manages the offshore jointly with the federal government through the appropriately named Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

The federal government may have the law-making power for the offshore but under the 1985 Atlantic Accord  - that is, the real Atlantic Accord - it has a right and responsibility to exercise co-management on behalf of the people of the province. Johnson and her officials can work with their colleagues on matters of local concern.  It isn’t just up to the feds, as Dunderdale seemed to be saying on Tuesday.

It is no surprise that the current administration lacks a fundamental understanding of the powers and responsibilities it does have under the land-mark 1985.  They demonstrated that ignorance before in the argument over unilateral changes to  Equalization offsets under the 1985 Accord. So profound is the ignorance of the current crowd on these subjects, by the way,  that no less a person than Witch-Hunt Willie Marshall  - he of the sooper sekrit investigations squad - made an oblique and derogatory remark during recent events marking the 25th anniversary of the Accord signing about his successors not understanding the powers they have.

Now to be fair, the average fifth grader anywhere in Canada isn’t likely to know these things about the local offshore oil business.

But then again, the person hand-picked by the Premier’s to sub for him when he is under anaesthesia is supposed to know these things. We’d imagine that the person the Old Man felt is the best one to tackle what is arguably the second most important portfolio in the provincial cabinet after health care, would display a much greater level of knowledge about the fundamentals of so important an issue as the offshore than Dunderdale has shown.

Dunderdale is surrounded by an army of bureaucrats and lawyers all of whom are supposed to know these things and who are obliged to keep her briefed.  Either they aren’t doing their job or Dunderdale just isn’t up to hers. 

Given her track record, from the Joan Cleary fiasco in 2006 through the Abitibi fiasco to this latest bundle, odds are good is isn’t the bureaucrats who are a wee bit slack in doing their jobs.

Nope.

It’s the Old Man’s choice who is slack in the jaw.

Of course, by extension, you’d have to wonder about the Old Man’s judgement on this and other similar choices.

But that’s another story.

-srbp-

May 28 - fixed typos "grater' and fare", deleted a wayward period and added another one that went missing.

WTF?

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

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

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

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

Muskrat, Martin, and Meaning #nlpoli

Note the number of times Ed Martin says “open”  or “transparent” within the first five minutes of his weekend interview for On Point with David Cochrane.

Odds are very high that these words relate to a very sensitive issue for Nalcor, revealed by their extensive polling.

Put the On Point interview together with Martin’s article in the weekend Telegram  - not online - and you can see why these ideas are causing Nalcor such problems.