Arrogance never impresses

Mr. Speaker, that is the difficulties with letting people see these reports when they do not have the technical expertise to be able to interpret the results.

That’s environment minister Charlene Johnson under fire in the House of Assembly for sitting on environmental assessments of sites related to Abitibi’s operations in the province.

The video  - via CBC - is even less impressive.

At this point in the questioning, Johnson was clearly having difficulty justifying her actions in keeping the reports from the public. What else to do then but to blame the ignorance of everyone else for her decisions.

Yes, folks, the public are too stupid to understand these things so everyone must trust Charlene to do the right thing.

And if there was a problem, she’d tell us.

Sure.

Just like she and her cabinet colleagues told us they’d expropriated the Abitibi mill, arguable the worst environmental mess of the lot, and they did it completely by accident.

Really, though, that’s just the least of Johnson’s problems in the credibility department.  Take a gander at the environmental assessment for the mill that Johnson released yesterday but only because the same documents were posted to a Quebec court website as part of the ongoing legal wrangles since the expropriation Fubar Follies started last year.

They don’t look pretty.  And given that Johnson tried her damnedest to keep them from being public until forced to do so as a result of a related court action, she also looks like she was trying to hide them for some reason other than the stupidity of the average Newfoundlander.

Her other comments in the legislature surely won’t help.

Take for example, her reference to Buchans where she and her cabinet colleagues acted swiftly to alert the public to potential health issues:

When we had these reports done, Mr. Speaker, if there was anything that was identified as an immediate human health and safety issue we acted immediately. Look at the case in Buchans, Mr. Speaker. [Emphasis added]

Immediate.

The word stands out against the backdrop of Johnson’s other words.

Immediate.

As in, something that can’t be avoided, postponed or delayed.

But otherwise?  Not a peep, if you take the full implication of Johnson’s words.

Trust her.

People might be willing to trust her unquestioningly if only we weren’t talking about hazardous chemicals and other products. They might be willing to give her the blind obedience of a Chris Crocker Brigade member if only Johnson hadn’t tried to keep everything under wraps.

And maybe they might be able to look past even that if  she didn’t try to fall back on a mishmash of pseudo-technical gibberish that perhaps even Johnson doesn’t fully comprehend:

Just to break it down so you can put it into laymen’s terms, there was one single arsenic excedence that was taken between a half a metre and a metre below the soil in the ball field. The excedence was twenty-five milligrams per kilogram. If you compare that to the risk-based number that was done for Buchans on the surface, that was forty-eight milligrams per kilogram.

Here’s how the government environmental analysts described the results of earlier testing on the ball field.  Incidentally, they didn’t do any test work of their own:

A previous investigation completed by JW included the collection of two soil samples from test pits, one borehole soil sample, and six surficial soil samples in the area of the present Ball Fields. The soil samples contained BTEX, TPH, and metals at concentrations
greater than the applicable criteria.

Let’s put that into plainer English:  In a total of nine samples – not one but nine – there were of petroleum, oil and lubricants spillage and metals residue at levels above those allowed by the environmental guidelines.

It doesn’t sound nearly as innocuous when you put it real layman’s terms.  Maybe that’s why Johnson avoided plain English.

Johnson and her colleagues have a huge political problem.  Arrogance – the standard defensive tactic of the current administration – doesn’t make things better.

At some point people will remember Johnson’s abysmal performance over a raft of bridges the public used regularly and which fell to Johnson’s department to keep track of. Public safety was so important to her department – to borrow Johnson’s own talking point – that her department didn’t inspect the bridges. 

At all.

One disappeared altogether without explanation and no one seemed to know it until a federal government inspection of some of the bridges showed potentially very serious hazards.  That prompted a panicked inspection by Johnson and her department.

Something should tell Charlene that with that sort of track record “trust me” is not going to work for her again.

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Potato, potato: hydro version

vocm.com is making much of the fact that NALCOR and Hydro Quebec are taking different interpretations of the ruling yesterday by Quebec’s energy regulator.

The truth of the whole affair is actually in VO’s news story.

Here’s what happened:  part of the ruling yesterday was on an effort by NALCOR to suspend the timelines under Quebec’s open access tariff rules that give a company with power to ship 45 days to either book the space or to signal and intention to book the space.

