Yawn

Harper was in town on Saturday.

Just a bit of In-out, In-out.

And a candidate whose sign people can't even spell his own name.

 

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Family Feud? Try blood feud.

The local media are strangely silent the day of Stephen Harper's visit to the province. The prime minister comes to the province and not a single story graces the website of the Telly, CBC or the voice of the (provincial) cabinet minister. [Update: The Telly posted an extremely short story after 9:00 PM. VO updated at some point this evening but it isn't clear when.]

Okay, it's not like it's the first time a huge local story has been missed by the locals for one reason or another , only to be picked up by the national types and then covered locally later on.

Like this report from CTV's Bob Fife. Watch the video, even if you have to listen to Jim Morgan.

It doesn't matter if the accusations of heavy-handed tactics by the Provincial Conservatives are true or not. The point is that the charges are being made at all and made hard by the federal Conservatives on national news media.

Danny Williams already backpedaled on the ABC campaign's objectives today, likely setting up for a possible win by manning in Avalon. It's a tight race but you never know what can happen. Better to change the objectives to allow for something other than the total victory you wanted only a couple of days ago, you know, just in case.

In the meantime, the federal Conservatives have decided to play their own form of hardball. Even Stephen Harper's use of the Williams campaign slogan in 2007 is designed to get under the Premier's skin.

This is not a family feud. It's rapidly turning into a blood feud.

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What a difference it makes when you pay attention

First a link to Rex Murphy on The National in October 2007, with the references to Danny Williams being in the political sweet spot not found by a politician in Newfoundland and Labrador since Joe Smallwood. About three quarters of the way through there is a discussion of Stephen Harper. Williams seemed to have been unaware of speeches and other public comments until then; Murphy and Williams chuckle a lot. The tone is light with much emphasis on the political triumph for Williams and the economic miracle which seemed to be linked to it and him.

Murphy produced a glorious homage, right down to the line early on in which Williams attributes his popularity to his embodying the heart and soul of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Fast forward to this Saturday and a column in the Globe and Mail entitled "Danny boy has gone too far." Murphy's words are scathing:

This "standing up for Newfoundland" palaver is best administered in small doses, if at all. And it never fits the mouth of the person doing the "standing up." Furthermore, a difference of opinion, a clash of party interests, should never be categorized as a clash of patriotism. There is a jingoism of small places as well as of large. And Newfoundland is more susceptible to it than most. Newfoundlanders are ferociously fond of Newfoundland, but that very affection can play havoc with our judgment and our politics.

The final three paragraphs summarize as well as any might exactly what some in this province have been saying publicly and increasingly more are saying privately since 2004:

It's not Mr. Williams's quarrel with Stephen Harper that's at question. It's hauling into that quarrel all the rhetoric of "disloyalty" to Newfoundland, stirring the jingoistic fevers, and characterizing those on the other side as unworthy. Newfoundlanders have been lucky in past decades that, when we had strong premiers, we had strong ministers in Ottawa.

Danny Williams has reached such supremacy, however, that he has effectively become the only voice in Newfoundland politics. Mr. Hearn is gone. John Crosbie is in honorific heaven. And now there's only Danny. That's bad for us. It's bad for him, too, should he care to think about it.

He should look over history's shoulder and take in what happened to Joey Smallwood, a great premier who subtracted from his own legacy by succumbing to the vanity of power, the great corrosive self-flattery of believing that being in charge is the same thing as always being right.

Murphy is indeed right, but then again, regular readers will have heard similar arguments even if they were less elegantly expressed. Unfortunately, now that the cult of personality has met political hegemony, Murphy can only stand by for inevitable round of insults and accusations which have met everyone else who has dared to challenge the new orthodoxy.

It is perhaps just good enough that Murphy finally took a hard look at his home province. It is amazing what a difference it makes when one merely pays attention.

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The best versus the rest

Nik Nanos has shown through several elections that his public opinion research is second to none for accuracy. Nik is back doing analysis for CPAC, the cable parliamentary channel for this federal election.

Odd then that people seem to have ignored it thus far in favour of all the usual suspects.

You can find the results of his latest research at nikonthenumbers.com or nanosresearch.com.

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ABC release shows government officials lack google skills?

What was it that St. John's East New Democratic candidate Jack Harris said when the provincial industry department - then headed by Kathy Dunderdale - missed some problems with one of the companies it was dealing with, problems that were easily found by an Internet search?

Oh yeah, he said google was "due diligence for dummies."

Ouch.

Well, that inability to do a simple Internet search  might explain why the provincial government's intergovernmental affairs minister  - Tom Hedderson - issued a length news release Friday to attack the federal government for plans to move the elite anti-terrorist team JTF 2 to Trenton, Ontario not Goose Bay as the provincial government was suggesting recently.

The JTF 2-to-Goose Bay idea cropped up in the latest round of begging letters to Ottawa from the provincial government, to borrow yet another Jack Harris phrase.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is shocked that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has willfully disregarded another opportunity to strengthen defence presence at 5 Wing Goose Bay. The reaction came in light of the recent announcement of $500 million in funding to support the relocation of Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2) from Ottawa to Trenton, Ontario. This announcement was released without fanfare just two days before the call of a federal election.

Odd.

The provincial government is shocked?

It's not like it's been a big secret.

But it certainly is shocking to see a provincial cabinet minister admitting publicly he sent letters to the federal defence minister as recently as June 2008  proposing JTF 2 be based in Goose Bay apparently not knowing the decision on JTF 2's future home had already been made 18 months beforehand.

That makes Hedderson look stunned or even incompetent. 

The federal government decided to relocate JTF 2 from its current base at Dwyer Hill, just outside Ottawa, to a new addition to the base at Trenton Ontario back in late 2006.  The story broke in the Ottawa Citizen  - dated January 2007 - in a story by widely respected defence correspondent David Pugliese.

Plans for the expansion were also reported by Pugliese in January 2008:

Defence Construction Canada, a Crown corporation that handles the Defence Department's building needs, is asking for "expressions of interest" from contractors and consultants for the development of what it calls a multi-functional training and administrative campus.

The new facility is to be in "Eastern Ontario," with the specific location considered secret at this point, according to the information provided so far to construction and engineering contractors. But Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier has recommended to cabinet that JTF2's new base be located at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

Public Works and Government Services Canada has already purchased three properties adjacent to CFB Trenton for the Defence Department.

The operational reasoning behind the move is something Pugliese also covered.  it's worth noting because the provincial government's whole pitch on Goose Bay has been about pork and entitlement rather than demonstrating how Goose Bay fits into the military's operational requirements.

Positioning JTF2 at CFB Trenton, one of the country's main military airbases, allows the unit immediate access to aircraft for domestic and overseas missions. It is also an ideal location because another unit in the special operations command, the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit, which deals with nuclear, biological and chemical incidents, is already located there. JTF2 works closely with that unit on counter-terrorism exercises.

And if by some chance the provincial government officials responsible for monitoring this stuff missed it, plans for development at Trenton already made the news in March 2008 when plans for some of the buildings were found in a trash can outside a downtown Ottawa office building.

Of course, even if the local officials are a bit overtaxed, it's not like we don't have Our Man in a Blue Line Cab who is supposed to be watching these files from an office not far from Parliament Hill.

Some things - like say keeping on top of important files - are not as easy as ABC.

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Williams shifts ABC position in wake of polls

From the outset, Danny Williams has claimed the main goal of his ABC campaign was to deliver a big goose egg - no Conservative seats in Newfoundland and Labrador - to Stephen Harper's Conservative Party.

