Government pollster misses more interesting story

Here’s a great comment attributed to the provincial government’s pollster, CRA’s Don Mills, by voice of the cabinet minister:

Mills says Williams draws support from all pockets of the province, regardless of the party voters normally support.

That’s a really interesting claim for Mills to make given that he has absolutely no data on which to base it. 

Firstly, in his quarterly survey CRA doesn’t ask people which party they “normally” support. Heck, they don’t even provide demographic or geographic data so that we could all get a better understanding of what is going on out there among potential voters.  They could be polling 100% on George Street on Saturday night or – less facetiously – polling overwhelmingly in the traditional Tory base of support in and around St. John ‘s for all we would know.

Secondly, given that Mills’ polling is wildly out of whack with the results of the last provincial election, he really should wonder whether or not he could even infer “normal” party support from his polling.

Third, even if he possibly could draw that conclusion reasonably by inference, the CRA data  - presented as CRA presents it suggests a much more interesting story about a drop in support for his client.

Mills doesn’t talk about that aspect of his client’s numbers, though. In fact he’s been known to issue news releases making claims his own data doesn’t really support, once you take out the distorting of discussing only decideds.

One of the things to notice about the November 2008 poll is that it showed the lowest PC party numbers in recent times and also happens to be considerably more accurate (as a function of margin of error) than any poll Mills has done recently.  The one just released had a margin of error almost double the one from November.

Fourth, if you wanted to do some longer term analysis, even accepting CRA poll results as presented as being valid, you can get something a lot more interesting than just saying “He’s more popular than Jesus.” Incidentally, the Alex Marland quoted in the VOCM story that started this is the same guy mentioned in that link. Take note too of the frequency of CRA polls with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%.

Even with CRA’s own release you see an interesting couple of things that Mills won’t mention.  Rather than use his own data and generate some interesting news, he seems to favour stroking the client in public.

Since February last year support for the Provincial Conservatives has dropped eight percentage points.  It’s an unmistakeable trend. That’s roughly a 10% drop, for what it’s worth.

At the same time, and given that the poll just taken shows the lowest level of undecideds in the past 12 months, the Liberal party support has gone up by eight percentage points, nine if you include the drop in the second quarter of 2008. Soaring economy, bags of money and public support for the ruling party goes down.  A rump opposition party with a temporary leader picks up steadily.

Not only that but this is best performance by the Liberal party since November of 2005.

That trending comes despite the current governing party holding onto the kind of popular satisfaction numbers you’d only see in North Korea.

Yep.  Even as crude an instrument as a CRA quarterly poll can yield way more interesting stuff than what gets reported if you just look.  Part of seeing that would be to look past the old story of popularity or saying stuff for which there is no data to support and actually analysing the information that you do have.

Would that get government’s pollster a nasty phone call one wonders?

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Dysfunction and disconnect

How many times does a government get to do and say completely contradictory or unfounded things before people wonder about the competence of the people involved?

1.  "The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is unable to support this at this time on the basis of very genuine concerns that our province’s issues [shrimp tariff, seal hunt, custodial management] may not be safeguarded or dealt with in an appropriate way by the Federal Government."  Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, February 20, 2009.

2.   “It is clear that the efforts of our government, in collaboration with those of the Government of Canada and industry, are indeed paying off,” continued Minister Rideout.”  Major progress made on European Union shrimp tariff, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, July 11, 2007.

3.   "That's how things have worked for us over the years, and we've got shafted as a result of it," he said, claiming that Newfoundland fish stocks have been traded off by the feds. Danny Williams, comments to reporters, quoted in “Williams ponders own deal with EU”, The Telegram, March 7, 2009. [Not on line] This is a commonly held belief of some people in the province but there is no evidence to that such trades ever occurred.

4. "We strongly endorse your commitment for bilateral agreements and look forward to working with the federal government to achieve a bilateral agreement with the EU." Innovation minister Trevor Taylor,  August 11, 2008, letter to then federal international trade minister Michael Fortier, quoted in “Province backed trade talks: 2008 letter”, The Telegram, March 10, 2009.

5.  “If that means that there's an agreement between Canada and 12 jurisdictions, and there has to be a separate agreement negotiated with Newfoundland and Labrador, then I'm fine with that." Williams, quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

Williams reportedly conveyed his concerns to Quebec premier jean Charest in the latter’s capacity as chairman of the council of provincial premiers.  Charest has been one of the driers of the EU trade deal since he first proposed it after the annual economic conference in Davos, 2007.

6.  "The EU doesn't negotiate trade agreements with provinces or federations," MUN's Steven Wolinetz said. “Prof puzzled by premier’s call for own EU trade deal”, The Telegram, March 9, 2009.

7.   "I do understand from behind the scenes that this is actually causing some very, very serious concerns from people in the EU," Williams said. quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

8.  “It would have been ideal if all provinces had joined” in Friday’s pro-trade declaration, [EU official] Jan Sliva said in a statement. “But in our view those provinces and territories that did join represent the majority of Canada’s trade and investment potential.” quoted in “N.L. won’t stop Canada-Europe trade talks: EU”, CanWest, March 10, 2009.

Given all that, it would seem logical to conclude that the provincial government actually isn’t interested in resolving its three big issues.  After all, they cannot be resolved if the provincial government refuses to address them or has no means to address them given its refusal to work on an obvious mechanism to resolve them.

And hey, it’s not like Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a significant interest in expanded trade with the European Union.  After the United States, the EU is Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest foreign trade partner.

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The poll numbers – first quarter 2009

We’ve bashed the Corporate Research Associates polling around in these parts for quite some time. 

Since since it’s the only game in town, however, it’s what we have to work with.

Here are some quickie observations on the most recent poll:

1.  The margin of error for the most recent poll is plus or minus 4.9%.  For November, 2008, the MoE was 2.8% and for the ones before that, it was 3.5%. Bear that in mind as you go through media coverage that talks about things being where they were.

2.  The chart at left adjusts the CRA numbers to present them as a percentage of respondents rather than adjusting  them as a percentage of decideds.

3.  If we accept that the undecideds dropped seven percentage points from November, note that both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives picked up equally from that.  The extra point came from the New Democrats.

4.  The most accurate of all CRA polls  - measured in terms of the margin of error - was the one in November.  The MoE was plus or minus 2.8%.

5.  There’s something slightly counter-intuitive about these numbers. At a time of growing economic uncertainty – including some sharp blows in this province – one wouldn’t expect party choice for the governing party to go up. Ditto for the satisfaction numbers which remain at astronomical levels. Look at the satisfaction numbers and it doesn’t get any less curious; you just wouldn’t expect 88% of people in the province to be mostly or completely satisfied with government giving all that’s gone on.

Doesn’t matter the party.  Doesn’t matter the leader.  When things are bad or going bad, there just isn’t as much generosity toward government. 10,000 ticked off  nurses and their families should amount for something, shouldn’t they?  How about a 1,000 paper workers?  Apparently not.

6. Poll goosing.  CRA was in the field beginning on February 9.  They stopped polling on February 28th. Oddly enough, when asked about it by a talk show host on February 19, the premier knew CRA had started polling the week before.

He also offered the view that if he was going to goose the poll he would have started goosing the week before polling started.

Interesting.

The Equalization racket started in late January even though by all indications the provincial government had the numbers on Equalization and offsets from early November onwards.  Anyone else find that news conference in the middle of the night thing odd, especially since government had already planned to scrum the finance minister the day after the federal budget came down?

Notice all the feisty, fighting talk running into that first week of February.  Take that as sort of the background noise to the month.  Nothing like a racket with Ottawa to get the juices flowing in polling season.