NALCOR didn’t want to book the space now, especially on a project that doesn’t really exist.  No markets.  No money.  Still mired in environmental assessments and all that.

So two and three years ago, they simply couldn’t afford to book space and build new lines for a project that – at the current pace – likely won’t even be sanctioned before the date NALCOR still claims they’ll be shipping power. Even today they still can’t afford to book the space because the project is entirely a figment of everyone’s imagination.

And here’s the line in the VO story that clinches it:

Nalcor counters that the Regie refused to suspend the timelines association with their request while the company was following formal complaint procedures, resulting in a termination of Nalcor's application.

So instead, there’s even more talk about a project to ship power to New Brunswick through the island of Newfoundland.  While that option has always been technically feasible, it has also always proven to be a route that doesn’t make economic sense.  You just can’t ship the power to distant markets in a way that you can still make money.

The reason is geography, especially for the Lower Churchill.  Look at it on a properly oriented map and you’ll notice it is actually farther away from any major market than any other hydro project in eastern Canada (current or proposed).

But whatever the problem with the Lower Churchill is, we know one thing for certain:  NALCOR boss Ed Martin  doesn’t think it is Hydro Quebec. 

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That was Then. This is Now: Desperation edition

Then:  Max Ruelokke’s “ties” to the oil industry made him an unacceptable candidate to head the offshore oil industry regulatory board.

Now:  Mark Turner’s ties to the oil industry make him the perfect candidate to assess offshore oil industry regulations.

Then:  Hydro Quebec was a worthy partner to take an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, no redress for 1969.

Now:  Hydro Quebec is the latest incarnation of foreign evil.

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Lower Churchill: Imaginary project. Imaginary News Stories. (and one they ignore)

CTV  - via the Canadian Press’s Shawn McCarthy - got it wrong.

Badly wrong.

So too did the Globe:  they relied on McCarthy’s story.

VOCM got it wrong, too. 

They relied on NALCOR and the provincial government.  After all, Danny Williams admitted he hadn’t read a translation of the decision;  he was relying on four pages of “errors” from the decision by the Quebec energy regulatory board on three applications by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro related to transmission lines through Quebec.

The Montreal Gazette got it right.

So too did CBC St. John’s, graced for the first time in a while by Hisself live and in person.

Here’s the CBC lede:

Quebec's energy regulator has turned down a request from Newfoundland and Labrador to intervene in an ongoing dispute over pushing power from a proposed hydroelectric megaproject across Quebec's power lines.

And here’s the Gazette [link above]

Hydro-Quebec's existing power lines don't have the capacity to transport energy from a new hydroelectric project in Labrador south to export markets, Quebec's energy board said in a controversial ruling Wednesday.

The CP story started out completely wrong:

Quebec’s energy regulator dealt a blow to Newfoundland and Labrador’s plan to develop a massive power project on the Lower Churchill River, denying the province’s push to have Hydro-Québec transmit electricity to markets in the U.S. and Canada.

One of the reasons CBC got the story right is because they have the actual decision.  They weren’t relying on the opinions  - legal or otherwise – of the same rocket scientists who delivered the Abitibi FUBAR Follies.

The Lower Churchill project has no markets and it has no money, other than what is coming from provincial taxpayers.  As such, it is a project that exists on paper;  it’s an imaginary project.

There is also absolutely nothing stopping NALCOR from doing what Danny Williams has committed to doing all along;  running power through Quebec and, if need be, paying for new transmission facilities to carry the power. Therefore, there is no reason to believe this decision by the Quebec energy regulator affects the Lower Churchill project at all;  therefore it is an imaginary news story, at least as presented by the people who got it wrong.

And by the way, in the got-it-wrong, imaginary news category,  the new CBC story  that the Premier is thinking of taking his campaign against Hydro-Quebec to the Untied States is way off:

The Régie de l'énergie dismissed a complaint of fair dealing from Nalcor, Newfoundland and Labrador's Crown-owned energy corporation.

NALCOR’s three applications to the Regie included in the decision on May 12 were about technical questions in the way certain calculations were made in preparing an assessment of the costs and implications of Hydro’s plan to wheel power from the imaginary Lower Churchill project to five destinations.

This wasn’t a “fair dealing” issue either directly in the sense of the other lawsuit NALCOR is pursuing, nor was it a decision against fair dealing, as implied by the sentence. 