With publicly available polls showing real cracks in the ABC grip on the public imagination, Williams is now completely changing his views. Williams likely has polls of his own but he won't release those.

"The primary goal is not to deliver the goose egg.  I'd like Newfoundlanders to deliver the goose egg but if they don't, they don't.  That's certainly a goal.  The primary goal is to prevent him from winning a government, certainly a majority government." [Emphasis added; quoted in a Telegram front page story by Peter Walsh. Update:  The full story isn't online.  The link is to an abbreviated version carried by the Telly's sister daily in Corner Brook.]

Gee, it's not like we haven't seen that sort of shifting of position before in the face of bad polls.

Here's an idea, let's take down the flags.

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Related:

Harper-Williams family feud affecting how feds deal with NL: poll

Another poll shows the NL starting numbers

Anything But Clear: poll

The first poll: some thoughts

Layton/Harris/Cleary promise to boost federal taxes on provincial OilCo

Newfoundland and Labrador's new oil company - doing work offshore as partner on the multi-billion dollar Hebron and White Rose projects - will be paying more corporate taxes to the federal government under a New Democrat federal government.

According to the Telegram, Layton hit one of those points during a campaign stop in St. John's on Friday:

Layton said one promise he is making is a rollback on corporate tax cuts to banks and oil companies, which he says both the Conservatives and Liberals have supported.

Layton used the example of Exxon, but evidently he didn't realise the provincial government under Premier Danny Williams is now one of the oil companies he plans to tax more heavily.

In a separate campaign appearance, Layton pledged to "honour the Atlantic Accord", apparently in reference to the 2005 federal transfer side deal between the federal and provincial governments. 

But his blanket pledge also included the real Accord, the 1985 deal signed by Brian Mulroney and Brian Peckford that establishes joint management of the offshore between St. John's and Ottawa and which sees the provincial government collect 100% of royalties from the offshore as if the resources were on land.

Under clause 41 of the 1985 Atlantic Accord, provincial or federal Crown corporations are taxed like all other companies:

Crown corporations and agencies involved in oil and gas resource activities in the offshore area
shall be subject to all taxes, royalties and levies.

OilCo, the oil subsidiary of the province's still unnamed energy corporation, is incorporated like all other corporations in the private sector, even though its shares are owned 100% by the Crown.  The company also isn't a Crown agent.

While in St. John's, Layton also pledged to transfer federally-owned shares in the Hibernia project to Newfoundland and Labrador "over a period of time" [Telegram story on Layton at Memorial University, not online.  CP story here.]

Those shares, representing 8.5% of the project, would also be handled by the province's energy corporation.  They would also be subject to the NDP's increased taxation.

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Layton shafts Williams on key ABC demand

Jack Layton's promise to "honour the Atlantic Accord" doesn't meet one of Danny Williams key ABC demands and would deliver nothing in new federal transfers to Newfoundland and Labrador under the 2005 Williams deal with Paul Martin.

Williams is seeking to have the province's revenues from offshore oil and onshore minerals  - likely $2.0 billion this year - left out of the formula used to calculate Equalization transfers from Ottawa to the provinces.

Canadian Press gets it wrong:

Premier Danny Williams estimated the difference between the accord and the Tories' revised equalization plan was $10 billion - a sum he recently demanded Ottawa pay over 15 years.

The $10 billion number comes from the pledge made by both Stephen Harper in 2006 to drop non-renewables from Equalization. The estimated value to the province came from projections by a Memorial University economist. The actual value of the Harper 2006 promise Williams is looking for now would be considerably more given the current high prices for oil and minerals.

Harper didn't deliver in 2006.  His government instead went with a revised Equalization formula based on recommendations from an expert panel. It's that failure that ignited Williams' anger at Harper.

In 2006, Layton promised only to deliver an Equalization formula with "A better measure of fiscal capacity."

Evidence of Layton's confusion between Williams' demand and the 2005 deal is in the estimated value of the new Layton "commitment, said by Canadian Press to be worth $400 million according to NDP researchers.

Under the 2005 deal Layton referred to on Friday, the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial government will receive extra federal transfers to offset declines in Equalization coming as a result of growing oil money.  But the extra cash comes only as long as the province qualifies to receive Equalization in the first place.

The provincial government won't qualify for the federal transfer this year, hence it won't be entitled to cash under the 2005 deal. 

Layton's commitment won't actually involve any new cash transfers either.

As part of the 2005 deal, Newfoundland and Labrador received an advance payment - essentially a credit against future earnings under the deal. That money won't be completely exhausted this year by the time the province goes off Equalization.  The credit in the account is considerably more than $400 million.

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Another poll shows the NL starting numbers

Corporate Research Associates released results today of questions posed to a sample of voters in Newfoundland and Labrador in August and the results confirm, in some respects, the picture of the electorate drawn by the recent NTV/Telelink survey.

When asked to indicate which party they would vote for in a federal election, 43% of decided respondents said Liberal, 35% said Conservative, 20% said NDP and one percent indicated they would vote for the Green Party.

Thirty-nine (39) percent were undecided, would not vote or refused to answer. The survey of 402 residents of Newfoundland and Labrador was conducted between August 12 and August 28, 2008.  It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The table shows how the numbers line up with the results of the 2006 general election and the NTV poll. The table should not be read as reflecting a trend.  The Telelink and CRA surveys are sufficiently close together in time so that the results confirm each other. 

	2006 GE	CRA Aug 08	NTV Sept 08
Conservative	42.7	35	31.8
Liberal	42.8	43	42.4
New Democratic Party	13.6	20	19.6
Green	?	1	?
UND/Ref/DK	-	39	55
MoE (95%CL)		+/- 4.9%	+/- 3.3%

 

As indicated in an earlier post, based on the polling data and an analysis of historic voting trends, this breakout would suggest that the four ridings that went Liberal in the last election would remain Liberal but with high margins of victory.  The three ridings held previously by the Conservatives would be potentially tight races.

At least one media report in Newfoundland and Labrador noted that two thirds of decided respondents would not be voting Conservative.  This is not unusual in federal politics in Newfoundland and Labrador, where a majority typically vote for a party other than Conservative. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians typically vote anything but Conservative.

One interesting result from the NTV survey - not covered by the CRA poll - is the feeling by almost two thirds of respondents that the ABC campaign is harming federal-provincial relations.

This is hardly surprising given that the provincial government has been repeatedly claiming that the province is being punished for the Family Feud between the federal and Provincial Conservatives.

As well, there has long been a perception in local politics that districts should side with the perceived winner in an election or risk not receiving road paving, school and hospital construction or other public spending.  The power of pork in traditional politics both federally and provincially remains strong.  A party would not have to threaten this in order for the perception to exist and for it to influence voting behaviour.

As well, while it may not be documented, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting that some voters approach voting choice as a lottery in which one must be on the winning side or risk "losing" ones vote.

All of that can have an impact on voting results, especially if the races on the Avalon peninsula indeed are tight. Voters may switch between now and polling day based on perceptions of the national campaign.

Not surprisingly, at least one federal Conservative candidate - Craig Westcott  - has used the argument in several media interviews that the province needs to have an elected representative in the federal cabinet.  Both Westcott and Avalon incumbent Fabian manning have also referred to the need to get past the current wrangling  between the provincial and federal governments in the best interests of the province.  This was not implicitly threatening but reflected - at least by the words and tone - an effort to point at the political benefit of supporting the party which currently leading in the polls and which many observers believe will form another minority government.