Then there’s the Lower Churchill project.  The infeed to Soldier’s Pond – an integral part of the project – is shaved off for some inexplicable reason and submitted to its own environmental review process starting on January 30. On top of that there were two more major Lower Churchill announcements in February, one of which was merely to say the Crown corporation had solicited six expressions of interest;  not received:  asked for.

Government decided to try playing nice with the nurses.  They did it very publicly in February a week into polling.

Let’s not forget the “historic” infrastructure announcement made – you guessed it – right smack in the middle of polling. That was followed by a few speeches to give the thing a few legs.

Overall, though, February was a very busy month for the provincial cabinet.  Lots of good news and happy talk.  Marinas, fur farms, air ambulances, all announced in February.

7.  Rolling Stones Update:  Can’t get no satisfaction? We’ve had some issues with CRA polling before and the tendency to generate results that leaving you scratching your head.

One of those would be “satisfaction”.

Let’s leave aside entirely the problem with the question -   what exactly is the difference between “mostly” and completely”? – and look at the relationship between the satisfaction number on the one hand and the party support number on the other.

Without any prompting one might suspect that satisfaction goes with support.  If you are mostly or completely satisfied with government performance, then you’d be inclined to support the government party.

Not so, according to CRA.  In Nova Scotia, for example, people are very happy with Rodney’s government but they plan to vote for the Grits or Dippers.

We are not talking small numbers.  The Liberal and NDP vote numbers here are running fairly steadily at a combined 64% of decideds for the past three quarters.  The satisfaction numbers have been running in the 50s.  So if you believe CRA, a majority of Nova Scotians like their Tory government but a larger number wants them out of office.

Huh?

It gets fruitier when you look at the Tories coming in second or – in the latest poll – third place among parties.  People are happy with the job government is doing but they don’t want to vote for the government party.

Those odd numbers don’t just apply to Nova Scotia.  Satisfaction with Roger Grimes was decently in the 50s pretty much right up until the end.  Take a gander at CRA’s polling and there’s a good likelihood you’ll find lots of examples of this completely incomprehensible correlation.  According to CRA, Nova Scotians like the job a government is doing but want to throw the bums out.

Doesn’t make sense.

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Baby Talk

A news release on Tuesday from the provincial government agency that collects and analyses health statistics showed the number of live births in the province in 2008 at 4905, the highest number “in any year since 1999”.

That’s true but more than a few people wondered why the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information took the arbitrary year 1999 aside from the fact it is convenient to measure by decade. The other thing people wondered is why the agency would editorialise with the claim that “[t]his increase in the number of births is a positive step toward population growth for our province.”

The analysts at NLCHI ought to know that the number of live births is just one factor in population trending.  In addition, they would need to understand the cause for the increase, year over year, to see if this is actually something other than an anomaly in what has otherwise been a fairly steady decline in the number of live births to mothers whose residence is Newfoundland and Labrador.

A look at NLCHI figures on live births going back to 1995 (chart, left) shows the long term trending.

The number of births has been declining for some time.

The number for 2008 is the highest number of births over the past decade, except for 1999.  There were more than 5,000 live births that year.

The figures for 2006 and 2007 aren’t available, apparently. NLCHI didn’t release any data and only described the 2008 figures as being more than 300 higher than 2007.  Statistics Canada figures cover the period up to 2006 and they are the same as the NLCHI figures.

It’s not hard to understand the declining number of births in the 1990s.  Outmigration in the late 1990s took about 70,000 people out of the population, most of them in their child-bearing years.

The increase over the last four years is most likely due to a general improvement in the economy.  The population continued to decline annually throughout the period and only showed an overall increase within the past year or so.

A look at the crude birth rate (live births per thousand of population) gives another perspective. The birth rate declined precipitously as the population dropped among people of child-bearing age.

After the major outmigration ended, the rate stabilized again and until the economy really started to surge the rate stayed relatively low.

One of the things to bear in mind when looking at these numbers is the inherent lag in births from time of conception. That sounds like a penetrating insight into the obvious but since some people are undoubtedly going to credit the government’s pro-natal policy for the increase the time lag has to be factored in.

Children born in late 2008 reflect parental decisions (even allowing for surprises) taken in the early part of the year.  Children born in the first few months of 2008 were conceived before the bootie call announcement in September 2007.  That time lag is the reason why the overall economic climate might have more of an impact on the decision to have children than a cash bounty of $1,000 for each live birth and $100 per month per child for the first year after birth.

Statistics Update:  The number crunching labradore picks up on the decline thingy.  He points out that the number of births in the province has been declining every year since 1956 or so.  There have been periodic upticks but the trend is decidedly downward.

Skeptics update: To go with that, there’s a Bond Papers post from February that discusses some comments the finance minister made to Voice of the Cabinet Minister during polling season.

At that time, we were skeptical that the 4900 figure was real.  We are still a little curious about the number and the timing of the release.

Halfway through 2008 and the preliminary figures showed everything on track to deliver about 4500.  That’s an even more curious figure since the cash allocated by government for the program – which includes adoptions not accounted for in all the live birth numbers – works out to be 4500 children annually. 

But as for 2008, even allowing for season variation and the nine month time lag, that would mean all the extra kiddies were hatched in the second half of the year. Makes you scratch your head a bit.

And if all that weren’t enough, consider this line from the provincial government’s main statistics agency:

The number of births has been trending downward for four decades because of declining fertility rates and, more recently, a decline in the number of women of child-bearing age.

That pretty much says it all.  The population of people willing and able to have babies has been getting relatively smaller in this province. We’d have to go into a more detailed demographic breakout to see if there is an echo generation showing up.  That’s the offspring of a previous boom suddenly showing up having children.  It happened about 20-odd years ago as the children of baby boomers started reaching child-bearing age. We might be just at the leading edge of time when the baby-boomers’ grandchildren are starting to have babies.

As labradore noted at the time, since the population in child-bearing age has been going on, a baby crop of 4900 would mean that fewer people are having more children.

Sorta runs against what you’d expect.

 

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God save us…

From mainlanders who spent a bit of time in St. John’s at some point and think they understand Newfoundland.

For the most part, the only thing worth saying about Senator George Baker’s comments is that they have been matched in their shallowness by the editorial commentary in some of the country’s newspapers.

If Dan Leger actually knew anything about Newfoundland – and maybe even Labrador – he’d realise that Senator Baker is largely the pre-occupation of the mainlanders. 

Outside of the local crowd that stand eternally ready to promote their fantasy of victimisation, the rest of us had better things to do than sweat the rise of a bloc-head party.

We’ve heard all this before.

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November 2008 Churchill Falls fire knocked out two of 11 generating units

A fire last fall at Churchill Falls knocked out two of the 11 generating units at the facility, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro confirmed for Bond Papers Monday.

Repairs began immediately after the fire and one of the two disabled generators returned to service in February.  Repairs continue on the other.

The fire damaged cables connecting the underground transformers to transformers on the surface. There were no injuries.  The fire was contained on the surface by Churchill Falls fire and security staff.  Newspaper reports at the time indicated that the facility was evacuated as a safety precaution.

An investigation into the fire is expected to be completed shortly at which time further details will be released.

A January 16 story in the Montreal Gazette warned readers to be cautious about their power consumption. Winter is normally a time of heavy demand in Quebec.  As the Gazette reported:

Hydro's provincial grid is stretched especially tight these days because two turbines in Churchill Falls, N.L., that normally supply Hydro-Québec with 1,000 megawatts were damaged by fire in the fall.

CFLCo’s Churchill Falls facility generates in excess of 5400 megawatts.

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Rex should check his video archives

Rex Murphy, in his Globe and Mail column, Saturday, March 7:

Mr. Harper is not Canada. Mr. Williams is not Newfoundland.

