The Old Man defines The Solution

Hisself, on May 20, in the House of Assembly:

Quebec lovers, if we could only keep the Quebec lovers quiet, Mr. Speaker, it would be nice.

Such is The World the Old Man Lives In.

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Cartoon U 3 – the fishery (part the first)

Specifically a gear replacement program funded by the provincial government and used by many fishermen as a subsidy to help them upgrade their equipment.

Walter Carter, the newly-appointed fisheries minister, holds up a stinky left-over from his two predecessors, John Crosbie and Harold Collins.  All three men held the fisheries portfolio in succession in 1974.  It used to be an important department.

Children and those with very short-term memories will notice that in those days cabinet ministers could actually operate without instructions from the Old Man of the day.

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Fortis and Enel getting special treatment from Williams gov under expropriation bill

At least two of companies whose long-term power purchase agreements were ripped up under the December 2008 expropriation bill will still get all their cash under long-term power purchase arrangements, according to natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale.

Abitibi is not included in the arrangements, apparently.

Dunderdale told the House of Assembly on Thursday that:

…we made a commitment to both of those companies [Fortis and ENEL] that regardless of what happened with Abitibi, at the end of this process we would ensure that they were kept whole, that they were properly compensated for fair market value for the assets. The PPAs that they have with Abitibi would also be honoured, Mr. Speaker.

Dunderdale said that the provincial government’s energy corporation  - NALCOR  - is still discussing arrangements with the two companies. The power purchase arrangements date from 1997 and 2001. The exact duration is currently unknown to your humble e-scribbler but would typically be in the range of 20 to 30 years.

ENEL partnered with Abitibi on the Star Lake project to supply electricity to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Bill 75 seized all the generating and transmission assets of the Star Lake partnership and revoked all the agreement related to it, as listed at Annex E of Bill 75. 

Dunderdale made no reference to the other companies also affected by the seizure:

• Clarica
• Sun Life Assurance
• Mutual Life Assurance
• Standard Life Assurance, and
• Industrial Life Assurance.

Fortis – the other company Dunderdale discussed – was a partner in the Exploits Hydro Partnership.  Under a long-term power-purchase agreement, Exploits partnership sold power to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

Dunderdale also admitted what Bond Papers readers already knew:  the provincial government is paying for a long-term loan for the Exploits partnership.  The outstanding balance on the loan is $59 million.  The provincial government paid the 2009 instalment.

The hydro-electric assets are likely the only ones seized in 2008 that could generate any reliable revenue to offset the costs of environmental clean-up at former Abitibi sites in the province.  Payment of loans and royalties to the companies other than Abitibi as if the expropriation never happened would significantly reduce any revenue NALCOR could gain from the assets.

Dunderdale’s admission today could also further undermine any legal cases the provincial government is pursuing.  One of the problems government faced in recent Quebec court decisions on the Abitibi bankruptcy protection proceedings is that its environmental clean-up actions appeared to be aimed solely at Abitibi and were not part of the routine administration of provincial environmental laws.

Dunderdale’s admission makes it pretty clear that the government is treating some of the companies affected by the expropriation very differently from Abitibi.

Colouring the expropriation as aimed solely against Abitibi could also colour the move and undermine any defence of Abitibi’s NAFTA challenge.

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Special oversight for deep water drilling offshore Newfoundland and Labrador

From the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Regulatory Board:

“It is prudent practice for a regulator to conduct an internal review following an incident like the one in the Gulf of Mexico to determine if more can be done from an oversight perspective to address concerns about the risks of offshore drilling. Chevron’s plan to drill the Lona O-55 exploration well in the Orphan Basin, which was spudded on May 10, 2010, has undergone two levels of environmental assessment in accordance with C-NLOPB’s requirements and the company has met the regulatory requirements for drilling in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area. However, in light of the situation unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico and heightened public concern over drilling operations currently underway in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area, the C-NLOPB has taken the following measures for overseeing well operations at Chevron’s Lona O-55 well. We have met with Chevron in St. John’s and advised them of these measures, which are in addition to requirements contained in the Drilling and Production regulations and associated guidelines. Chevron has confirmed that they will facilitate the C-NLOPB’s oversight.