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Another bad day on the campaign trail

Federal leader New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton and former provincial party leader Jack Harris have trouble blithely dismissing Ryan Cleary's opinion about New Democrats or about the need to maybe remove Newfoundland and Labrador from "Confederation's death grip". [h/t to nottawa]

Scroll down in the nottawa link and you find another bit of the story as it unfolded, when Cleary scrummed:

the principles of the ND party, NDP, NDP best reflect who I am and what I stand for. I believe that Jack Layton is the best leader in this country to bring us all together. To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation.

To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation?

Evidently, Cleary missed at least one little piece of history.

 

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Harper-Williams family feud affecting how feds deal with NL: poll

Almost two thirds  - 63.6% - of respondents to an NTV/Telelink poll believe that the Family Feud is "having a negative impact on how Ottawa deals with Newfoundland and Labrador." 

29.5% said it wasn't and only 6.9% were unsure.

When asked if the Premier should take his Feud on the road across Canada, things weren't quite as clear. 41.2% felt he should while 39.1% said he shouldn't.  19.7% were not sure.

The telephone survey of 919 voting age Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who were aware of the provincial government's ABC campaign was conducted between September 6 and Septemeber 9.

Most likely, this is the poll picked up by the federal Conservatives and reported by Geoff Meeker.

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Strange bedfellows 2: Paul Oram's fickle affections

How quickly doth love turn to hate in the land of politics.

Remember this from Day 9 of the Summer of Love 2007?

Even the Premier's parliamentary assistant will be able to get in on the electioneering. The last SOL release for Thursday was an announcement of a photo op involving federal fish minister Loyola Hearn and the Premier's Open Line crackie, Paul Oram.

Oram and Hearn can be photographed at a municipal water and sewer project in Oram's district, on Friday at 1:30 PM.

In an election campaign, even the crap is apparently so potentially vote-worthy that a cabinet minister and a wannabe cabinet minister will pose for happy snaps with it.

Now sure, as the Telegram recently pointed out, these cost-shared programs have a promotional clause that requires a news release at least.  That was the official response when a government rep was asked this year about the joint funding announcement issued last week.

But last year - before the provincial general election - it apparently required a photo op and smiles with the minister with whom the provincial government was supposedly locked in a blood feud.

How times change. 

Campaign photo ops one day.  Daggers on the open line shows the next.

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A simple question with no good answer

In the week ending September 9,  the average price of gasoline across Canada dropped by 1.9 cents per litre.

Read that again.

Gasoline prices dropped last week, on average by almost two whole cents.  That was regular.  Mid-grade and premium dropped by even more.

In some parts of the country, the drop on a litre of regular gasoline was as much as a nickel.

So how come it is that in Newfoundland and Labrador - like the other provinces using the bankrupt system of government price fixing - gasoline went up by a cent and a half this week?

Anyone?

Even George Murphy, who justifiably earned the respect of consumers for tracking gasoline retail prices with his superb price forecasts, can only offer answers to CBC News that make no sense.

If the loonie and the potential interruptions in supply from refinery shutdowns were the factors, then how come there were parts of the country which saw such dramatic decreases in gasoline prices last week?

Market forces, is the answer to that one.  The free market system working as it worked for everyone before government price fixing was introduced in 2001. 

Last week, markets without government price fixing typically saw a drop in the price consumers pay for gasoline.

In the places unfortunate enough to have a price fixed by government, gasoline went up.

It makes no sense.

Well, not unless you are an oil and gas company.

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Results of Labrador parcel sale: offshore board

The following was released today by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

C-NLOPB Releases Results of 2007 Land Sale for Labrador Offshore Region (Call for Bids NL07-2)

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board today announced the results of the 2007 Call for Bids NL07-2 (Labrador Offshore Region) for exploration rights in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area. Bidding closed at 4:00 pm on September 10, 2008 and bids were received on 4 parcels totaling $186,430,680.

The Bids represent the expenditures which the bidders commit to make in exploring the parcels during the initial 6-year period of a 9-year term exploration licence. If companies discover significant quantities of petroleum resources as a result of the exploration work, they may then seek a Significant Discovery Licence from the C-NLOPB. Any Significant Discovery Licences issued in respect of lands resulting from these exploration licences will be subject to rentals which will escalate over time.

The following bids have been accepted:

Parcel 1

Husky Oil Operations Limited (100%)   $10,162,800

Parcel 2

Vulcan Minerals Inc. (50%) and Investcan Energy Corporation (50%)  $9,601,000

Parcel 3

Husky Oil Operations Limited (75%) and Suncor Energy Inc. (25%)  $120,166,880

Parcel 4

Chevron Canada Limited (100%)  $46,500,000

Total  $186,430,680

Subject to Ministerial approval and the bidders satisfying the requirements specified in the Call for Bids, the Board will issue an Exploration Licence for each of the four parcels in November 2008. The Licences will be for a term of nine years, with an initial period of six years.

Bond Papers Note:  The CNLOPB release (available at the link above) included a map of the parcels.  Parcel 3 surrounds two existing significant discoveries (natural gas).

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The first poll: some thoughts

Courtesy of a loyal Bond Papers reader comes this translation of the NTV poll results, compared to the 2006 general election. 

 

	2006	Sept 08
Liberal	42.8	42.4
Conservative	42.7	31.8
NDP	13.6	19.6

 

Based on very preliminary analysis of this poll result coupled with a study of long term voting trends, these numbers suggest that the four Liberal seats from 2006 would see an increase the margin for the Liberal candidate compared to the 2006 results.

The three seats currently held by the Conservatives would appear tight.  Given that two of the incumbents are not running, the Conservative position gets tougher.  By the same token, this statistical analysis obviously doesn't factor the actual candidate mix into the results.  Who the candidate is compared to the others does matter.

The main impact of the Family Feud appears to have been a softening of the Conservative vote.  The extent of that softening isn't completely clear.  The Feud can deliver cabinet ministers and hard core party workers in some cases but it won't clinch it for the party that seems to be favoured by the Feud supporters.

In Avalon, it is currently shaping up to be a two-way fight between the Conservative Fabian Manning and Liberal Scott Andrews.  Dropping a new prison in Harbour Grace, as Stephen Harper is expected to do this weekend, would be a significant boost for Manning.

In the St. John's seats, the race would be tight, based solely on the numbers.  Factor in Jack Harris in St. John's East, take out the advantage for the Conservatives from incumbency and the softening of the Conservatives because of the Family Feud and Harris would look to have an upswing.

The challenge for Liberal Walter Noel would be to make himself relevant, compared to the current public perception of Harris as the sole beneficiary of the Family Feud.

Likewise, in St. John's South Mount Pearl,  the political challenge for the Liberals and New Democrats will be to take maximum advantage of the softening of the Conservative vote and to turn the election into a two-way fight.  Siobhan Coady is widely perceived as the front runner.  Expect the New Democrats to start turning their guns on her directly in an effort to make it a two-way racket.  That can work to Coady's advantage if she can actually capitalize on it.

Campaigns are not foregone conclusions.  Polling numbers and past voting patterns are only indicators. They are clues. There is nothing deterministic about them.  Much depends, as in every election, about how the candidates and the campaigns perform on the ground.

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The politics of strange bedfellows

Bob Ridgley is the Provincial Conservative member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North and part of a family clan that dominates a significant chunk of Conservative vote in the metro St. John's area.

Since his provincial district sits almost entirely within the federal riding of St. John's East where more and more incumbent MHAs (all Provincial Conservatives by the way) seem to be turning out in support of the New Democrat's Jack Harris, it's a fair bet that Bob will be voting Orange in October.