But for all that, there is a huge Lower Churchill story the mainstream media continue to ignore.  What a time to bring it up, as Danny Williams is ranting once again about the evil Hydro-Quebec:

Despite five years of secret efforts, Danny Williams could not persuade Hydro-Quebec to take an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill without having to pay any compensation for the 1969 deal. That’s the story natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale  - inadvertently - revealed last fall. 

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Retribution

Hisself in the House of Assembly on Tuesday:

Let me be very clear. This government never has and never will inflict retribution on a district. It does not happen.

Jerome! on the same day, in the same place:

Mr. Speaker, as pointed out by the MHA for The Straits & White Bay North, there is quite extensive medical personnel in St. Anthony; four anaesthetists in St. Anthony for a population of 14,000 people on the Northern Peninsula; four general surgeons, Mr. Speaker, more than in Grand Falls-Windsor or in Gander.

Mr. Speaker, besides all of that we have put over $12 million in capital equipment in this hospital in the last number of years. There is a hospital there to serve the needs of the people. I would suggest to the members opposite that they should concentrate on that because when you look at the numbers of doctors there, it certainly causes concern.

Given that Jerome!’s information on how many doctors of what type are where in the province is highly suspect, Jerome either didn’t get the memo about retribution and threats or Hisself is no longer in charge.

The two comments can’t live in the same space.

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Desperation

How do you know Hisself is desperate to change the political channel during polling month?

He appeared live on CBC Here and Now.

The same evil CBC he and the Chris Crocker Brigade just spent the last year or more vilifying in any forum they could find.

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Nothing could be further from the truth: political pavement pork punishment version

As labradore documents yet again, the Premier can deny all he wants that things like paving is apportioned on a partisan basis, with the most money going to districts that vote the “correct” way.

The facts tell a complete different story.

When it comes to Danny Williams’ claims that he doesn’t do political retribution, you might say that nothing could be further from the truth.

The first set of tables show the simple distinction of Tory versus Grit and Dipper.

The second set of tables colour cabinet ministers in a darker blue.

Here’s the 2008 figures:

There’s only one quibble.  Labradore claims that the minister of pavement, as he calls it, is the transportation minister.

As the people of the province discovered during the Rideout resignation fiasco, the whole pavement program is supervised by a political staffer in the Premier’s Office. Some people described this sort of thing as “normal” at the time.

Oh, yes, one more thing:

As labradore also notes, the provincial government no longer gives dollar amounts for road paving done in each district.  They hype the heck out of the cash but they hide the amounts involved.

Purely coincidentally, they stopped giving the dollar figures last year after labradore’s analyses started making the rounds.

Transparent and accountable sounds like “Canada’s New Government”.

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Corridor hits big gas

The company looking to explore the Old Harry oil prospect in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has another discovery on its hands.

According to CBC, Corridor Resources president Norm Miller told a Halifax audience Tuesday that Corridor and its partner Apache found a significant deposit of natural gas in Sussex County New Brunswick.

The gas find came in a hole originally drilled and abandoned 11 years ago.  Miller said that new technology allowed Corridor to find gas in a shale bed where it previously missed it. The Chronicle Herald reports the find is the largest shale gas deposit in North America. One independent estimate projects as much as 67 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be found in that area of New Brunswick.

The find is also related to Corridor’s ongoing exploration for oil in New Brunswick. [map]

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Jerome! ducks reporters on medevac fuss

Health minister Jerome Kennedy today refused to answer questions from reporters following his claim that incidents in St. Anthony related to his decision to relocate the air ambulance service had reached the pointed where he was speeding up the relocation.

As CBC reported:

"There has been at least one other incident that has caused us some concern," said Kennedy, who added that the situation in St. Anthony has become so volatile that the government moved up its timetable on relocating the air ambulance service.

But Kennedy would not describe other incidents, and was not available to speak with reporters later.

Kennedy is moving the air ambulance without a trained crew to handle medical evacuations.  As a result, the aircraft will have to fly from its new home in Goose Bay to St. John’s to pick up a crew and then return to carry out the med evac.

The relocation came after two incidents in Labrador where aircraft were unavailable for medevac flights.  Neither incident was connected to the aircraft base location.

In the fall of 2009, for example, a child waited for nine hours while the lone air ambulance then flying made a series of runs to and from Labrador with more urgent patients.  The second of the provincial government’s two medevac aircraft was down for repairs at the time and – apparently – no arrangements had been made for a backup.