Danny Williams, from Rex Murphy’s profile for The National after the October 2007 Newfoundland and Labrador general election:

I think I represent in my own heart and soul the hearts and souls of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The one may not be Canada but as for the other, for l’etat terre-neuvien?

C’est lui.

Well, at least in his own mind.

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Bursting bubbles everywhere

last year the provincial government budget for 2008 forecast the provincial economy would shrink by 2.2%. Even with the economic down-turn, the economy seems poised to grow by that much.

But that was last year.

And the provincial government number was a forecast.

In 2009, the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador will shrink.  There are no bubbles to protect any economy from the recession.

The Conference Board of Canada puts the drop at 2.6% and for good reason:

Despite a positive outlook for consumer spending and construction, Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy will decline in 2009 by 2.6 per cent, the worst performance of all the provinces. Oil production continues to fall off at mature sites and the closure of the newsprint mill in Grand Falls will hurt manufacturing output.

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Darwin Awards Runners Up: Things that go boom in the night

Police answered an unusual call this week in North River, Conception Bay. Someone wanted the police to dispose of a  naval five inch shell that people had been keeping as some sort of souvenir.

The thing reportedly dates back to the early part of the 20th century and, if the media report is right, was pilfered from an old Royal Naval Reserve training ship in St. John’s.

Ah the stories one comes across like this. 

In the mid-1990s there were a couple of reports in the space of a week of old hand grenades (Mills bombs) turning up in the Maritimes.  If memory serves, one was found on a mantle piece where it had rested undisturbed for decades until someone noticed it while cleaning out the house.  In the other incident, someone coming out to change the flag on a government building found the thing sitting there like an abandoned baby.

An old friend who served with the local constabulary relayed another story years ago of responding to a call to a home in what was then a less developed part of the city.  It was quite near an old Canadian army depot, though.  Somewhere along the line, the old codger who’d owned the place had managed to find a few treasures and stored them in his shed.  Included among the goodies was – as it turned out – a stash of 25 pounder artillery shells, less the bagged charges of gunpowder used to shoot them out of the cannon.

Still, though, the stuff was mighty dangerous.  Had they gone off, they would have left a mighty great hole where the shed and house had been, not to mention what would have become of the people.

It’s one thing to be a farmer in France and Belgium where this stuff comes up out of the Earth almost a century after it was first used.  or say to be a farmer in Afghanistan where the unexploded bombs and booby traps from recent conflicts still claim lives.

We are talking a whole other matter, though, when you have people who think that bombs, shells, grenades and other things intended to kill and maim might actually be worthwhile things to have around so there won’t be a lull in the conversation when the lads come round for a swalley.

At least someone had the good sense to call in the experts and have the thing disposed of properly.

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Romaine clears environmental review

The Romaine hydro project in Quebec cleared the joint federal-provincial environmental review panel on Friday.

In making its decision, the panel noted that it worked within the legal boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador:

Par ailleurs, elle a évalué les effets environnementaux du projet selon le tracé de 1927 du Conseil
privé et ne se prononce aucunement sur la validité de cette frontière entre le Québec et Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador.

Quel shock for the League of Professional Victims.

For those whose French isn’t that good here’s a rough (not literal) translation:

In addition, it evaluated the environmental effects of the project according to the boundary set in 1927 by the Privy Council and does not come to a conclusion at all about the validity of this border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It comes to no conclusion since it had no grounds on which to question the whole issue. So much for the twaddle pushed by the League that somehow this decision would see the federal government endorse a border change. Apparently only one private individual appeared before the committee to recommend that the border be erased altogether.

There is extensive discussion of the environmental issues, including the potential impact on migratory caribou herds. The panel recommends that the Quebec ministries involved develop a plan with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to protect the caribou.

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Former judge dies; played role in uncovering details of major political scandal

Retired judge Lloyd Soper passed away in St. John’s on Friday, aged 89.  Soper had a distinguished career on the bench where he earned a reputation for his diligent, thoroughness and high standards.

For those who recall, Judge Soper served as commissioner for an inquiry into a political scandal that swirled around a fire at Elizabeth Towers in the late 1970s.

Soper may be best known for examining how confidential police reports wound up in the hands of news media.  He had no trouble weighing the evidence and making a firm decision in a report that ran a mere 47 pages.  The scandal, especially the events of the weekend of 23 September 1978  proved to be a turning point in many political and journalistic careers in the province.

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Islands

1.  The latest writings on the mess that is Iceland:  Winston Smith links to the New Yorker article, while here’s a link to a  feature in Vanity Fair. 

2.  nottawa gives us a couple of links to the story of an island in the North Atlantic that feels isolated from its mother.

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Stephen Harper’s bitch

“Williams bough[t] it hook line and sinker. He threw his considerable political machine behind the Federal Conservatives.”

Extract from a entry in the journal of the main local traitor brander

Smack in the middle of a post about the supposed accuracy of Senator George Baker’s comments on separation comes this comment from the blog author.

According to this blog that need not be named, in 2005, Danny Williams supported Stephen Harper based on the “it” in that quote, namely the promise to remove all non-renewable resources from the Equalization calculation. Then Harper reneged and the rest is history.  Among the League of Professional Victims, this episode has become yet another one of the grievances – more fantasy, fiction and invention than reality – that fuels their daily angst.

That was the point of the post which claims that baker is “telling it like it is.” 

Now it’s not like the political problems with this Equalization fiddle weren’t fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the issues.  Or for that matter for anyone surrounded by a bunch of expert policy people all of whom were familiar with the whole thing. 

And it’s not like a majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted for Harper in 2005 despite the workings of the “considerable political machine.”  They saw through the whole thing from the beginning, apparently.

But despite all that, this fellow who usually says the Premier is always right contends that Danny Williams – super-lawyer, wonder negotiator, walker on water, bender of spoons - was duped.

Fooled.

Taken for a ride.

Played for a patsy.

He was a sucker.

He was outsmarted, outwitted, bamboozled, hoodwinked.

By Stephen Harper.

Of all people.

Yes, according to the province’s chief quisling hunter and boffo rally organizer, Danny Williams was Stephen Harper’s bitch.

Okay.

If Stephen Harper could con Danny Williams, who else has done it?

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Connie silliness

"I think (the comments) are very concerning. (You've) got a member of the Liberal caucus calling on the creation of a 'Bloc Newfoundland'," Kory Teneycke, Harper's spokesperson, said Wednesday.

Can anyone out there spot the two grammatical problems in the comments by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson?

Young Mr. Teneycke misuses two words, if that is of help.

“Concerning” means “regarding” or “with respect to”.  Thus Mr. Teneycke says that comments by Senator George Baker are ones that he “thinks are very with respect to.”

Does that make any sense?

Of course, it doesn’t.

“Concerning” is one of those words which has acquired an entirely new meaning through the misuse of a growing number of people. Irregardless, some of you might say; we all know what he meant. You may have even observed that Mr. Teneycke made his comments with such force that we know he was convicted of them.

Common misuse does not change the fact the word is being used incorrectly.  We simply do not know what he meant since the person responsible for conveying to the rest of us what the Prime Minister thinks is evidently unfamiliar with the language he was speaking.

We can make this observation with some conviction since Mr. Teneycke then claims that the Senator was “calling on” the creation a separatist political party. 

“To call on” means to pay a visit to or to appeal to someone for something. Is he saying that Senator baker paid the idea a visit?  Did the idea offer the Senator some refreshments?

You see the inherent silliness in the words, as used.