That's hardly surprising given that the Liberal  - Walter Noel - is a former provincial cabinet minister and the Conservative candidate is a guy who has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Premier Danny Williams.  Former journalist Craig Westcott did a game job today of defending Stephen Harper following a speech by the Premier at the Board of Trade,  but it's got to be getting harder and harder for Westcott to keep up a defense of the clearly indefensible.  He said the words but they lacked conviction. It's too bad to see a decent guy like Westcott - the contrarian's contrarian - do this kind of damage to himself.

But that's digression.

CBC News this evening included an interview with some local politicians on the federal campaign.  Energy minister Kathy Dunderdale  - a provincial Conservative - proudly announced she'd be working for the Dipper's Harris.  Not surprising given that she punted Noel to the curb in 2003.

But what of the others, like Ridgley?

While he didn't say so in a Telegram interview on Tuesday, Ridgley made clear a couple of other things. 

First of all, it's pretty obvious he is a Conservative - Provincial and usually federal - right down to being a voter in the merger election that saw Stephen Harper elected. 

Yep.  It is a Family Feud at heart and no one should be naive enough to believe that in a few years time this whole thing won't have snapped back to the usual friendships, relationships and voting patterns.

But here's an even more interesting  turn of phrase in Ridgley's e-mail response to the Telegram reporter:

When Stephen Harper was running to be the leader of the 'new' Conservative Party, I supported Belinda Stronach;  I thought she was as shallow as a saucer but I believed that she was the only one who had a chance of stopping Harper...

Ridgley keeps going, saying next that he was persuaded Harper was alright a little later on.  Ridgley's conversion to the Harper cause survived two federal elections.  Ridgley evidently kept pounding doors or whatever a key local Tory organizer does to get Stephen Harper elected despite the concerns raised about Harper, the evident problems Ridgley had at the time Harper became leader and well, just about anything else that might have given him pause.

Okay?

Well, not really.

You have a guy here who was prepared to get into political bed with someone he believed wasn't qualified for the job  - lacking in intellect is the polite version of what he said - because he believed that candidate was the only way to stop someone else from winning about whom he claims he had serious misgivings at the time.

How serious?  Well serious enough to vote for someone who to him seemed too shallow to be a national party leader.

What's the word for that sort of logic? 

Facile.

Well, yeah. 

But there's a better one.

Shallow? 

Yeah, shallow.

When that first shallow bit of logic didn't work out, Ridgley changed his mind and got into bed with Stephen Harper.

If that's not enough to make you a little uneasy, there's maybe the whole reference to Stronach as being "shallow as a saucer". 

That's gratuitous. 

It's a cheap shot.

It's a pretty low personal attack, along the lines of calling someone a quisling or a traitor or showing a puffin crapping on the leader of a rival party.

If nothing else, it was totally unnecessary in the context of the e-mail on any level and that too says as much about Ridgley's judgment as the other stuff.

It will be interesting to see how Nancy Riche, among others, reacts to having Ridgley knocking doors on behalf of Jack Harris. Does Bob share Jack's views on choice and equal marriage for example?  There's a set of questions to pose to the Blue Crew who are turning Orange suddenly.

Ridgley's backing the ABC thingy  for a very specific reason and when the reason goes away he and the rest of his "progressive" Conservatives will head back home, just as he was prepared to switch from Belinda to Steve when it suited.

Politics can make for some truly strange bedfellows.

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Anything But Clear: poll

If the latest poll by NTV News is any indication, the Premier has a gigantic job of work ahead of him just in his own province to make the Family Feud relevant to the federal election let alone taking the thing across the country.

Of the 1200 likely voters polled, 27% hadn't heard of the Premier's Anything But Conservative campaign.  That's two years after he started it and despite more than a few references to it on the news.

The poll, conducted by Telelink for NTV, then asked the voters who were aware of ABC - that's 919 respondents for those keeping track - if they though it was appropriate for the Premier to be engaged in it in the first place.

45.6% said yes, 34.5% said no, 19.9% were unsure. The margin of error is +/-3.3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Whip out those calculators, ladies and gentlemen, and do some math.  Sensitive people may avert their eyes at this point.

That's 45.6% of the 73% who indicated they'd heard of the Premier's campaign.

A couple of clicks on the old calculator later and you see that works out to only 33% of all respondents.  One third of the public think it's appropriate. 

That's all.

But it gets worse, at least for the ABCers:

Telelink had more difficulty than usual getting people to answer the survey, and those who did -- 55% -- were undecided. Meanwhile, 19.1% said they would vote Liberal, 14.3% said they would vote Conservative and 8.8% said they would vote NDP.

Now it's almost impossible to understand if that means 55% of 1200, 55% of 919 or 55% of some other small number who answered the question but any way you put that together, it should make some people in the province very nervous about the outcome of the election in some of the seats.

Like say the three on the Avalon peninsula that are really the only ones up for grabs.

And through this you have to bear in mind that Telelink's survey during the last provincial election was eerily accurate.  We're talking off by a few percentage points as opposed to the widely quoted CRA poll which was off by a country mile and then some.

People aren't indicating their unquestioning and everlasting support for the crusade.  Who would ever have believed such a thing possible, take one step forward.  Certainly not your humble e-scribbler who has contended that at the very least survey respondents in these parts are adept at concealing their real intentions. 

Sometimes.

Other times, they describe themselves as undecided when they are thinking of doing something that goes against the perceived popular or dominant opinion.  It used to be - not so very long ago - that people in the undecided column were usually those ticked at government about something but either parking there until the matter resolved or leaning toward the opposition party but not sure if it was safe to say it openly.  About 15 to 20% can be genuinely undecided or won't vote.

In this case, a significant chunk of the 55% who were undecided could very well be potential Conservative voters or more likely are Conservatives who have made up their minds but just don't want to say. There may also be a bunch of undecided Liberals who are unsure of the vote or who might be looking at another option.  Heck, with numbers like that, pretty well all three major parties have some softness in their support.

The parties have a job of work to do. In many instances, that job won't be made easier by mixing around party allegiances among workers or by having candidates from one of the provincial parties cuddling up to people they usually don't agree with let alone work beside on a campaign. 

If Telelink and NTV released the full data set, someone could crunch some numbers and give you a much more accurate view of the poll and the electorate than the online story does.  Even as it is, though, this first poll of the campaign should really shake up the popular perception of what has already turned out to be a campaign of surprises.

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The 800 pound gorilla in the election

Correction:

After 24 months of Conservative government, productivity sits low for the third consecutive quarter, the longest continuous period of decline in 18 years.

For the first time since the Conservatives were last in power, the federal government may have to consider running a federal budget deficit.

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[The above replaces this lede which was wrong:  "After 24 months of Conservative government, productivity is at its lowest level in 18 years - the last Conservative government - and sits low after three quarters of consecutive decline."

H/t to Andrew for pointing out the mistake. (See comment)]  

The Blue Shaft

If you want to get a good idea of just how the Connies carbon initiative wouldn't work, then read Paul Wells blog entry that exposes the scam in plain English.

For the Harper defence, full of the characteristic professorial high tones and just a wee bit of anger, there's the audio of Paul's Q & A with the PM.

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Ryan Cleary: Gucci socialist, aging granola or artsy fartsy?

Ryan Cleary wannabe candidate for the New Democratic Party may not get to be for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that he has shown no love for the Dipper crew over the years.