A team has been established within the C-NLOPB to provide regulatory oversight of Chevron’s operations. This team is comprised of the Chief Safety Officer, the Chief Conservation Officer, members of the Board’s Management Team and selected senior staff with extensive experience in the regulatory oversight of drilling programs. Chevron is expected to ensure the timely posting of daily reports (seven days a week) so that up-to-date information is always available to this team.

Chevron is required to meet with the C-NLOPB’s oversight team every two weeks to review matters of interest. The Board’s Chief Safety Officer will chair these meetings.

Chevron is required to provide the C-NLOPB’s Well Operations Engineer with copies of the field reports prepared in respect of the following: testing of the blowout preventer (BOP) stack; function test of the acoustic control system; function test of the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) intervention capability and function test of the automode function (AMF) system, together with an assessment of the readiness of the ROV system in terms of equipment, procedures and spare parts.

Chevron is expected to monitor developments at the Deepwater Horizon incident and provide periodic assessments on the impact of any lessons learned from that situation to operations at Lona O-55, in particular any lessons learned with respect to well operations, BOP equipment or spill response readiness.

The frequency of audits and inspections onboard the Stena Carron will be approximately every three to four weeks. Normally, audits and inspections are conducted on offshore operators every 3-4 months.

Prior to penetrating any of the targets, Chevron must hold an operations time-out to review and verify, to the satisfaction of the Chief Safety Officer and the Chief Conservation Officer, that all appropriate equipment, systems and procedures are in place to allow operations to proceed safely and without polluting the environment.

Prior to penetrating any of the targets, Chevron should assure itself and the C-NLOPB that all personnel and equipment for spill response identified in its oil spill contingency plan are available for rapid deployment.

Chevron must also make arrangements for a representative of the C-NLOPB to be onboard the Stena Carron to observe the cementing operations of the last casing string set prior to entering any target zones. The observer will also be present to witness the BOP testing, well control drills, and results of the pressure test of the cementing job.

In the case of the BOP testing, a representative of the Certifying Authority will also be present.

In due course, Chevron must provide, for review and assessment by the C-NLOPB’s oversight team, a copy of the proposed well termination program to be issued to field personnel for implementation.

Chevron must also make the necessary arrangements for a representative of the

C-NLOPB to be onboard the Stena Carron to observe the well termination program.”

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The Protocols of the Elders of Laurentia

In Hisself’s own words, in the House of Assembly, dutifully and accurately recorded by Hansard, the Old Man describes the nefarious forces that circle around him.

In response to this question about the Abitibi expropriation  - “Are you planning to seek leave to appeal this court loss to the Supreme Court of Canada at this time?” – he begins:

Mr. Speaker, let’s do a little history lesson first of all, and what this is all about. This goes back to the late 1960s when we had the best project in the world that we wanted to develop but we could not do it on our own because we were a poor Province - because of what happened as a result of Confederation and everything else. We were the poor and the weak sisters of Canada. So, we basically entered into a partnership with Quebec in order to develop that particular project. For that, they acquired at least one-third of the company which developed that particular project.

Then, when it got down to the short strokes and we were months away from concluding it and we were out of money, the company was basically out of money, they squeezed us. That is when they squeezed us for another twenty-five years on a contract that already was a complete giveaway of a very valuable hydro resource. They squeezed us for another twenty-five years at a lower price -

So based on that history, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, particularly this Newfoundlander and Labradorian, and all these Newfoundlanders and Labradorians here and all the people in this Province, feel very, very strongly about the way Quebec has treated us. So if we have to fight them in the courts or fight them at the Régie, or if I personally got to get down and go toe to toe or roll around on the ground with them to fight them, we will do it.

…

And then after discussing Churchill Falls for all that time he answered the Abitibi question:

…we are now reviewing it.

But he couldn’t just state that simple answer to a simple question without further embellishment:

We are looking at asking for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. I think that, as a Province, we have to keep fighting Quebec because if we don’t they will take away everything we have.