There’s more than a bit of silliness in the Conservative indignation over Senator Baker’s musings on separatism, of course.  They spent a couple of years cuddling up to their old friends now in the Bloc Quebecois in an effort to secure the majority government  that has thus far eluded them. They should hardly find it bothersome that Senator Baker said he would encourage the formation of a separatist party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

If anything is of public concern in Mr. Teneyke’s comments, however, it is that this gentleman is so evidently unskilled in the language and yet remains as the person responsible for speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister.

If this is any sign of the incompetence in the administration the Prime Minister leads, perhaps the only person being called on here ought to be the Governor General so that she might issue the appropriate writs.

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The other option

"How long do you take it? The time is up and if they keep doing this for another three years what other option would there be?" [Senator George] Baker said.

The other option, Senator Baker would be for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to reject the sort of nonsense represented by your comments.

Nonsense, fantasy, falsehood and fabrication have been the order of the political day in Newfoundland and Labrador for too long .

it’s time for some maturity to return to local political life.

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Big Brother is already watching

And he’s pretty curious to find out who Winston Smith is.

Who cares?

He – or she – writes interesting stuff.

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The ABC campaign by Fernando

Take a good look at this billboard.

It cost $56,000.

That includes over $38,000 for the board itself, another $16,000 for “planning” and another $1,130 for “services.

The money went to a company called Promoworks, Inc, which as some people have discovered is registered to the owner of Target Marketing.

You may recall Target as the agency of record for provincial government advertising. They also did the triffid logo thingy the provincial government now uses.

Promoworks is an interesting company. You won’t find it online. You won’t find it listed in the telephone book.

The only director of the company is Noel O’Dea, the guy behind Target Marketing. In fact, the mailing address for the company is the street address for Target.  Unlike the corporate registry entry for target, Promoworks has a different mailing address.  It’s a law firm – O’Dea Earle - which, among other things, is home to the Premier’s brother Tommy. 

Now there’s nothing unusual in any of that.

What’s odd is that the bills flowed through Promoworks when, by any reasonable deduction, the work was done by Target. It’s not unusual for an advertising agency to do political work like this, even an agency like Target whose client list includes Air Canada Jazz, McCains, A & P, Irving and other major brands. And it’s not like some simple sleuthing didn’t figure it out.

Yet for some reason the bills went through a legally registered company but one without any public face at all.

Odd.

The campaign bills themselves seem a bit odd too, odd if one considers they were supposed to be advertising for a national campaign.

A single billboard in downtown Toronto cost almost half the total budget for the project, if you consider only the actual line item in the financial statement for the billboard. People who know don’t measure advertising by the amount of media coverage it garnered.  They measure it by the impact it had on consumers and by all informed accounts, this sucker didn’t have any impact on consumers outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

Even allowing for some media coverage of the billboard, the total impact of that money would be negligible in the total amount of advertising, news work and other communications coming from the political campaigns themselves. It had about as much effect as a pebble tossed in the Atlantic in the middle of a hurricane.

It’s almost like this whole thing was supposed to look good even if it didn’t do anything substantive beyond generate billings, a campaign by Fernando if you will.

There are some niggling details that don’t add up here either.

Like the $244.50 for registering the domain “anythingbutconservative.ca”. It went to internic.ca, incidentally, not something called “intonic.ca”.  Registering the domain doesn’t give you content and there’s no bill for the website design in there anywhere, apparently. None of the amounts or labels match up to that.

Like splitting the contract between two advertising companies when Target/Promoworks could easily have handled the whole thing.

Like figuring out what “advertising services” constitutes that wasn’t captured in the rest of the bill or why a billboard required $16,000 in “planning.” 

Like what the heck is an Inbox Factory, anyways? That one still defies the searchers.

Rest assured though, they are still searching, even if all they turn up are more questions.

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Cuts, reductions, layoffs

1.  Vale Inco will be cutting jobs from its Canadian operations, including an unspecified number in Newfoundland and Labrador.

2.  Kruger, Inc will be reducing production at Corner Brook by 15,000 tonnes in 2009.  One of the mill’s machines will be idled for eight weeks.

3.  Iron Ore Company of Canada announced it has ceased work on refurbishing at pelletizing plant at Sept Iles.

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So what’s the delay on Cameron?

A technical problem prevented the Cameron Inquiry from delivering its report to the provincial government as promised on 28 February.

Okay.

That happens.

Government’s original plan was to release the thing publicly two days later, allowing time off for Sunday for the rest of us.

Again, fair enough. Compared to some reports which languish in government hands as “drafts” for the better part of a year or more, this is actually pretty good.

So how come government delayed the report release indefinitely once the technical glitch showed up?

It seems a pretty easy thing to release the report as soon as it is received.  Government might not be ready to give all the answers right away but then again they wouldn’t have been able to do much other than figure out their starting position if they’d gotten it on Saturday.  If the health minister is now dealing with something else, then at least tell everyone what is going on.

So why the extra hang-up?

It’s not like the Premier was originally planning to scrum on it anyways.

Get it out there and let’s start dealing with the report and all its details.

Hang on while we get in one last torque update: Delaying the announcement of a report into problems at Eastern Health and then announcing a new chief executive officer for the organization looks a bit like the sorts of issues management stunnedness that got everyone into the mess in the first place.

Is CRA still polling?  Could explain a lot.

And then it’s on, again Update:  The report will be released a day after it was supposed, given that it was received a day after it was supposed to be handed in.

And that couldn’t have been said before five minutes to three on Monday afternoon?

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Who got ABC cash?

The blood feud between Danny Williams and Stephen Harper may have netted Danny Williams something for the $81,000 his ABC campaign reportedly spent, but there’s no way of knowing at this point who really got all that cash.

Based on information contained  on the Elections Canada website, the companies listed as receiving disbursements from Williams’ ABC campaign don’t appear to exist.

On September 1, the Provincial Conservatives paid a company listed as “intonic.ca” $244 for something labelled as “website.”

intonic.ca gets a 404 page in response if you try to find its website using the logical domain.  An Internet search likewise netted zip-olla for a company called “intonic” let alone one that did anything related to web sites.

Another company – listed as The Inbox Factory – received over $24,000 for something called “TV/Newspaper”.

Try and find a company called Inbox Factory through a simple Internet search. A company that can co-ordinate national print and television advertising would likely be established enough to have garnered even a mention on the Internet.

Inbox Factory?

Nada.

Promoworks is a little different.

There is a Canadian company called Promoworks Inc.  It does custom geegaws for companies in the Vancouver area. There’s a similarly named company in Maryland that does the same sort of thing.

But a company that does  - apparently – media planning, superboard design and the media buy to go with it?

Not a sign.

More than $56,000 spent by ABC went to “Promoworks Inc.”.

Try and find any trace of that company on line.

This one is going to take some digging, evidently.

Yep.

None of this should come as a surprise though.  The Family Feud got off to a bad start, not realising they even had to register as a third party player and report their expenses.  Not realising that is until someone pointed it out to them.

Maybe people could ask John Babb, the registered agent for the Feud. He’s the guy who said:

“This is the election that could make and break relations between Newfoundland and Canada forever.”

There might be a bunch of good reasons to ask Babb a few questions about that whole campaign starting with that statement he made right at the start.

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The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

Or maybe not, according to the Russians.

David Pugliese has a neat blog entry on the whole flap of the past 24 hours coming out of the defence ministers odd comments about an interception of unspecified Russian aircraft by Canadian and American interceptors somewhere north of the continent.

Initial reports suggested the plane – which became two planes at some point – were Tu-95 BEARs.  File footage and still photos of BEARs turned up in all sorts of Canadian media.

The National Post ran a photograph of an Su-24 FENCER for a while in its online coverage.

The Russians said the aircraft were TU-160 BLACKJACKs and that the Canadians and Americans had been notified of the flight in advance. The Post is now running a picture of both Tupolev aircraft.