Like this gem from last fall in his analysis of the general election.  After praising the Premier to the hilt - as is Ryan's wont - we get this lovely phrase:

On the plus side, there’s nowhere to go but up (at least for the Liberals, the NDP being content to cater to the small pocket of aging granolas and artsy fartsies in Town).

or this collection of bons mots:

If it wasn’t for Danny’s all-forgiving nature, the NDP — which is down now to a single soul in the legislature — would lose its party status and all the special perks that go with it. There would be no worse time than for that to happen than now, seven months before a provincial general election. Michael might see her party fade to black altogether. Then who would be left to save the Gucci socialists and artsy fartsy types in the east end of St. John’s?

or this thought about Jack Harris, his possible fellow candidate:

The question remains, what will the party do without him? My guess is … nothing. The same as it did while he was at the helm. That may sound mean, but it’s a fact.

Well, that was a fact, but Cleary didn't stop there:

The NDP has barely made an inch of headway in the province since Peter Fenwick wore short pants — party because the party has a tendency to eat its own. Despite the backing of most of the major unions, the New Democrats — outside the aging granolas in east end St. John’s and the union crowd in Labrador City — are a lame political duck. When Jack goes he should fold up the NDP tent and take it with him.

Hardly seems likely that the Gucci socialists, artsy fartsy set and the aging granolas in St. John's South Mount Pearl are going to forgive and forget just to get Cleary's name on the ballot.

Never fear, though.  There's always Labrador where the Connies have had to parachute in a political staffer to carry the Blue banner. 

The Orange bunch apparently can't find anyone even willing to get in the plane, let alone don the 'chute.  If the NDP threw in free air fare, Cleary could be their man in the middle of Todd Russell country.

Ya know it's not like he hasn't taken the odd free flight before.

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Yes, but what kind of fruit?

Chuck McVetty is likely fuming, given that the federal Conservatives are apparently led by a guy willing to self identify as a fruit.

Talk about alienating your base, there Queensway Steve.

But there's more to this little bit of campaign levity than that campaign levity.

For starters, the CBC version refers to the question thrown at Stephen Harper as inevitable given that Harper was at a produce market for a photo op. Yeah, like that's the first and most obvious question.

Then there's the apology from Harper handlers that he hadn't been briefed on the question.

Briefed on the question?

Apology?

Maybe they were apologizing publicly to the people behind the entirely manufactured Stephen Harper  - is that like a political GMO? - for letting the guy field the question in the first place.

So anyway, when asked what kind of vegetable he would be, the unscripted Stephen Harper looked at the laden tables  and picked "fruit".

If they'd had a chance to brief him, Harper would probably have said "potato", being careful of course to make sure they added an "e" at the end.

We all wondered what Dan Quayle was doing these days.

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How green was your valley?

Like the old Newfoundland saying, some politicians think the voters are too green to burn if you take the full measure of the least political events in eastern Newfoundland.

First, there was the latest begging letter to Uncle Ottawa - itself pretty much recycled from previous federal election campaigns and the 2006 federal Conservative campaign manual - demonstrating both the dependence of independence and going it alone but only if others pay for it.  And yes folks, there is a clip of a certain political leader saying that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians want to be masters of their domain.

Second came the planted caller endorsing the Liberal candidate in St. John's East because, you know, a vote for the NDP is a vote for Stephen Harper.  Yeah, like that piece of recycling - or is it compost - from the 2004 campaign worked so well for the same guy the last time he ran in that seat.  

David Suzuki was right. 

This is a totally green campaign.

Everything is recycled.

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Begging letters to Ottawa

Some politicians think we gotta treat Ottawa like Santa Claus and write him begging or something...or when Joey was around it was "Uncle Ottawa" maybe he'll do us some favours.

Jack Harris, federal NDP candidate in St. John's East and former provincial NDP leader said a mouthful at the news conference announcing his candidacy. 

Just how much a mouthful, though, will be plain when Harris' national leader answers the latest begging letter to Ottawa sent today by Harris' former law partner with a resounding "yes" on pretty much everything and Harris picks up the ABC leaders endorsement. 

The whole thing is like a Republican campaign:  it ridicules itself.

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Autonomy? What university autonomy?

A statement on university autonomy released this morning was sent to reporters without sign-off from Memorial University.

Pretty much proves the medium is the message.

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"Our brain has been hijacked"

The usually more staid Daimnation has gone to the dogs.

Yapping dogs of blind partisanship.

The best they can come up with for political comment is name-calling - C'mon guys.  "Dork" is so junior high school"  - on a story which died shortly after it was first floated.

Can the kiddie porn crap be far behind?

Oh yes, guys, when it comes to incompetent campaigning - not to mention morally debased and intellectually bankrupt - Stephen Harper's attack on Paul Martin takes the cake.

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Political definition time

To jerome:  To make an argument that directly contradicts an earlier one, especially where the original opinion was based on principle.

After Jerome Kennedy, a Newfoundland and Labrador justice minister who, as a private practice lawyer, condemned the practice of appointing judges based on something other than experience and competence and who later, as justice minister, argued for the appointment of judges based on what province they lived in.

Ex.: No one could support his argument since he jeromed all over the place.

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Cloverfield 2

In 1988,  Jack Harris was the lively little mammal who emerged amid a battle between a Godzilla and a Mothra of local politics to head off to Ottawa as member of parliament for St. John's East.

How ironic that 20 years later, Harris is one of two political dinosaurs resurrected by the nuclear explosions of the Premier's Family Feud to wage battle across the streets and hills of St. John's East.

The lively mammal in this latest really bad remake of really bad old political horror movies turns out, to everyone's surprise, to be the Conservative candidate, former journalist Craig Westcott.

Odds are the Provincial Conservatives never saw that one coming.  They could have predicted Harris' return like the rest of us did, as far back as six or eight months ago.  Danny Williams' former law partner spent his last few years spending way more time siding with the government and asking softball questions for the Provincial Conservatives to be the least bit worried that as a federal member of parliament he might somehow dare to contradict the Premier or pose any other form of challenge. To some, Harris spent his last years in the legislature sounding more like a Tory backbencher angling for an appointment to cabinet than the leader of the province's social democrats.

And after all, that is really what the ABC campaign is about on one level:  ensuring that there are no federal politicians able to challenge the Premier as the undeniable spokesperson for the heart and soul of the nation.  Some of the Commentariat has asked what Williams would do if there was another Harper administration with no elected Conservative members in his caucus.  Rub his hands in glee would be the answer.

To get his wish, Williams only has to hope the federal Liberals wind up in second place.  If Dion forms a new Liberal administration in mid October, either Judy Foote or Todd Russell would stand a chance of a cabinet seat.  They sit in safe Liberal seats and have no contenders against them as it current stands.

Cynthia Downey is rumoured by some to thinking of running in Random Burin St. George's.  If she does crop up, then you can bet the Provincial Conservatives are behind it.   Downey won't matter much though, since any opponent can simply point to her political blindness in her run for the federal Conservatives last time as proof she lacks anything resembling political judgment.  After all, what person concerned about refugees under a deportation order would run for a political party committed to the rapid execution of deportation orders?

But all that is digression.  As it stands right now, the only real political battles in this federal election are on the Avalon and the most interesting is in the East.

The race will likely see Jack Harris in the lead early on.  He is generally popular, even though the bulk of his old provincial seat is in St. John's South-Mount Pearl. In addition though, the New Democrats can count on support from the Provincial Conservatives - i.e. Jack's old law partner - who can funnel money if needed but more importantly workers and voters into the Orange camp.  The local Dippers will likely be amazed at seeing such political riches to use.