Other aircraft were potentially available.  For example, Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation – owned 65% by the provincial government’s energy corporation  - owns a B-300 King Air that is both available for charter under certain circumstances and which can be configured for medical evacuation.

In late 2006, entrepreneur Bill Barry tried to interest the provincial government in chartering aircraft from a company he owned at the time to provide medevac service from Deer Lake. It appears nothing came of the idea.

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Justice minister approves of double-dipping

From the House of Assembly, Monday May 10, 2010:

MR. F. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, given the situation we had in that office as of September of last year, this government had to make a decision to find somebody who was competent to fulfill that role in an acting capacity, to get that office back on stream, to re-establish morale, to advocate for youth, and to do all of the things that office is supposed to do.

We were very fortunate, Mr. Speaker, to get a person of such impeccable credentials as Judge Rorke. He is a retired judge - I assume he has a pension as a retired judge. Whether he is collecting it or not, I would not know, but if he is, he is certainly entitled to it.

And people wonder how the province’s finances could be in such a mess.

They need only ask a cabinet minister who thinks such double-dipping is just tickety boo.

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It’s always about the money

Former cabinet minister Trevor Taylor, whose surprise resignation last fall triggered a wave of set-backs and problems for the ruling Conservatives, wrote a letter to the newspaper in his former district last week about the air ambulance controversy.

Trev’s argument in a nutshell, paraphrased by your humble e-scribbler:

• “Any intelligent person” would have seen that an independent review of the air ambulance service would lead to government shifting the airplane from St. Anthony, however, it was only through Taylor’s political intervention that the ambulance stayed in St. Anthony.
• Oh yes, and I brought $163 million to the district and [some people] claimed I did nothing.  You elected the other guys.
• Live with your f*ck up.

Did he really mean to suggest he created the situation that triggered the review and relocation, i.e. the incidents in Labrador?

Methinks not.

But the logic is inescapable:  Taylor is effectively taking responsible for the circumstances that existed before the relocation.  If any “intelligent person’ could have foreseen the service needed to be moved, then only Trevor’s political arguments based on something other than the most effective and efficient operation of the service kept it in what Trevor suggests would be the wrong place, were it not for political interference.

Interesting.

Curiously,  he makes no reference to the fact that the review recommending relocation was structured in such a way as to support that conclusion already, not as an independent and open-ended review on the efficient operation of the air ambulance service. 

Oh yes and it is all about money:

During that time I had the complete and unwavering support of the Premier for viable legitimate investments in the district, to the tune of $163 million during the six years we were in government, one of the biggest investments in any district in the province.

And then he finishes with a heartfelt “f- you to his former constituents:

The district voted for change, change is what you are getting.

Trevor’s letter also suggests that there was a deep-seated dissatisfaction with Taylor and no shortage of deep animosity between Taylor and his constituents.Taylor’s letter speaks volumes about how he and his colleagues operate:  pork, for one, and if you read between the lines, payback for the other.

The current administration is viciously partisan in a way not seen in this province since the 1960s.

Maybe that’s why it feels like 1970.

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Rumpole and the Double Dippity-Do

Simple question.

But first, the background:  Retired Provincial Court judge John Rorke is pulling down $175 an hour for a 35 hour week as the acting child advocate in Newfoundland and Labrador.

That’s more than double what his predecessor made.

It’s also more than a sitting justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador pockets annually.

Rorke is also the commissioner for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Public Complaints commission.

So here’s the simple question:

Has Rorke parked his judge’s pension?

It’s one thing to be pulling in some pin money as a complaints commissioner, essentially a part-time job. 

But collecting a gigantic salary as acting child advocate and  collecting a pension at the same time seems a bit extreme if it were to be happening.

After all, in Ontario, the issue is a hot one across Ontario where the Globe revealed that school boards spent $16.7 million last year using retired teachers to fill in rather than hire new teachers. It wasn’t so long ago that the same thing happened here.  In fact, if memory serves, there was even a treasury board directive that placed some pretty strict conditions on the practice of hiring people who were already collecting provincial government pensions.

After all, it isn’t like Rorke doesn’t have a pot to piss in.