All of this raises a few questions:

1.  What’s the fuss?  The flights have been going on for a year and a half. It’s a far cry from the height of the Cold War.

2.  Did anyone see that?  Odd that NORAD hasn’t released any photos of the intercept mission.  That would clear up right away any of the obvious discrepancies in the story about how many aircraft were involved and what type they were.  For those whose knickers are in a twist over the security implications of the alleged intercept, the confusion in identifying the type should cause concern. 

Not only are the aircraft different visually, but they also look different on radar and have significantly different flying characteristics.  If Canadian operators can’t tell the difference between the two then we may have a much bigger issue if some sort of Cold War breaks out again between the Russians and the rest of us.

3.  And where are those icebreakers again, Peter?  The federal Conservatives were pushing Arctic sovereignty.  They had all sorts of promises about bases and new icebreakers. Nothing has materialised on this supposedly significant file.

Even worse, these guys  - Peter and his boss - can’t seem to sort out replacing a few replenishment vessels for the navy, a task that’s been in train for a while and which is much much higher up the order of priorities given that it affects naval operations along the east and west coast.  These guys are dealing daily with sovereignty issues much more pressing than the odd flight by the Russians.

What may have looked like some kind of virtuous media spin performance to some actually winds up being a giant national embarrassment no matter how you look at it.

Farce – as the Russians called it – doesn’t begin to describe it.

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No Lower Churchill in Nova Scotia Green Plan

Two things to note from the release of Nova Scotia’s green plan for energy conservation:

1.  Talk is cheap, again:  They actually have a plan, unlike Newfoundland and Labrador.

One was promised in 2005 but so far – and in keeping with the inability of this administration to do anything in a timely way – no details haven’t emerged that actually create meaningful targets for anything.

2.  Contrary to the sentence in the Chronicle-Herald’s coverage, there is no reference to the Lower Churchill in the plan itself.

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Use power profits for region: Pike

Former Abitibi public relations executive Roger Pike is suggesting the provincial government create a fund using the money generated by the hydroelectric assets seized by government in December. There’s a front page story accompanying Pike’s opinion piece in the Friday Telegram.

The money would be used to promote further economic development in central Newfoundland.  Pike believes the annual revenues generated by the assets could be as much as $35 million annually. After borrowing and other costs are considered, the net profit would be $15 million.

Pike also suggests that the provincial government will be entering a partnership with other operators at Star Lake and in a project on the Exploits even though the expropriation bill in December seized all assets and cancelled all rights held by any companies involved.

With Nalcor Energy now taking 50 per cent ownership positions (through expropriation) in Star Lake and the Exploits River Hydro Partnership (previously held by Abitibi) the profit from these two projects would be an enduring benefit to the province, and under the existing agreements the province would be the sole owner of these projects in 2022-2033 respectively, thus doubling their benefit.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts directly associated with the manufacturing of newsprint should be set aside to now provide the economic stimulus for our region.

Merely setting aside the energy from the 54 megawatts to attract a big industrial customer is not wise for one principal reason. An incentive based on energy alone is simply too restrictive in scope. Remember, AbitibiBowater had an energy subsidy but left.

The benefit from the 54 megawatts must be contained in a vehicle that stimulates our region. From what I understand, the energy produced by the 54 megawatts should be worth at least 7.5 cents per kilowatt/hour (KWH) to the island electrical system. At 7.5 cents, the annual revenues would amount to approximately $35 million. This is a fair chunk of change (a conservative estimate) being generated out of our small community.

The Telegram story rightly notes the controversy in central Newfoundland over the power assets and government’s plans. Bond Papers readers are already familiar with that.

One sign of the mounting public concern is a new website – municipalmatters.ca – that gives an online forum for people in central Newfoundland to discuss economic and other issues affecting the region.

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Freedom from information: the federal case

The federal information commissioner released his report card today on the performance of federal departments under the access to information law.

Six of 10 departments sampled failed to meet the minimum standard. The commissioner identifies reasons for these failings, mostly having to do with staff and resources.

Some of the issues faced by applicants will be familiar to anyone who has tried to use the access laws in Newfoundland and Labrador to garner information held by the provincial government.

While the federal problem appears to be one of resources, what is happening locally is an entire culture that is oriented toward preventing disclosure.

Officials do not merely seek to ensure that records that ought not to be released under the law (mandatory and discretionary exemptions) are withheld.

Instead, they seek to avoid releasing any information which government does not wish to release for reasons that go well beyond the ones provided in legislation.

It started in 2003-2004 with the Premier's insistence that government would not release public opinion polls.  The law was explicit on the subject: polls could not be withheld.  He ignored the law and only finally relented under considerable public pressure.

In subsequent examples, officials have simply invented ways of frustrating applicants and preventing disclosure.  Informal means of accessing information don't exist.  They have simply been abolished. One can only access information by filing out a form and paying money up front.

Even then, there is no guarantee of getting information even if the applicant knows the information exists and asks for it specifically. The Telegram’s request for purple files are a case in point.  The department simply determined they will not provide the records and claims that there are no records they will release on the request.  There are no “responsive records”, as they put it using that notion found no where in the province’s access laws.

It's pure contrivance, pure fiction.

The intent of the officials is unmistakable, however.  They simply do not wish to comply with the law as passed by the legislature.

In some instances the excuses are laughable.  Officials provide a computer print-out of the requested information yet deny that the information is stored electronically.

Departments are able to act outside the law since they do so with the consent - implicit or explicit as the case may be - of the politicians in charge. This seems patently obvious but it bears pointing out: if the people in charge did not sanction the approach to access requests being taken, they would change it.

Take, for example, a request for information on an administrative review that was never publicly announced.  The minister responsible uses an invented excuse to deny access:  the information cannot be released because the review is not completed. One would be naive to draw any conclusion but than that the politicians have something there they do not wish the public to see.

In Ottawa the freedom from information problem requires money to fix.  In Newfoundland and Labrador, any changes to the freedom from information problem will require something much more difficult to bring about:  a change in some people’s attitudes.

When that might occur is anyone’s guess.

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“The most serious threat to Gros Morne”

A report prepared as part of the 1987 application process to declare Gros Morne a World Heritage site labelled proposed transmission lines through the park for the Lower Churchill project as “the most serious threat to Gros Morne”.

The report said an environmental assessment determined the proposed route would affect the park’s caribou populations and plant life along the transmission line.  The summary report, prepared by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, was submitted to the panel reviewing applications under the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage program. It also concluded the development wasn’t very likely but that the potential impacts needed to be clarified.

The NALCO proposal in 2009 does note potential impact on caribou in and around Gros Morne but indicates the company will continue to practice measures to mitigate the impacts even though the impacts are not precisely known.  There is no apparent reference to the earlier environmental assessment of the project in the 2009 proposal although it  includes a reference in the bibliography to the UNESCO website.

Gros Morne was selected as a World Heritage site for its relatively pristine environment, special geology and overall physical beauty.

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So where is the sustainable development act?

We asked the question already but in light of the Gros Morne fiasco, one must wonder what happened to a piece of legislation we were told in 2003 was supposed to help deal with federal provincial co-ordination on environmental issues.