In response to the second, simple question - What is the recourse for the Province to now be added to the list of unsecured creditors? – came a further rant:

Of course, what we are dealing with is obviously a very biased court.

When you look at the Quebec courts, you look at the decision that was given here. The opinion, of course, that we have from our solicitors on this is that the court dodged a central legal and policy issue. So we had constitutional and factual arguments and the Court of Appeal completely and totally avoided that. In addition, they completely ignored the same rationale which has been used by the Ontario Court of Appeal, B.C. Court of Appeal, the Alberta Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. So, basically, these courts are doing whatever they can to try and stop us.

The same thing with Judge Gascon, we just saw the Régie ruling which came out of Quebec, which is one of the most horrendous, absurd rulings that I have ever seen. They ignored facts. They said that what Hydro-Quebec was doing was discretionary. They ignored the evidence - a complete abuse of process. So, throughout this process we will just keep hammering away.

Yes, folks, there was a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox where they kept the  strawberry ice cream.  The only thing missing was the ball bearings in his hand.

At that point, opposition leader Yvonne Jones asked exactly the same question over again (The Old Man didn’t come close to answering it the first time, after all).  There followed another diatribe in which the Premier noted the holding company set up to deal with the two properties the provincial government didn’t expropriate:

Instead, Mr. Speaker - if I may have a moment -of what they have done in Botwood and Stephenville, put those assets in a shell company so that they could go bankrupt so that we get nothing.

Not exactly what happened, nor does the Premier explain why his lawyers consented to the arrangement, but that’s another issue.

At that point, the question of costs deflected off to justice minister Felix Collins.

A question about an English translation of the decision by the Quebec energy regulator brought Hisself to his feet once more to fulminate about Quebec:

Mr. Speaker, I said it last week, and I can say it again in all honesty today, I have not seen an English copy of the Régie decision. We are waiting on the Régie to provide us with an English copy.

It is really interesting, too, when you go on their Web site, pretty well everything that they have is always in English and French, but on this particular one we have not been provided an English copy. That tells me a lot about the Régie, the attitude of Quebec against Newfoundland and Labrador.

Basically, while the Premier’s parliamentary assistant is on a hunt for Commies, the Premier himself is fighting against the evil machinations of the seething nest of anti-Newfoundland conspiracy that is Quebec.

To conclude, some simple observations:

• The chart was not an exaggeration, as anyone can plainly see. The World the Old Man Lives In is populated by enemies everywhere, linked together by secret ties.
• This is not the way Danny Williams felt for the five years he tried  - entirely out of the public eye, one might add - to interest Hydro Quebec in taking an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, without any redress for the 1969 contract.

You could not make this stuff up if you tried.

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Resting on his Laurels and Hardys

Danny Williams in the House of Assembly today:

Mr. Speaker, 93 per cent is a lot of confidence. That is the kind of confidence I think people have in this government as a result of our performance so far.

Let’s see what those numbers look like after this month and more of non-stop problems for Williams’ beleaguered administration.

After all, gentle readers, it is polling month and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight can’t even seem to find fairity let alone stick with a consistent line on the Abitibi expropriation mess or agree on a simple policy on closing down Holyrood.

Williams had a nice tan, though, on his first day in the legislature in a while.

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Cartoon U 2

The thoughtful fellow on the right is Robert Wells, then the newly appointed health minister in 1975 in Frank Moores’ administration.

Wells left politics in 1979, wound up on the bench and retired not so long ago after a distinguished career.  He is currently heading up an inquiry into offshore helicopter safety.

The fellow on the left is Dr. A.T. Rowe, at the time the member of the House of Assembly for Carbonear and outgoing health minister. he left politics in 1975 and took up a post at Memorial University’s School of Medicine where he headed the family practice department from 1978 to 1985.

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Williams admits taxpayers stuck with bill for his expropriation mess

While his embattled environment minister blustered and stuck to the old line during Question Period, outside the legislature Premier Danny Williams admitted to reporters today that the taxpayers of the province will be stuck paying for the environmental cleanup from his expropriation mess.