 

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Democracy Watch: Newfoundland and Labrador edition

Think of it as another type of mother’s day:

"The reality is that a friendly dictatorship definitely applies in this case."

Resulting legislative dysfunction is "quite shocking," [Memorial University political science professor Alex Marland] said.

"A number of the parliamentary principles that are supposed to occur don't occur here. The biggest problem is the lack of opposition and the lack of scrutiny of government operations."

Three things:

One:  there’s nothing friendly about the sort of nasty, mean-spirited, vicious, petty, personal digs quoted in this Canadian Press piece running across Canada this weekend. They may not be friendly but they have been very much par for the course since 2001.

Two:  Marland ought to know how dysfunctional politics is these days in Newfoundland and Labrador.  He used to be a comms director in Williams’ administration.

Three:  Irony is referring to a Quebec judge making palpable errors in the context of the Abitibi expropriation TARFU.

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Head Shaker Update: The Globe headline on this CP story makes it sound like the Old Man just dropped the writ:  “Williams seeks third term as Newfoundland’s premier”.

The next election isn’t due until October 2011.  A lot can change in the time between now and then.

The Same and the Different

Bob Wakeham may find this irritating or revealing but, contrary to Wakeham’s conclusion, there is nothing ironic in Danny Williams’ letters to the CBC ombudsman complaining that CBC producer Peter Gullage is biased.

First, here’s Wakeham’s comment from his Saturday column:

The irony in all this is that Williams has absolutely no need to stoop to this thin-skinned foolishness, turning molehills into mountains, and portraying himself as a mannequin for diapers.

The premier is still immensely popular, has done more things right than wrong, and should keep his disgust with journalists like Gullage (and commentators like me) buried.

Perhaps it’s part of the addictive power trip.

Now here’s a definition of irony:

Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

There is nothing about Williams’ action in the Gullage complaint that is different from what occurred before.  So if one expected Williams not to moan, whine, bitch and complain, then one has not found irony, but blindness on the part of the observer.

Williams’ relentless negativity is legendary.

His capacity to slag off anyone, friend or foe, is equally legendary.  Take friend George Baker, for example, who has nothing but Bill Rowe-like praise for the powerful Premier and his amazing awesomeness.  The senator was not immune to Williams’ wild accusations, as labradore recently noted:

What about George Baker who got muzzled after they bought him off? What happened to him?

George Baker:  bought, i.e. corrupt as in bribed into silence.

Nothing could be further from the truth – to borrow one of Williams’ ironic phrases - and at the same time, nothing could be closer to Williams’ hyperbolic ranting.*

Nor is this the result of the supposedly usual addictive power trip that seduces Premiers. Wakeham tells a story about Clyde Wells complaining  - legitimately - about Wakeham’s crowd, the ombudsman ruling and Wakeham ignoring.

Yes, folks, Bob’s balls are legendary, at least in his own mind even if, as it turns out, his memory isn’t.  There was another episode in which the Ceeb buggered up a story about expenses.  They thought that the amounts to be spent went up when -  in fact – the administrative rules had changed on how much entertainment needed** pre-approval from treasury board.

That’s as arcane an issue as it gets but it was also a highly contentious one at a time when the government is hurting for cash and laying off workers.  And, in the case of the Ceeb, the story was totally wrong in the implication that cabinet ministers and senior executives were whining and dining better than ever before.  They aired a nice correction to that once the ombudsman ruled.

The lesson there is not what Bob would like us to focus on. The story here is not of sameness but of differences.

For starters, the complaints to which Wakeham refers were ones where the issue was about specific incidents and actions by Wakeham’s crowd with specific details anyone could look at and judge.  The complaint was not about Bob Wakeham but Williams’ bitch about Gullage seems to be characteristically personal in all its dimensions.

Then, the complaints to the ombudsman followed a series of calls and letters (no e-mail in those days) trying to resolve the disagreement in that way.  One gets the sense the Gullage episode was basically a letter straight to the Big Gun.

Then, it was all perfectly normal stuff in the dance between politicians and government on the one side and news media on the other;  pretty much indistinguishable from what happens between reporters and other people being reported on.  No screams  - necessarily - of “your mother wears army boots” or “you don’t have the balls for it”.  Just disagreement, heated or otherwise. Not personal; just business.