Like the whole Lower Churchill project, not just slinging hydro lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

From the 2003 Provincial Conservative policy manual, no longer available on the party website:

A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

The Sustainable Development Act will be the legislative framework for a Strategic Environmental Management Plan, which will have the long-term goal of achieving environmental and economic sustainability and a high quality of life for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The Plan will incorporate management systems that:

• Integrate environmental considerations into all government decision-making processes.
• Involve all sectors of the Province in identifying common values and working towards a shared vision of a sustainable and prosperous future.
• Utilize a variety of experts to ensure that management decisions are guided by reliable information.
• Provide a framework to coordinate activities across federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions, and cooperation among various government departments and agencies.
• Create a stable and predictable regulatory environment that will benefit all interests.
• Promote the use of environmentally-friendly technology to meet the objective of sustainable, responsible resource development.
• Promote private sector investment in recycling, heritage conservation, eco-tourism and other business opportunities in the environment sector.
• Make use of environmental resources to create new wealth and generate employment in rural areas of the Province. [Bolding added]

Promised 2003.

Passed 2007.

Still not in force, 2009 and no sign of it showing up soon.

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Gros Morne controversy hits the Globe

Only a couple of weeks ago the tinfoil hat brigade was crowing because one of their cherished delusions made it to the Globe.

Then the Premier explained there was no problem with the Labrador border.

So then the whole thing became the Globe’s fault for trying to invent controversy.

Now the Premier is back in the Globe again, this time as the supporter of that idea to sling 43 metre high towers through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This one has turned out to be a big political problem domestically and it will soon turn into an international controversy.

That sort of stuff is always good for raising capital and generally creating the image of place where you’d like to do business.

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NALCO: the power of confusion

A sample of the conflicting policy statements on the Lower Churchill, Holyrood diesel generating plant and the rationale for slinging hydro lines on 43 metre tall towers in a UNESCO World heritage site.

A.  Premier Danny Williams:

"The reason that those lines are actually going through that park and the existing transmission corridor is to take out the dirty emissions that are coming from the Seal Cove-Holyrood plant," said Williams, referring to an oil-burning generating plant in eastern Newfoundland. [CBC story, 24 Feb 09]

B.  NALCO environmental impact submission on the hydro line project (2009):

A key purpose and rationale for the proposed Labrador – Island Transmission Link is to put in place infrastructure to further interconnect Newfoundland and Labrador with the North American electricity system and thus, set the stage for further development and growth in the province’s energy sector and overall economy.

It will also play an important part in ongoing efforts toward securing adequate, reliable and sustainable electricity supply for Newfoundland and Labrador, to address the current and future needs of the province’s residents and industries. [Page ii. Punctuation, capitalisation and italics in original] [Bold added]

…

A key rationale for the project is to put in place infrastructure to further interconnect the province with the North American electricity system, in order to facilitate the future import and export of electricity between mainland North America and Newfoundland and Labrador, and thus, help set the stage for further development and growth in the province’s energy sector….[Page 1] [Bold added]

Similar phrasing appears repeatedly throughout the document’s 199 pages.  Holyrood does not appear as any part of the rationale until page 8. The energy plan makes reference to the Holyrood displacement, but NALCO’s proposal downplays the Holyrood issue in favour of the general development of interconnection “to facilitate the future import and export” of electrical power from the province.

C.  NALCO 20 year capital plan (2008) on the role of Holyrood:

It is important to consider that whichever expansion scenario occurs, an isolated Island electrical system or interconnected to the Lower Churchill via HVDC link, Holyrood will be an integral and vital component of the electrical system for decades to come. In the isolated case Holyrood will continue to be a generating station; in the interconnected scenario its three generating units will operate as synchronous condensers, providing system stability, inertia and voltage control.

Holyrood will not close. The plant will continue to operate under NALCO’s 20 year capital plan with or without the infeed from Labrador. This is in direction opposition to the province’s energy plan released the year before.

D.  The energy plan (2007) commitment on Holyrood:

In the long-term, the current level of emissions from the Holyrood facility is unacceptable. The Provincial Government, through NLH, has investigated the long-term options to address Holyrood emissions and decided to replace Holyrood generation with electricity from the Lower Churchill through a transmission link to the Island. This replacement provides an excellent opportunity to partner with the Federal Government to reduce GHG emissions.

The energy plan envisages the export of wind-generated electricity from the Island.  The infeed environmental document indicates that wind generation is being capped at 88 megawatts because of problems with grid stability.

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New Dawn without light

The Labradorian reported earlier this month that the Innu New Dawn land claims agreement vote scheduled for January 31 had been postponed indefinitely.

Apparently, there were “outstanding issues.”

Apparently, the issues are so outstanding no one is talking about them and apparently no southern media are asking about then either. Might not do any good to ask anyway given that the natural resources department seems barren of information it’s willing to hand out on just about anything of substance.

Bond Papers posted a link to the story on the New Dawn postponement shortly after The Labradorian broke the story.  We also pointed out some questions about the deal when it was announced last fall along with signs even then that the deal might run into opposition.

So where is the deal?

Well, it may be yet another problem for the Lower Churchill project.  That would be on top of the problems with a lack of any evident buyer for the power, with trying to string hydro lines through a UNESCO World heritage site and – the real corker – with news that the Holyrood plant won’t be shutting down even if by some chance NALCO gets to build both the power plants and string the hydro lines down to Soldier’s Pond just west of St. John’s.

The so-called infeed down through the park is being sold on the basis that it will replace the Holyrood plant would most of us would take to mean that the plant would be shut down.  In fact, NALCO’s 20 year capital works plan labels the Holyrood generating plant as an absolute necessity for decades to come including the scenario if hydro power starts flowing down from Muskrat Falls and Gull Island.

Onto that pile, you can add the New Dawn agreement. As a columnist for The Labradorian puts it:

Seeing that the much-vaunted New Dawn deal - which was supposed to pave the way for the development as far as the Innu are concerned - is facing so much opposition in the communities that the Innu Nation has indefinitely postponed a referendum on the matter, then it doesn't look like it will help the cause much, after all. The New Dawn just might bring to an end instead. [Emphasis added]

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Tourism group/daily newspaper oppose hydro lines through UNESCO World Heritage site

Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador has joined the growing list of groups and individuals opposed to NALCO’s plan to string hydro lines through Gros Morne, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site.

"Running towers in front of dynamic and dramatic landscape is going to take away from the natural beauty of it," [HNL president Bruce] Sparkes said. [CBC story]

"From a photographic, awe-inspiring point of view, it's going to take away that. And who wouldn't say, 'Gee, too bad they put that pole line there?'"

The editorial in the Tuesday edition of the province’s other daily newspaper also joined the chorus of opposition.  The Western Star is published in Corner Brook, in Premier Danny Williams’ district:

The route of the power line and towers can be diverted around Gros Morne Park at a cost of only time and money.

Any modest higher cost for construction pales in comparison to the loss Gros Morne Park will suffer.

Williams supports the proposal to build the towers in the park based on a trade-off.

"The reason that those lines are actually going through that park and the existing transmission corridor is to take out the dirty emissions that are coming from the Seal Cove-Holyrood plant," said Williams, referring to an oil-burning generating plant in eastern Newfoundland.

The Holyrood plant will not be taken out of service if the line from the Lower Churchill is built.  NALCO’s 20 year capital plan includes retention of the Holyrood plant which it calls an “absolute necessity” for decades to come.

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Attacking the messenger: the editorial reaction

The Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser takes an editorial position on the Premier and his comments about Mark Griffin.

For the Premier of the province to hurl insults at an ordinary citizen of the province who felt the questions he asked of his MHA were worthy of publication is embarrassing and infuriating.

Perhaps it is not Mr. Griffin who is posturing for votes with his comments, but rather Mr. Williams.

The letter has produced what the author was seeking when he wrote it - it has garnered answers from his MHA.

Unfortunately, it has also brought a comment from the Premier that was unnecessary, uncalled for and intolerable.

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The issue behind the Abitibi upset

Human resources minister Susan Sullivan responded to Mark Griffin’s letter about Abitibi printed in last week’s Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser.