CBC.ca/nl has a version of the story that’s worth checking out.

The cost of the clean-up, legal fees, any NAFTA penalties for the expropriation and the cost of compensation for seized assets belonging to three companies could reach $500 million or more based on the provincial government’s own estimates.

More to follow.

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Tail-gunner Bob: equality is not “a realistic philosophy”

Bob Ridgley, the Premier’s parliamentary assistant, lays out his own political philosophy:

I think she [NDP leader Lorraine Michael] did lay it out clearly. She laid out very clearly the stark difference between their party and the governing party. There was a reference down in the Leader of the NDP’s speech, and she said, "It is the job of elected government to create systems that work for everyone, not just for some." They work for everyone, not just for some.

She went on to say, Mr. Speaker, "It is the job of elected government to make sure that the communal pot is shared so everyone is living in a healthy and nurturing society." An ideal, Mr. Speaker, worthy, I suppose, of us pursuing, that everyone would share equally from the communal pot.

We remember the days of Communism, Mr. Speaker, and I suppose, if you want to pursue that, it may be a worthwhile ideal that we are all equal, but I do not think, in reality, it is a realistic philosophy for the society in which we live. It is not a share and share alike. There is no element, I suppose, of Robin Hood in it: rob the rich and give to the poor. [Emphasis added]

That explains everything:  equality is a lovely idea but it is unrealistic.

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The World The Old Man Lives In (larger picture)

Click on the picture to get a new larger version that's easier to read and enjoy.

Yes, it really is all just a gigantic conspiracy.

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What’s our policy again?

Provincial cabinet ministers like to accuse everyone else of not understanding what is going on or of being mistaken.

Here’s a typical quote from May 18 in Question Period:

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I realize members opposite are not in the habit of stating the facts, but I want to correct the member opposite,…

The problem for Mr. King and his colleagues, though, has been that they often don’t seem to have a sweet clue as to what is going on in the world around them.  Some of them have about as much familiarity with facts and reason as a 12 year old girl looking for tickets to a Justin Bieber concert.

Take, for example, this claim – an old chestnut – by the province’s natural resources minister also made on May 18:

Nalcor has costed out the infrastructure that is going to be required to bring in the right number of megawatts of electricity to serve the Avalon Peninsula with the elimination of Holyrood. That is a stated goal of this Province. It is one of the major reasons why we are so focused on the development of the Lower Churchill, Mr. Speaker.

All of the infrastructure that is going to be required to bring the power onto the Island part of the Province, transmit it across the Province and eliminate Holyrood, and also create a subsea line to Eastern Canada and through to the United States is all part of the planning of the development of the Lower Churchill.

Got that?

Eliminate Holyrood.

Provincial government policy.

Spearheaded by the energy corporation, currently doing business as NALCOR Energy.

Someone needs to tell NALCOR, then, because here’s what the company said in its 20 year capital plan that it submitted to the public utilities board:

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: integral and vital component for years to come.

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All we want is fairity

At some point you have to feel sorry for the crowd currently running the province or, as some astute political watchers are calling them:  the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

In the rotation of private members’ resolutions, the Tory turn came up this week and Ray Hunter stepped forward to offer a motion on the provincial government’s ongoing war with Quebec over just about everything.

The motion read:

WHEREAS Newfoundland and Labrador is home to one of the best undeveloped, clean, green, renewable energy projects in North America at the Lower Churchill River in Labrador; and

WHEREAS Ontario, the Maritime Provinces, and the Northeastern United States are in need of affordable, clean energy sources; and

WHEREAS last week’s ruling of the Régis [sic] de l’énergie in Quebec on a transmission service request by Nalcor Energy once again demonstrates that province’s arrogance and discriminatory business practices, in particular their determination to see the Lower Churchill proceed only on their terms; and

WHEREAS this ruling is deemed by this Province to be completely contrary to the rules of fair, open and competitive access; and

WHEREAS this government is determined to proceed with this project in the best interest and for the benefit of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly affirms its full support for the approach of Nalcor Energy and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to continue plans to develop this extraordinary clean, renewable energy project, including two alternative routes to market, including the Labrador-Island Link, the Maritime route, as well as the pursuit of a separate 724 megawatt transmission service request into the Maritimes and New England.