And the most important distinction of all:  it wasn’t Wells, if memory serves, who penned the missives and made the phone calls. He knew to leave decisions to the people he hired to do specific jobs.  He had staff and in particular senior staff who were seasoned enough and capable enough to talk him out of doing the sorts of things that Williams is now famous for.  Refuse to let him do the things that would damage his reputation in the community.

As much as something got up Wells’ nose, he – and they – appreciated that becoming the butt of jokes, even if confined to the newsroom, diminished not him but his entire administration and the people in it. Once you’ve become a mannequin for diapers, to borrow Wakeham’s phrase, it really doesn’t matter that you’ve “done more things right than wrong”.

They knew that if Wells spent huge chunks of his time and all that emotional energy chasing after every little thing, there’d be crap-loads of work that simply didn’t happen.  There’d be projects delayed by years with all the cost over-runs  - wasted public money - associated with the sluggishness.  Legislation would get lost in the bureaucracy.  Other laws would be passed but not enacted.  Staff appointments would be delayed and at times there’d be an enormous turn-over in a short period.

And that was at a time when government wasn’t run, in detail, from the Premier’s own office.

Wakeham’s basically out to lunch on this one:  Williams behaviour in going after Gullage is exactly what anyone who has watched the man for more than five minutes would expect.  Everything about the episode is typical.

It isn’t confined to people of Gullage’s stature.  Judges are a favourite target, usually because Williams has lost yet another legal case. Even a letter from Ordinary Joe to the Gulf News or some other of the weekly organs across the province can net an unhappy call from the Old Man.

At some point, mainstreamers like Wakeham will start noticing there’s much more to this than an addictive power trip:  If Hisself is writing letters and making phone calls about this trivial stuff, what is it that he isn’t doing?

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May 8, 1945 – Victory in Europe!

$8 million government loan to Kodiak under review

The provincial government is reviewing an $8.0 million interest-free loan made two years ago to Kodiak, according to the Telegram.

The cash was supposed to cover the cost of consolidating the company’s Canadian operations at Harbour Grace. As a result, and according to the official government news release, the work force of 170 at the boot plant in Newfoundland was supposed to increase by another 75.

Last week, the company slashed the Harbour Grace operation to 100, blaming a depressed marketplace.

In the government hand-out photo, from left to right, Harbour Grace MHA Jerome Kennedy, Premier Danny Williams, then-business minister Paul Oram and then-innovation minister Trevor Taylor try on some Terra boots at the cash hand-out ceremony in September 2008.

The loan to Kodiak represents more than half the cash the Williams administration has managed to hand out to business since it announced its cash give-away programs in 2007.

Out of $75 million in total budgeted for the business attraction fund since 2007, only $14 million has actually been announced. In the first year, the government spent not so much as a penny of the $30 million initially budgeted. As the Telegram’s Rob Antle noted:

Other pots of cash set aside by the department to generate economic activity in the province have had similarly little take-up.

A "special initiatives" fund has doled out just $4 million of a budgeted $19.5 million over the past three years.

The department has budgeted an additional $7.75 million for special initiatives this year.

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Related – The Fragile Economy series:

• Staying the course
• Reductio ad argentum
• …and two steps back

Kremlinology 21: Tells

The local CBC is to the local Tory crowd as the Globe is to the local, umm, well the Tory/nationalist tribe.

It is the only news medium they pay attention to.

Just look at the number of times they reference the Globe about something related to this province either because it is or is not in Toronto’s national newspaper.  If it isn’t in the Globe it never happened.

Ditto CBC.

Item: Fred Hutton and NTV broke the story about Danny’s sooper sekrit trip to Florida to fix his heart problem.

The Chris Crocker Brigade attacked the CBC.

Listening to Cross Talk that day was like listening to a pack of enraged hyenas tearing kittens to pieces.

Just insane.

Item:  Danny files a complaint with the CBC ombudsman about a comment made by a local CBC producer in a story in the National Post. 

Item:  the editorial in the Western Star suggesting the Old man might consider packing it in if he is getting too tired and cranky.

Never got much attention until CBC posted it online.

And then all hell broke loose.

But don’t just look at the fact the Fan Club reacted to the location of the story.  Look as well at the content.  labradore picked it up.

It’s all fairly typical stuff for the Fan Club what with the sneering personal attacks in lieu of anything else or the fact that the editorial opinion of the newspaper was not signed. Again, a hunt apparently for the individual to be sliced and diced.