The root of this whole issue is really the upset in central Newfoundland among people who believed that somehow magic would occur and the mill wouldn’t close. They expected the ministerial committee to do things that were likely never even discussed. 

That’s what happens in these cases. 

Some people just imagine magical results. Like they did in Harbour Breton or Stephenville.  The difference in this case is that there isn’t any place to sop up all the laid-off workers.  As a result people are edgy. They  want to point fingers.

You can tell this is part of the local political dynamic by the line Sullivan uses that essentially sits the whole thing in the hands of the union.  You’ll hear that a lot:  “We only did what the union/workers wanted.” As Sullivan describes it:

"At two specific meetings I was present with Minister Dunderdale when she said clearly to the unions when she said 'Do you understand if you vote in this manner these are the repercussions, these are the consequences; this could happen and this could happen, and ultimately the mill could close. Do you understand that? 'We want to make it clear you understand what the repercussions of your vote might be.' We made that abundantly clear to them and they told us, yes, they were clear, but they had their own decisions to make. We said that was fine."

In short hand:  Hey don’t blame us.  Those guys knew what they were doing when they turned down the last offer.

You can see that real issue too in the portion of the article in which Griffin responds:

"What I would have thought would have been an appropriate approach would be an attempt on the part of government to broker a deal, to mediate deal if they could," Mr. Griffin told the Advertiser.

"If they attempted that and the end result was there was no deal, so be it, but it seems that the government's approach was 'we are not getting involved in the relationship between the union and the company', as if to say that is government policy. There are many examples in our history of government getting involved in these private relationships."

Government getting involved in private relationships.  Like say Stephenville where the government laid millions on the table to subsidize the mill.  You can find plenty of references to that power subsidy coming up online and elsewhere in discussions about the Grand Falls-Windsor mill.  For those who want some discussion of it, you can find references at this old post from 2006 and 2005.

You can see the political upset this is causing in certain quarters by the attacks being mounted against Griffin personally by the Premier – his usual smear that someone has a “political agenda” or “political aspirations” – and some of his staunchest supporters.

We are in polling goosing season after all.  Surely it doesn’t help the partisan illusion of invincibility derived from overwhelming popularity if people actually start voicing concerns about government policy and actions. As one wag put it, the issue doesn’t have to be correct, true or even remotely plausible to capture the popular imagination.  After all, said the wag, the current administration has thrived on things that aren’t true.  They are afraid of this issue because they know too well the power of a highly emotional issue and the political damage it can cause.

All that’s as maybe.  The Abitibi issue has legs and it is causing political problems in central Newfoundland for an administration that has been remarkably able to make these issues disappear.

Let’s see if they can work their magic again.

So far their efforts haven’t been working.

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Comment update:  You can find additional detail in a series of columns by Roger Pike in the Advertiser.

Williams backs hydro lines through UNESCO World Heritage Site; protests mount on line

Danny Williams sees no problem.

“When park officials look at what the trade-off happens to be for the benefits we get at the end of day ... I think they will see the benefit,” he said.

Meanwhile, protests are mounting such that even voice of the cabinet minister is reporting them. One online petition has started and the same crowd have started a Facebook group.

The  petition  - Save Gros Morne National Park – includes the following:

While only early in discussions, now is the time to let the government know that a new massive transmission line cutting through Gros Morne National Park would be a terrible mistake. The environmental and visual integrity of the park would be damaged forever. This would have disastrous consequences for the local economy which relies on the tourism industry to survive.

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Norsk Hydro planning for two more years of downturn

Like the groundhog seeing his shadow, Norsk Hydro is preparing for a economic downturn that will last at least another two years.

The company said it was in the process of raising new funds, which it would be able to borrow, and did not rule out further production cuts as the global economic slump ate further into demand for raw materials.

Hydro has already announced cutbacks of 22 percent compared to last year, including at its Karmoy and Soeral smelters in Norway and Neuss in Germany.

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Verbal tics (5) and wandering into a math minefield

Two things stand out from this scrum by the Premier and finance minister a little over a week ago. [CBC video link: “Premier Danny Williams and Finance Minister Jerome Kennedy respond to the latest from the nurses union. The union said Friday that it would not return to negotiations until its strike vote is completed.”]

First, Danny Williams utters only 11 of his now famous “you know” verbal tics in the entire nine minute scrum.  He racks up a mere four in the first two and a half minutes and only hits 10 by the end of four minutes.

Either he’s much more comfortable with this subject – the nurses’ labour negotiation – than he was with other subjects or he’s been doing some anti-tic practice in the past couple of weeks.

Second, finance minister Jerome Kennedy gets himself into a bit of a pickle when he brings up the projected deficit.  He puts the shortfall at about $500 million based on assumed production levels and assuming CDN$50 per barrel for oil and then adds on the $400 million from loss of the Equalization option.  We’ll grant him that even though it’s a bit of a fiction.

Then Kennedy starts down the dangerous road, mentioning the need to allow for “growth”.

How much growth?

Six per cent.

6%.

Or put in other terms about six times the rate of inflation.

That’s pretty typical for an administration that has been known to ratchet up spending by about 14% annually in some years.

So even with oil prices down, mines in limbo and mineral revenues down drastically, a thousand people out of work in central Newfoundland who knows what else, the government is actually planning to increase overall spending in 2009 by six per cent.

That alone would whack $400 million or so onto the deficit all by itself.

Looks like all that the federal changes to Equalization did was take away the convenient federal transfer that would have covered some of that planned unsustainable increase in public spending. Now they just have to stick it on the provincial Amex card.

But still, if you look at where Kennedy headed as he wandered into that mathematics minefield, we are looking at government booking a $1.2 billion deficit this year, the largest in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, before or since 1949. 

In fact, in one single budget, these guys sound like they are going to add more debt to the shoulders of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians than the entire debt millstone that sank the country in 1933-34.

If you go back and look at the assessment by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 2004, the projected deficit for next year – based on the finance minister’s own numbers – will look worse than anything in that document.

That probably explains why Kennedy’s voice trails off at the end of his discussion of the coming deficit.  he realised what he’d said.

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Williams lends credence to other expropriation theory

The Premier may have been trying to deflect one set of questions about the expropriation of AbitibiBowater’s hydroelectric assets when he told reporters:

Williams explained that the province didn't need the power from the Exploits River in order to accommodate the Long Harbour plant. He said 70 megawatts were freed up when the Stephenville paper mill closed, and an additional 54 megawatts of wind power has also been added to the grid.

In the process, though he just leaves hanging the question of why he bothered to expropriate the hydro assets in the first place including Star Lake, a site that wasn’t feeding power to the ABH paper mill at Grand Falls.

If NALCO didn’t need the assets and the assets weren’t going anywhere and the only thing they could do is generate electricity, why exactly was the provincial government in such a rush to seize them?

Failed Star Lake bid?

Eliminating any potential competition – guaranteeing NALCO’s monopoly position - seems to be the prime motivating factor. As the Telegram renders the Premier’s comments,

he said the most important fact is that the province, through Nalcor Energy, a Crown corporation, will take full control of the power at the end of March. [Emphasis added]

No details update:  Premier Danny Williams will confirm that NALCO tried to buy a portion of Star Lake but he won’t give any more details.

So if they didn’t need the power – as the Premier said in another interview - why try and buy in? According to the Premier, it was to bring “provincial ownership of the resource.” 

Odd statement that since the Premier knew that legally the provincial government owned the resource already. Al the Star Lake partnership had was a set of water rights leases and agreements.

Forget the conspiracy theories.  This is looking more and more like a case of “Why buy when you can seize?”

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Mark Griffin: traitor

The poor guy asks a few questions.