Now the gang has had no luck at all in distracting public attention from their series of shag-ups and controversies so it is only natural that the guy by the back door to the House should come up with an effort to go with an issue the Tories should be able to win on.

Things were going along just fine until the Liberals pointed out the obvious, namely that the honourable members were being asked to vote on an issue  - the Quebec energy regulator’s decision last week – which had only been published in French.

Now in the ordinary course that wouldn’t be an insurmountable problem since the Liberals only have a few votes and the motion is worded in such a way that they’d be voting down what has become motherhood and partridgeberry pie if they didn’t run alongside the Tories.

The whole thing seemed to be going along just fine. That is, until Kevin O’Brien, minister responsible for permits and licenses, the guy who doesn’t know what district St. Anthony is in, former president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador and erstwhile Tory leadership candidate decided to make a few public comments of his own on a local call-in radio show.

And that’s when things went horribly wrong, as the hideous television news cliche goes.

According to O’Brien he didn’t need to read anything to know how to vote.  Talk show host Randy Simms seemed genuinely surprised at O’Brien’s argument.  He also had an easy time ridiculing it as Simms noted that only a few short months ago all 48 of the members in the House had voted for a bill thinking they weren’t expropriating a paper mill.

Ouch.

Incidentally, here’s the shorty version of exchange from the vocm.com website.

The whole thing went completely off the rails as O’Brien insisted that all the province was looking for in Quebec was fairity.  He didn’t say “fairity” just once mind you.  He kept saying it.

Even a call from Ross Wiseman a couple of seconds after O’Brien hung up couldn’t save O’Brien’s performance and put what should have been a safe Tory motion back on the rails.  Shortly after O’Brien hung up, calls started circulating that the Tories were pulling the motion and planned to sub another one in its place.

Now for those who don’t know, pulling motions like that happens about as often as special emergency sessions.  So the obvious conclusion any seasoned political watcher would take is that the Tories had basically rogered themselves so hideously that they didn’t want to keep going.  Even if they won the vote – as they inevitably would – the news reports would be all about the comparisons to the Abitibi TARFU, not the start of any great rallying to the barricades during polling month.

As it is, Question Period was basically a litany of those sort of comments anyway, all centred on poor hapless Kevin and the missing English translation:

Ms. Jones:  I do not put a lot of credence into briefings, I say to the minister opposite. We got briefings from your government on Abitibi as well, and then we find out you expropriated a mill and liabilities around the environment which we were told were not part of the deal, Mr. Speaker. So forgive us if we want to see the information and read it ourselves.

I ask the minister again, Mr. Speaker: When that motion was being tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday I was receiving an e-mail on my BlackBerry from the Premier’s office telling me there was no English version of this available. Why would you even bring a motion to the House of Assembly to be voted on when you had no English copy of the information to be circulated for the debate?

The questioning then carried on to other topics, but the shag-up on what should have been an easy win for the crowd what runs the place was pretty much the front end of Question Period.

The rest of QP didn’t go any better for the gang that apparently can’t shoot straight, but that is another story.

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Cartoon U

Some vintage political cartoons turned up in a hunt through your humble e-scribbler’s parental archives. It’s a small collection of cartoons from the now defunct Daily News.

The cartoons all date from the mid-1970s so some of the characters may be unfamiliar to the young readers of these scribblers. The two characters in this one, though, should be well-known to most of you.

They are offered solely as a reminder of another age, not so very long ago.

Enjoy!

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Buchans saga deepens: Johnson claims credit for Abitibi work

CBC may have retracted its story about the provincial government and possible lead pollution at a former mine in Buchans but that isn’t the end of the Buchans saga.

As CBC quoted it:

"We held a town meeting. The public meeting was in fact reported on. That site was, in fact, remediated that very summer," Environment Minister Charlene Johnson told the legislature on Monday.