Rather than look just at that, though, look at the fact they reacted to what – according to them and the Old Man  - is supposedly a non-story.

If it wasn’t something playing on the minds, if the fear of his departure did not cause their stomach to shrink, then they wouldn’t have to work so viciously to deny it or spew so savagely at their mortal enemies, well enemies other than Reason and Civility.

Call it a tell or, as those of us not inclined to gamble might say, a dead give-away. There have been other little dead give-aways, like Ed Buckingham’s test drive last February of a eulogy line for the Old Man’s political career.

Or Jerome!’s moustache.

Or his shoulder twitches.  Check the House of Assembly video for Question Period on that one.

Or Tony the Tory’s letter to every paper in the province  to reassure himself it seemed that last falls’ political disaster in the Straits didn’t mean the Tories were dead as a political force.

But when it comes to tells, nothing is so telling as the fact the government crowd are predictable.

From the Lower Churchill illusion to Jerome!’s use of salaries and a personal attack on the exec director of the medical association to the old chestnut that Charlene flicked out about working for Quebec and not the province in the Abitibi thing, these guys have nothing new.

We can’t do a deal because this guy is blocking?  Like you never tried that line before and still got a deal at the end once the bullshit stopped?

Or like this government itself doesn’t try to and sometimes do business with the Great Satan to the West:

• Danny, Kathy and the five years of secret talks to get Hydro Quebec to take an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, no redress?
• And environmentalist Charlene’s deal to burn used tires from here at a Quebec site? No pollution there, buddy.

There are plenty of signs if you open your mind to the possibility they exist.  The truth is there waiting to be seen.

And it all makes you wonder what would happen if not a single leader but a handful of credible potential cabinet ministers popped up on one or another of the other political sides.  People the rest of the province outside the Fan Club could see as the nucleus of a credible alternative administration.

The Tories would never notice, of course, until it appeared in the Globe or on the Ceeb.

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“Tell Danny I love him thiiiiiiiiis much” Update:  The legendary Tony the Tory displays his ignorance of how newspapers write editorials.

Yes Tony.  He is popular because he is right and right because he is popular.

How do you know it’s polling month?

Sure there is a sudden uptick in the number of happy-crappy announcements about everything from water bombers to smoother roads.

But you can really tell it is polling month because of this.

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Libs accuse Tory minister of keeping enviro risks under wraps

In a news release issued Thursday, Opposition leader Yvonne Jones accused the provincial government, including environmentalist minister Charlene Johnson of being “negligent in not revealing they had reports which exposed the full extent of pollution on former Abitibi properties, particularly the scope of contamination at the mill site in Grand Falls-Windsor.”

Jones said evaluation by the government’s enviro consultant – Conestoga-Rovers Associates  - revealed that reports on Grand Falls “identify heavy metals and other toxins polluting 16 areas exceeding human safety guidelines.”

In the House of Assembly, Johnson said that:

Mr. Speaker, this information is public. I have offered it to the member, to come over to my office, and she has sent her staff over. I have offered it to the mayor of Grand Falls –

Of course, the information wasn’t public until Johnson let the opposition take a peek.  And the documents aren’t publicly available if the public has to troop into Charlene’s office, find the papers among the mound of major issues that have been stacked up unattended on her desk for years and then only take notes on them.
Johnson also was doing a bit of a nosepuller with respect to Grand Falls-Windsor.  Apparently, the mayor didn’t have any information until Jones’ office sent him an e-mail wondering if the town council had seen anything on the enviro review of the mill site.

We know he didn’t have the information, since, as Johnson admitted in the legislature:

Mr. Speaker, I had to pick up the phone and call the mayor of Grand Falls-Windsor yesterday to reassure the people of that community that there is not an immediate health and safety concern there.

Johnson defended her actions by saying that the reports showed a potential life safety issue in Buchans  - tailings supposedly blowing around town - but not in Grand Falls where, according to Johnson, all the enviro issues are confined to the site.

Of course, the whole matter could be cleared up if the documents in question were actually in the public domain.

-srbp-

IOC expansion back on

Ironore Company of Canada is reactivating its half a billion dollar plan to expand production at its a facility in western Labrador.

IOC shelved the project in 2008 during the Great Recession.

Work on the expansion is expected to be finished by 2012.

-srbp-