This is what he gets for his troubles:

"It's really unfortunate when one of our own comes out and betrays us like that," [Premier Danny] Williams said of Griffin.

The "We are not amused" update: And who exactly is this "us" of which he speaks?

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Chutzpah

The old definition of chutzpah was killing both your parents and then seeking the mercy of the court because you are an orphan.

The new definition of chutzpah is signing a deal for less research and development money than the regulations required  - Kathy Dunderdale and Hebron - and then claiming credit for all the new research and development money that came from someone else’s initiative.

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Bootie call stats – humping your leg version

As labradore has noted, a story turned up on voice of the cabinet minister on Friday claiming that there had been 4900 live births in the province in 2008.

Interestingly enough, the provincial government’s own research and analysis division figures for 2008 don’t jive with what labradore notes would be the most dramatically successful breeding program in the world.

In the third quarter of 2008, there were 1,138 live births in Newfoundland and Labrador. Couple that with the first quarter result of 1025 and you have 2163 live births in six months of 2008.  That makes it highly unlikely that the other 2800 occurred in the remaining half year, especially considering the seasonal variation.

Maybe there’s a discrepancy because the bootie call also gives cash for adoptions. Still though 400 adoptions would mean four hundred babies brought into the province from outside since the total number of births captures all children born in the province.

But still, notice the figures. 

Two months after the old year ended there are still 800 people who haven’t submitted their bootie call cash applications, if that story is true.  On top of that, the government bureaucrats are so slow getting their act together that only 3300 people have gotten any cash thus far.

That’s pretty sucky all ‘round.  Either people aren’t hearing about the bootie call cash or they aren’t getting their applications in or there just aren’t that many babies being cranked out.

They certainly aren’t getting their cash in a timely way.  Six weeks to process the application and therefore starting out owing people $1200 bucks in benefits right off the bat.  The bootie call consists of a cool grand for the live wriggler and then $100 a month for 12 months.

But let’s go back to that 4900 figure again because something just isn’t right.

The finance minister’s own statement and government’s budgeting on this don’t add up either.  They’ve allocated $12.4 million in 2008 for the project which works out to over 5600 babies.  Then they’ve allocated $9.9 million annually thereafter for it. That works out to roughly 4500 children which is the exact figure in the minister’s statement:

The combined total of births and adoptions each year is approximately 4,500.

So anyway, the numbers don’t add up. Looks like voice of the cabinet minister is just drying humping on the bootie call.

-srbp-

Holyrood an “absolute necessity” for decades to come: Hydro

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is pushing the $10 billion Lower Churchill project and the multi-billion dollar power lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site as a replacement for the Holyrood diesel generating station near St. John’s.

But, Hydro’s 20 year capital plan, submitted to the public utilities board in 2008, notes that “[d]epending on which scenario unfolds, some, or all of the Holyrood generating plant will be required for decades into the future.”

According to Hydro, the Holyrood generating station is an “absolute necessity in the system.”

It is important to consider that whichever expansion scenario occurs, an isolated Island electrical system or interconnected to the Lower Churchill via HVDC link, Holyrood will be an integral and vital component of the electrical system for decades to come. In the isolated case Holyrood will continue to be a generating station; in the interconnected scenario its three generating units will operate as synchronous condensers, providing system stability, inertia and voltage control.

-srbp-

Prov gov’t expropriated after it lost bid to buy hydro asset

Human resources minister Susan Sullivan appeared on local talk radio today responding publicly to a letter by Grand falls-Windsor lawyer Mark Griffin.  In a letter to the Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser, Griffin raised several questions about government’s expropriation of AbitibiBowater assets including hydroelectric generators.

Sullivan gave radio listeners three reasons for the expropriation.  The first – and most important – is one that government used from the start: no one wanted to see the company walk away with “our resources”.  The line doesn’t hold up any better now than it did before.  The assets weren’t going to leave the province in any scenario and that’s especially true of the hydro generators which could only produce power in Newfoundland.

For many there has been a suspicion from the outset that there was more to the story than met the eye, much more than the nationalist chest-thumping and theatrics surrounding the expropriation bill.

New information points to an answer to the nagging question of why the provincial government expropriated the hydroelectric assets, including Star Lake which never supplied power to the Grand Falls paper operation. It’s an answer that harkens back to the failed Hebron negotiations in April 2006.

In a February 13 interview with Business News Network’s Howard Green, Abitibi chief executive David Paterson said the provincial government moved to expropriate AbitibiBowater’s assets in Newfoundland only after the provincial government lost out in the bidding for Abitibi’s interest in one of its hydro projects. [video link]

“We hadn’t said we were going to sell the assets,” said Paterson, “other than we had a deal on a joint venture power dam and our partner [in that project] was going to buy us out…”.

Paterson said the provincial government  - presumably Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro - had bid for the AbitibiBowater interest in the joint venture but had been outbid by the partner.  He said the provincial government had been “blocking the transfer” to what Paterson described as an existing investor in the province.

“and now they’ve expropriated them as well,” said Paterson.

Ironically,  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is reportedly handling the compensation talks with all the companies whose assets were seized. Paterson told the Globe and Mail on 17 December: “[It] basically consists of Newfoundland telling us what they are going to do and we have to comply.”

The description of the partnership sounds like Star Lake, a joint venture between Abitibi and Enel North America.  The Star Lake partnership came in response to a call for proposals in the early 1990s from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro for a small hydro projects that would displace some of the generation at Holyrood. The project sold power directly to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

Star Lake was expropriated in December 2008.

To date neither the provincial government nor the companies involved have answered any questions about the expropriation. Earlier this month, the province’s natural resources department refused to answer a series of questions on the expropriation posed by Bond Papers. The questions included ones that went directly to the issue of Star Lake: 

1. Why were all the hydro assets expropriated under Schedule C and the various licenses and permissions terminated (Schedule E)?
2. Why was this done in December?
3. Why was Star Lake included when it was a response to an NL Hydro RFP?

If Abitibi wasn’t planning to sell its other hydroelectric assets in the province, the company may have been looking to sell its power directly to the Vale Inco project at Long Harbour. All that stopped, as would the possibility of selling the hydro assets to Vale Inco, one the privately held generation was seized by the provincial government in December.

This also puts a different light on one of the curious lines in the provincial government’s news release on the Long Harbour project:

The company has also agreed that it will pay the island industrial rate for its power supply, surrendering its option to have a better rate should other industrial customers obtain a better rate for whatever reason.

Once government seized the Abitibi assets and all the company’s water rights, Vale Inco didn’t have a choice. The existing assets were gone as were three projects which together could have supplied Vale Inco’s power needs. There wasn’t any way to develop an alternative to NALCO’s government-enforced monopoly position.

The notion of seizing assets after a failed negotiation isn’t new, either. In 2006, the Premier public vilified the partners in the Hebron talks when negotiations collapsed.  He talked openly about the need for legislation which would allow government to seize properties containing commercially viable oil finds if the finds were not developed within a certain period of time.

-srbp-

Romanes eunt domus

Somewhere in the cupboard, your humble e-scribbler has a coffee mug with the words “Illegitimi non carborundum” on the outside.  Inside there’s a translation of this supposedly Latin phrase: “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

The only problem is the phrase isn’t Latin at all. It sounds like Latin but according to those that know these things, the phrase is just one of those things that got passed down and transmogrified over the years.

That source of all knowledge – Wikipaedia – has a typically lengthy entry on the whole thing.

The phrase cropped up again in a scrum on Thursday, with a new variation: “illegitimati”.  Same difference.  It’s still mock Latin.

At times like this, it is worthwhile to go back to Monty Python.  A little proper Latin and a properly funny Latin lesson to correct the phrase that translates as “People called Romans they go the house.”