Johnson told the legislature that:

Mr. Speaker, quickly we hired a consultant to go out and do a Human Health Risk Assessment. That piece of work was done in literally less than months. The report came to our office in December 2007, at which time my officials went out to the Town of Buchans, gave the report to the Town of Buchans in less than days. The Town of Buchans at that time, Mr. Speaker, asked to have a public meeting. That public meeting was held and my officials were there. In fact, Mr. Speaker, CBC carried the reports of that within days after the public meeting.

But the full story is very different.

According to the Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser, the environmental review was done by AMEC, a consultant retained by Abitibi. And the timeline for when the town council first learned of the problem was the spring of 2007, not late 2007 or early 2008 as Johnson suggested in the House of Assembly:

With ASARCO declaring bankruptcy a number of years ago, AbitibiBowater is left bearing the brunt of the responsibility for the site.

It wasn't until a representative with AMEC, a consultant for AbitibiBowater, met with the Buchans council last spring to update its members on environmental improvements that the town's municipal leaders became aware of the situation.

It wasn’t until six months later, in the fall of 2007 – when current MHA Susan Sullivan was fighting for her seat in a by-election - that the provincial government got involved as Johnson described.  According to the Advertiser:

The council contacted Susan Sullivan in November, who was campaigning for her seat as MHA for Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans at the time, for an immediate meeting.

She visited the town to hear their concerns and brought the council's demand for a complete human health risk study to the minister of environment.

The Buchans story demolishes the provincial government’s efforts to portray Abitibi as abandoning its responsibilities in the province.

Again, as the Advertiser reported well before the botched expropriation:

Remedial action and/or additional studies in the area were recommended.

And that is exactly what AbibitiBowater and AMEC intend to do, although it will be a costly venture. Already the paper company has anywhere from $1.6-2.5 million budgeted for the clean-up.

If that's not enough, they are prepared to spend more to ensure the job is finished.

"The day we ask for a certificate of approval from the government to carry out the work, we have to carry it out to the end and if it costs more, we're stuck with it; we have to do it," said Nicole Lee, environment manager with AbitibiBowater.

The Advertiser reported that the best containment option at that point seemed to be collecting the contaminated materials and burying them in a glory hole or in an abandoned mine.  The Advertiser also reported in March 2008 that both a mining company and the provincial natural resources department opposed this option.

Interestingly enough, when the provincial government finally announced the clean-up option for the land it expropriated, a new remediation proposal cropped up:  cover it over.  Again as the Advertiser reported in late 2009:

He said that of all the option open to his department the "cap in place" option was the best because it would among other things minimize the amount of dust created during construction and wouldn't affect future mining operations. SNC Lavalin has been contracted for $114,000 to prepare and tended documents that are hoped to be ready by late spring with construction to be carried out from June to September. As well as the tailings spill area, the identified arsenic problem by the old ore shed will be taken care of with a layer of berm. [Emphasis added]

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Reach for the Screech

In a couple of weeks time, the Memorial University political science department is holding a reunion.  The thing is timed to coincide with the spring convocation.  A bunch of alumni will be there, none of whom has written – as best as your humble e-scribbler can determine – what we used to joke was the definitive doctoral thesis on local politics.

The influence of rum on Newfoundland public policy.

That was the working title.

On the surface, it would be a piece about the triangle trade and especially the exchange of salt fish with Caribbean countries in exchange for that magical elixir.

But on the more cynical level it was supposed to be a work that noted the number of times local politicians made decisions that seemed – in the cold light of morning – as if they’d been tanked up on the dark liquid at every stage from the moment the idea popped into someone’s head until someone scrawled the last  signature across the last contract.

Rum, it would seem, played a role in a few of the more colourful events in local political life.  Elections sometimes turned on the number of swallies doled out in the right districts. Fistfights in the legislature sometimes came complete with their own aroma – essence of the captain – to cover over the smell of blood and snot on the curtains behind the Speaker’s chair from the odd poke in the snoot one gave another.

Heck, so pervasive is the rumoured connection between politics and the bottle that the current Premier – the Old Man Hisself – could not help but make a half-joking reference to it.  That was back in 2004, incidentally, in an editorial board meeting with the crowd at Macleans. 