Confirmation of strong Williams support came in the form of Ed Buckingham, a longtime Tory organizer and current member of the provincial legislature, at Harris' campaign launch late Monday afternoon. Buckingham is connected and if he is there, then others are behind the scenes knocking doors to send Danny's man to Ottawa.

Craig Westcott's appearance in the campaign will serve chiefly to get up the Premier's nose and to draw whatever resources will go into the ABC campaign from the Provincial Conservative side into two ridings instead of the one they'd counted on.  Given the history between the two - and the new chapters to be written during the campaign - Williams cannot take the chance of Westcott doing anything but being crushed utterly.

The Provincial Conservatives won't be able to take any chances in that respect, either. The federal Conservatives in the riding can count on some workers and come polling day they can likely count on more votes than some currently give them credit for. The ballot boxes are secret, after all. With no way of precisely polling the district - people lie to pollsters when they want to do something a dominant force wouldn't like - Williams will be fighting the East campaign partially blinded.

As for Walter Noel, he will be struggling to find relevance. The heat of the campaign will be somewhere else and there is simply no way by which Noel can inject himself into the row.  Should he try and step in, one of his opponents will likely deliver him some perfume, women's clothes and a camera so that he can stay busy and stay out of the way.

If voters in St. John's East want an alternative to the Conservatives, they have it in Jack Harris.  The way the votes will likely run in the East, traditional NDP voters, hard core Conservatives who haven't gotten over 1949, provincial Tories and both federal and provincial Liberals who wish that Walter would just know when to stop - a disease that affects too many old politicians - can all find an amenable choice in Jack Harris.  He is offensive to none.

For those who are staunchly Conservative or who like their politicians to be somewhat offensive to the scared cows of provincial politics sometimes, they can chose Westcott.

If nothing else, Westcott's trademark sharp tongue will lash Danny Williams every time he enters the campaign.  If the first few days are any indication, Westcott may likely lash the old boy a few more times just to get a rise out of him.

And every time Williams does rise to the bait - he conspicuously didn't make himself available at all on Monday - Westcott's stock goes up making him potentially even more electable than he is at the start of the campaign.

What a mess this Family Feud could turn out to be.

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Electoral shocks and nots

Shock:  Newspaper editor Craig Westcott's the federal Conservative candidate in St. John's East. If you want an ox gored, then call Craig. He is best known locally for his criticism of Premier Danny Williams. That criticism earned Westcott some notoriety.

Not:  Former auditor general and provincial cabinet minister Beth Marshall is out.

Not:  Former provincial New Democratic Party leader Jack Harris will run for the Orange in St. John's East.

Shock:  Merv Wiseman, current president of the fur breeders association and former president of the provincial agriculture federation, is running for the federal Conservatives and hammering the Green Shift in his first foray into the media.  Wiseman tried for the Provincial Conservative nod in the recent Baie Verte White Bay by-election and lost.

Meanwhile, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is running for the Liberals.

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Family Feud Week 2: Hit early, hit often; Williams starts polling; none of the usual suspects to run for Connies in St. John's East

Last week's smack from the federal Conservatives against their Provincial Conservative brethren sent the Premier off to poll his caucus to confirm everyone would support his promise to campaign against the federal Conservative party.

It was a classic example of using solid information to hit hard against a political foe in a way designed to strike at the foe's weakness.

After his quickie check over his shoulder by e-mail, the Premier found out that one of his caucus mates would abstain from the Feud.

Abstain?  What an odd word.

At the end of the week, outgoing fisheries minister Loyola Hearn took a few more swipes at Williams and his cabinet all of which no doubt heightened tensions considerably.

But if all that weren't enough, the federal Conservatives are claiming on Sunday that the Provincial Conservatives are polling on the Family Feud.  Conservative spokesman Steve Outhouse released the questions gleaned from one person who says she was surveyed. The whole thing is at Geoff Meeker's blog, Meeker on Media.

On top of that, Outhouse follows up with a new twist:  third party campaigning has to be reported to Elections Canada.

“As you know, Elections Canada has rules – and I don’t know them inside and out – that limit and require people to report what third parties are spending on a campaign. If ABC is moving past a philosophy or slogan and into an actual campaign, where money is being spent and polling is being done, with the specific intent to defeat a political party, just like a union or special interest group, all that information would need to be registered with Elections Canada.”

In the second week of campaigning, the Premier is evidently well behind in terms of his planning and definitely off track as far as Family Feud messaging is concerned.

No attacks.

Just defence.

On Monday, he'll be defending on the polling issue, facing questions of his caucus about which one isn't on board with the Feud and he'll also be fending off questions about the name of the new candidate in St. John's East.

The name, apparently, is not any of the ones bandied around so far.  That takes Rideout, Sullivan, Beth Marshall and Terry French out of play.

There'll likely be references to threats being made to deter other candidates, which the Premier will deny with his stock line:  "nothing could be further from the truth." 

Unfortunately for him, that's one of those phrases that just screams the opposite of what the words say.  The more he uses it, the worse it sounds.  And he'll have to keep using it unless and until he actually starts campaigning;  well, if he starts campaigning and that will be determined by the polling numbers.

It's really curious that polling has only started at this point rather than some weeks ago. Asking people if they've heard of the anti-Harper campaign? 

It would appear more bizarre that Williams would be feeling the waters to see if he should campaign across the country:  he's already committed to do just that.

Just think back, though and you can see a familiar pattern re-emerging.

Williams likes to test the waters before he jumps in on major political projects like this.  Like late 2004. Williams hauled down Canadian flags and then was taken aback by the spontaneous and angry response he received. 

A hasty poll - done by Ryan Research - showed that even with the questions and suggested responses skewed to push a Williams-favourable answer, the flag thing pissed off people everywhere across the country, including Newfoundland and Labrador.

Williams' public messaging on the flags shifted too, softening as more and more angry e-mails and letters poured in.  He got the polling data and poof, the flags went up without anything approaching the commitment he demanded the day they came down. He passed it off as a grand gesture at the time, but the reality was revealed in documents obtained by the Telegram through open records laws. 

In Newfoundland and Labrador 38% were completely supportive and 29% were not supportive at all. With a margin of error of almost five percent, those figures could be 33% completely supportive and 34% completely unsupportive. Those results were available to the Premier possibly as early as January 6 and may have prompted his admission to news media on January 7 that the flag issue had cost him support. Even at home, as Williams may well have known, his flag flap was a loser at worst, a distraction at best.

There is no way of knowing for sure, but it is interesting the coincidence that this polling was completed nationally on January 9 and that Premier Williams ordered flags raised on January 10. The move surprised everyone, coming, as it did, in the midst of a news conference to announce a call for expressions of interest in developing the Lower Churchill.

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Fear and loathing on the campaign trail, Labrador version

Federal fish minister Loyola Hearn couldn't help but try some old-fashioned politicking.  He took a swipe at a provincial cabinet minister - calling the guy an idiot - and accusing the Liberal member of parliament of being negative. As Hearn put it in a Telegram interview:

When discussing that region's issues, the outgoing federal Fisheries minister said the people there, especially in Goose Bay, have to learn to help themselves, which he said they haven't done at the polls.

"They have an idiot for a provincial member (of the House of Assembly) who just goes out there yelling and bawling (and) doesn't have a clue about what he's talking about. They sent a federal member to Ottawa
who's left no impression except to be negative and sarcastic," said Hearn, MP for St. John's South-Mount Pearl.

Okay, we can see that Hearn loathes his political opponents, especially those within his own party but what's this help themselves stuff?