But while tippling on the job fell out of favour a few years back, few would blame the current crowd were they to ever to be found seeking comfort with a reach for the Screech. 

After all, they have not had a good political day in the better part of a year:  Resignations, the stunning loss of a by-election, public finances in a mess, caught frigging with the 1961 Churchill falls lease and then forced to hold an emergency session of the legislature to clean up the mess of that, the shagged up expropriation of Abitibi’s polluted properties, pollution reports they tried to keep secret.

And still no Lower Churchill.

The finest undeveloped hydro project in North America, as the Old Man likes to call it.  The phrase is getting a little shop-worn by the way, since it was first called that way back before the provincial government nationalised BRINCO in the mid-1970s. 

40 years later, still undeveloped but still the finest.

Once said to be Hisself’s legacy project.  Staying until it as done, he said.

But now things are so dark that even Hisself apparently doesn’t like to talk about legacies anymore.

Don Martin, still desperate to see his 2004 “Harper wins majority” headline used as something other than a joke, took a trip to the far east to chat with the Old Man. The account of the visit – or a least the sampling of the local heart-stopping cuisine – is in the weekend National Post.

"I hope my own legacy -- which is a stupid term but it's in vogue so I'll use it -- is that we can keep this feeling of pride and respect and self-confidence, that we're as good as anybody else.

"For the longest time we were perceived by Canadians as second-class citizens. Those who knew us knew it was bum rap, but it was an overall perception that's changed dramatically. When you've got young people from other parts of the country coming here, not just for an education but also to stay and work, it shows we have a real good future."

There it is:  Williams wants to be remembered for something he didn’t do.  Williams has nothing to talk about except a throne speech from five years ago:

This is a speech which claims credit for finding that which was not lost. It praises the lustre restored to that which had not been dulled. It lauds the cleansing of that which is not sullied. It remembers what was never forgotten. This speech sings hymns of praise to its authors unhindered by modesty or fact.

Williams chose to call his 2005 hand-out from Ottawa the “Atlantic Accord” and not surprisingly it is often confused with the real accomplishment of the same name done by someone else 25 years ago.  It shouldn’t be surprising he now wants his legacy to be claiming credit for something Newfoundlanders and Labradorians never lacked:  confidence in their own abilities. Forget what others thought.  Self-confidence and ability is something the people of this province have always had, in spades.

But look at Danny Williams’ comments in this Martin column and you can see the state of affairs almost eight years after he took office.  We need to be masters of our destiny Williams says, or more like it: masters of our domain as a budget speech two years ago put it.  “Need to be”, as if we aren’t now and never have been.

Again with the false goals.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have always been masters of their own fate.

The problem they face today is that as they roll up on the end of the period Williams used to say was the time frame for his plan to take effect, things are not looking all that good.

The local economy seems more dependent than ever before on public spending.  The Conference Board of Canada predicted last week that the provincial economy would grow by 2.4% in 2010 based mostly on public infrastructure spending. But the government budget last year was short by a half a billion dollars, one of the largest cash deficits in the province’s history.  The forecast is that it will be short again by at least that much, if not more. If growth depends on the public purse, then this province is in for a hard time any day now.  

Williams came to office promising ”jobs, jobs, jobs” that he would create based on his proven ability as a local businessman. A new department – with the creative name “business”  - sprang up to to channel his genius. 

After a couple of years, no one  - least of all Danny - had any idea what the department was supposed to do.  Scuttlebutt had it that his own deputy minister couldn’t get to see him for months on end. The only thing that piled up were claims about how many files from companies sat on someone’s desk.

By the time someone figured out what the “plan” might look like, Williams had long since handed over his own personal department to first one and then another and then another of his ministers. Other things needed the Old Man’s attention more urgently than did his own personal department.

The “plan”  - as the successors finally hit on it in 2007  - would be to hand out free cash to any company that would come here to do business.  The only thing missing from this revolutionary, never-before-seen concept was the Latvian crook to run around clicking his heels together with a snappy “Yes, My Premier” at the prospect of yet another rubber boot factory or eyeglass plant.