Maybe some fear mongering that links voting and political pork.

Gee, it's not like voters in Newfoundland and Labrador haven't heard that stuff before.

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The Sunday scuttlebutt

If the rumours aren't worth following then the truth is sometimes much stranger than fiction.

1.   Loyola Sullivan is now reportedly out of the country and not taking Harper's phone calls. The only thing funnier than rumours are Connie candidate travails are the ones about the Dipper hunts. 

2.   Former newspaper editor (his last horse died under him twice)  Ryan Cleary is looking for the NDP nod in St. John's South Mount Pearl.  This could make the South interesting if for no other reason than Cleary would likely quickly start whining as reporters started giving him a dose of the stuff he's dished out.  The guy's shown himself to have a thin skin. 

3.  A close reading of the Danny Williams e-mail from earlier the week would make you think that all the Provincial Conservatives had to do was state their support for the government ABC campaign without any obligation to campaign for anybody but Conservatives.  That pretty much clinches it:  there is such dissension within caucus that even the Premier couldn't force his colleagues to join the fratricidal policy without risking his own political neck.

4.  Even if we aren't going to see natural resources spokesperson Kathy Dudnerdale - a great typo from voice of the cabinet minister last week - knocking doors for Walter Noel, savvy federal Liberal fundraisers have it covered.

Some were reportedly thinking of sending donation requests to the 44 Provincial Conservatives in the House of Assembly with a promise to send a copy of the tax receipt to the Premier as proof they've acted on their commitment to ABC. 

If the Tories would send over their membership list, the Liberals will probably ensure everyone one of the Provincial Conservatives is on side.

5.  Liberal Siobhan Coady will be taking full advantage of the ABC this time out, turning for the third time running to a connected advertising firm to look after her campaign needs. Idea Factory has been the source of provincial Tory campaign advertising for a while now and recently added former Mike Harris and Danny Williams government staffer Carolyn Chaplin to its stable of considerable talent.

6.  Some Ottawa political staffers got a chuckle out of Danny Williams' reference to the Blue Shaft, given that it's also the nick-name of a fairly popular sexual device. They got a bigger chuckle out of the Harper "Daddy" ads but for a different reason. Some are watching to see if bears pop up next in the Connie ad campaign. 

7.  From the "Separated at Birth" file, both Danny Williams and Stephen Harper said this week they expect to be on the receiving end of vicious personal attacks during the upcoming campaign. Okay, those of you keeping track of how much these two are alike just ran out of paper.  Switch to a computer where the pixels are free and the space for storing data is almost endless.

8.  Speaking of vicious personal attacks, surely Provincial Conservative cabinet minister John Hickey - a man who's campaigned for the federal Conservatives at least once - is thinking of suing outgoing fish minister Loyola Hearn for defamation.  In a recent interview, Hearn called Hickey an "idiot". 

Hickey has a lawsuit against former Premier Roger Grimes for things Danny Williams said Grimes said but apparently didn't.  Confused?  So was Hickey.  But if you sued over something someone didn't say, surely you'd be fast off the litigious mark for a pretty obvious insult hurled straight at you, for the whole world to read.

And where is that lawsuit?  Likely right next to the contract with federal government to pave the Trans Labrador Highway.

9.  Provincial Conservative Cynthia Downey ran for the federal Conservatives in the last election, once the Provincial Conservatives decided to wholeheartedly endorse their federal brethren.  For her troubles, Downey found her campaign wrapped up in the Old In-Out In-Out scheme (scam?).

Fast forward to 2008 and with her provincial leader on the Family Feud warpath, Downey is dutifully joining in, savaging the federal Conservatives for doing things like booting people out of the country after their refugee applications have been rejected.

Check the party platform Downey back last time on deportations.

Right there in black and white: "rapid execution" of deportation orders.

And on a related matter, help and old e-scribbler out here:  who used to call the Great Oracle of the Valley's talk shows about the Portnoys?

10.  And they have it on tape, most likely. How many more quotes like this are out there?

"I think Atlantic Canadians are going to be very pleasantly surprised and pleased with the performance of Mr. Harper," said Williams.

The provincial aspect of the last federal election campaign was rather curious, especially considering that the version offered in the CBC summary linked here isn't quite in keeping with events as they unfolded. 

Williams may have kept a relatively low profile for example, but his cabinet and caucus were out there flogging CAA:  Connie Above All.  And Jack Layton?  Santa Jack promised everything the Premier desired;  Santa Steve promised to talk about it.

Steve got the Provincial Conservative support.

Yeah, and this whole ABC thing isn't a Family Feud.

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The Rhodes to Perdition

In his Globe column on Stephen Harper this first campaign weekend, Rex Murphy demonstrates an ability to observe but not see.

Murphy begins with a description of the television ads currently running:

They're from a series of seven, titled "At home with Stephen Harper." And very gentle, soft, fuzzy little minuets they are. In the jargon of PR, they try to "humanize" the Prime Minister.

He then writes:

Well, he's been running the country now for a bit more than 2½ years. We've seen him in the House. We've seen him at press conferences. We've seen him on his good days and on his bad. And the cumulative impression we have of him is already fixed.

and then proceeds to a glowing description of the Prime Minister:

For all his angularity, occasional harshness and remoteness, Canadians recognize him as a leader. They see him, in the main, as competent and determined. They are not embarrassed when he goes abroad. They know he has intelligence to spare. And despite his chilliness of manner (which I expect is as much a product of shyness as arrogance), he's a decent man who loves his country. For good or ill, that's the package - and in the campaign about to unfold, from the Conservatives' perspective, it's mainly for the good.

While noting that he does not agree with the "premise" of the television ads designed to "humanize" Harper, as Murphy puts it, Murphy is prepared to list the qualities we know and pronounce them as placing Harper well ahead of the other party leaders, particularly Stephan Dion.

Murphy's observation may well be accurate in the long run; Harper and his party may well win the election.

What he does not see - or at least does not show signs of seeing  - is that Murphy, like Canadians across the country, has not seen Stephen Harper at all.

We have observed the premise of Stephen Harper. We get the assumption on which we are supposed to base our vote.

That is,  we watch minuets,  to use Murphy's word:  carefully scripted dances.

We have observed that this Prime Minister is visible outside those carefully contrived moments as we have of Dion, Layton and other political leaders in Canada current and former.

As a Canadian who lives at one end of the country but who is no less removed from the mainstream of national media as anyone living in Toronto, your humble e-scribbler cannot recall anything of Harper that was not scripted.

Managed.

Contrived.

As with the television ads, fake.

It is that inherent sense of falseness  - designed not by public relations people as Murphy states but advertising types - that Murphy and others ought to find unsettling.

Murphy forgets the great set-to between the parliamentary press gallery and the Prime Minister's Office on the point of control. it was about nothing more than establishing tight and unrelenting control over what snippets of Stephen Harper Canadians are allowed to see.

Harper won that tussle as he inevitably would and from the moment he took office, Stephen Harper has presented to the world only that much of himself and his government as fits the premise to be presented; nothing more and far, far less than we are used to or that we deserve. Rather than reducing the "Daddy" ads to a mere passing point, Murphy could more accurately have said that they are yet another element in a diligently mapped plan to gain power and to exercise that power to do something. 

The "something" unfortunately has not been approved for disclosure. We are not allowed to vote on what Harper will do, only on the pretty pictures all posed with precision. We are to assume it, and risk the dangers that go with every unchallenged assumption.

One of the hallmarks of leadership  - a word Murphy uses but does not define - is the ability to inspire men and women to attain a goal.  Barack Obama inspires.  He is able to describe in simple words the hopes and aspirations of millions of Americans in a way that invites them along on a journey.  He is seen, at ease, in the company of others and even alone on a stage amid tens of thousands of cheering Americans already committed to his political party, he seems to reach past the physical distance between himself and others.

Stephen Harper does not inspire.  His cold, aloof manner is not a virtue in this regard, as much as Murphy seems to think it does. It is a barrier between him and others.  It is a barrier that Harper's script writers are evidently conscious of and worried about. If they were not, they would not have come up with the ads featuring actors reading words written by others in an effort to "humanize" Harper.  They would not present Harper himself mouthing words. If they were not uneasy about Harper they would not have had someone pick precisely the right clothes in exactly the right shades of blue to convey exactly the picture they wished to others to see.  They would not have paid someone to cut and style his hair into a gray helmet that, if nothing else, looks right for whatever impression they desired to leave.

Obama, like all political leaders since the 1960s, is no less surrounded by the handlers, hairdressers, and writers;  it is just that we cannot see with him as obviously as we see with Harper the signs of their manipulations. The one is a skilled craft that is merely aimed at presenting a clear picture of the man. The elegance of their work is that is not evident. One suspects it is not evident because they are able to let the man speak for himself without worrying about the impression.

With Harper, we can see every pixel.

We see every line.

Every line pointing somewhere.

But we are not allowed to know - and during the campaign the managers will work hardest of all to ensure - that we do not know where those lines really point.

Perhaps from Toronto, Rex Murphy is too close to the screen to tell what road it is showing.

 

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An abuse of our men and women in uniform

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

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

The lesson was Manipulation, Cynicism and Crassness 101.

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

But here's the thing:

No one knows what this unit will do.

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

No one knows where they will train.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Shaping political attitudes

The quarterly CRA promotional poll hit the streets today and it's interesting to see, among other things, one rather curious difference between the numbers as reported and the corrected figures.

Search Bond Papers and you'll find plenty of commentary on these quarterly surveys and they way they are misused and misinterpreted by all sorts of commentators in the province.  Last spring, for example, we looked at the discrepancy between the polling numbers and the actual election result a year ago.

As for the misused and misinterpreted, one need only look at the Great Oracle of the Valley, a.k.a. voice of the cabinet minister, which headlines its online story Williams and His Government as Popular as Ever: Survey.

As popular as ever?

Not even close.

Corporate Research Associates likes to report its results as a percentage of decided respondents.  That is, when figuring out the numbers they report, they drop out the undecided people and those who gave no response and then recalculate the percentages using only the rest.

The most obvious effect of this approach is that it inflates the number, as you can plainly see in the chart at left. Over the last year, the difference between the reported result for the Provincial Conservatives and the corrected result (as percentage of total respondents reported) has been between 13 to 15 percentage points. 

In the latest poll, the difference is 17 points.

The effect of this inflation is no where near as dramatic for the opposition parties where the difference between one number and the other is only a couple of percentage points.

Bear in mind, of course, that distortion from reporting as percentage of "decideds" is on top of the distortion evident from comparing the poll results and election results last fall.  That variance was potentially upwards of 20 percentage points on its own.

The other distortion can only be seen when you actually take the time to correct the figures. Rather than seeing a political party which is every bit as popular today as it was six months ago - as the Oracle reported -  there's apparently been a fairly steady decline in support for the Provincial Conservative party.

Now the decline is not any sign of impending collapse but stop and think about it for a second.  News reports which state that the government retains its high popularity are strictly accurate:  government remains extremely popular.  But such reports miss the actual result.

The fault here lies not with reporters and editors in the handful of newsrooms covering the province.  How many of them have the time to flick their calculators on and make the adjustments?  How many of them would be able to report adjusted figures - as opposed to simply reporting the expert's results - without running the risk of accusations that they were biased or unqualified to change what they had been handed?  How many have the time in the course of a busy day to find a polling expert who could legitimately provide a different interpretation, again with the risk that such action would be criticized as "biased"?  Since there is no polling readily available to contradict the CRA results, on what basis would they ethically pursue an alternate interpretation in the first place?

What we are left with is  a situation in which reporters relay the information they have.

Consider the impact that this situation may have on public opinion. With everyone reporting huge popularity for the governing party that doesn't seem to vary over time, it's not to hard to imagine people who disagree with the government feeling isolated.  After all, anyone not feeling too favourably disposed to the government party generally or on a single issue and just catching these numbers quickly would think that he or she is merely one in 18 or 20.  In reality, they are almost one in 40, if we allow that the so-called undecideds are not favourably disposed either but, for the most part, they would not know that.

There is a fairly large body of social psychological research since the end of the Second World War on notion of conformity.  That is the idea that individuals will tend to adjust their stated opinions and their behaviour to conform with a real or perceived standard.

And we don't really need to get too deeply into the phenomenon of conformity to pose the notion that CRA polls aren't really measuring public opinion accurately any more.  In fact, there is a good reason to suggest that these polls have become - in effect  - part of an effort to shape public opinion. 

While it was once dismissed, the notion of poll goosing now appears to be generally accepted.  Recent revelations suggest the government employs a tightly managed system of information release both to coincide with polling periods and, in some instances, to bury unfavourable news. Those who have critical opinions report being advised by politicians and senior government officials to keep silent. Some, such members of as the offshore industry association, have been subjected to public attacks.  Others have been threatened with legal action.

The Premier himself comments regularly on his own concern with counter-acting what he calls "counter-spinning negativity".  That is, by his own accounts, he spends considerable energy coping with opinions that differ from the official government position.

We saw a classic example this week of the effort to enforce conformity. An accusation that some members of his own caucus may not support the Anybody But Conservative campaign is met with an e-mail that, while it claims there will be no repercussions for dissent, then demands a statement in writing as to whether "you support the government's position against the Harper government or if you support the Harper government". The e-mail uses the word "team" which suggests, in itself, the notion of suppressing individual views and actions in favour of a conformal position. The e-mail, incidentally, is not the first time, the Premier has emphasized conformity from his caucus.

There are indications of the conformity phenomenon outside the government caucus as well.  Consider the number of people calling open line programs or leaving comments on local news web sites who feel the need to preface their criticism of government with some variation of the phrase "Now I support the Premier as much as anyone, but...". On the face of it, that sort of phrasing suggests a perception of a social norm which must be acknowledged first in order to make acceptable the expression of an opinion. 

None of this is conclusive and the language is deliberately conditional.  That is because the notion of conformity and public opinion in Newfoundland and Labrador would require a far more detailed study than can be offered in this space. Nonetheless, there are  reasons to believe that the only public opinion polls in the province available to the public are inaccurate and that, in a larger sense, they actually serve inadvertently as part of a wider effort to shape public opinion in a sophisticated and integrated fashion.

In the context of the current federal election campaign, an accurate interpretation of events may depend as much as anything else on appreciating the difference between the only poll known to the public and the others available only to some of the political parties.

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Humber Valley Resort gets 30 day creditor protection

The owners of Humber Valley Resort sought and obtained court protection for at least 30 days in order to develop a financial reorganization plan to creditors.

Only three weeks ago, the resort owners announced a major restructuring.

The resort owners are reportedly in discussions with government, as they have been apparently since last year, seeking some form of government financial support.

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Family Feud: another angle

So which Provincial Conservatives are gonna sign on to this campaign?

The premier's apparently got answers from all his caucus and only one is abstaining from any involvement.

 

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