Not content with just that bit of genius, after threatening expropriation a couple of times and then finally doing it to no fewer than three companies, the current crowd put in authority over us have so fouled the investment climate in the province that they cannot even pay companies to come here and create jobs. 

Think about that for a second.

Out of $75 million budgeted for the give-aways since 2007, the business department has handed out only $14 million of it.  Some went to set up a marine service centre in  a land-locked town. Half the cash they did dole out went to a company – itself a descendant of the Latvian legacy – that promised to add 50 jobs but instead cut nearly twice that. No word if they’ll still get all the cash.

The Tories said “no more give-aways” but somehow this doesn’t seem to be what they had in mind.  Things have changed on many fronts, alright, but not in the way people might have expected.

The government backbenchers don’t talk so much any more about how great things are across the province.  Their speeches in the legislature these days are more likely than not great homages to their glorious leader.  They offer paens to his posterior that seem to be either laying the groundwork for his departure -  he is, Martin tells us, “mindful of being closer to the end of his political career than the beginning”  - or coded, panic-stricken pleas for him not to shag off permanently to the new digs in Florida. 

It’s likely been a bit jarring for the poor dears to poke their heads out of the fog of their prepared Open Line talking points only to discover that they are not – in fact – just coming up on the New Jerusalem as foretold in the speaking notes;  they are in fact currently midway up shit creek and none of Danny’s potential replacements appears to know where he keeps the batteries for the GPS, let alone have a clear idea of how to work it.

And that original eight year plan, the one it took them four years just to figure out?

Even that has changed:

But that's just the beginning of his 30-year plan to harness offshore oil and gas, wind and hydro electric power into Newfoundland's shield against buffeting by external forces.

It’s enough to make anyone reach for the Screech.

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Top 10 Posts: May 9 - May 14

Courtesy of Google Analytics:

1. Lower Churchill:  Imaginary Project.  Imaginary News Story.
2. Rumpole and the Double Dippity-Do
3. Potato, potato:  Hydro version
4. Rumpole and the Piss Pot
5. That was then. This is now:  Desperation edition
6. The Same and the Different
7. Desperation
8. It’s always about the money
9. Hydro Quebec not an issue:  Ed Martin
10. How our system doesn’t work

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The recovery is here all right…

Someone just forgot to tell the friggin’ Europeans.

Crude is hovering at about US$71 a barrel, down the better part of twenty bucks in the matter of a few weeks.

Meanwhile at the provincial finance ministry they’d likely be flinging themselves out the window if their offices weren’t on the bloody first floor.  Billion dollar deficit forecast based on oil averaging about $15 above where it is now and the odds are looking very good that we just had the high point for the whole year.

That would be so friggin’ cool if it wasn’t going to hurt us all.

Hurt us all very, very badly.

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Polluter pay?

At the Telegram, James McLeod hits on a huge problem with the provincial government’s efforts to foist enviro liabilities on Abitibi:  who owns the facilities and related to that who actually caused the pollution?

The provincial government has already coloured its own actions so badly they’d probably have trouble getting a court order in this province to enforce the politically motivated clean-up orders Charlene signed last fall.

When they try to stick Abitibi with liabilities on the land the provincial government owned before Abitibi? 

Hey, that just screams “moron” to a judge no matter what province he or she lives in.

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Desperation: NALCOR edition

As a rule, you don’t enhance your credibility by saying things which are demonstrably at odds with established facts.

Take for example a news release just issued by the provincial government’s energy company.  It reads like something from Hisself for polling season, not Ed Martin, but that’s another issue.

Just get a load of this bit:

Currently, there is a surplus of transmission capacity on the transmission grid which Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie was obligated to offer to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, a subsidiary of Nalcor Energy, under the Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT), before suggesting more expensive upgrades. The surplus was never offered to Nalcor Energy. Instead, Nalcor was told it would have to pay for upgrades that were not required.

The most obvious problem for this is that NALCOR was not seeking to move energy today.  They wanted to option a block of power for 30 years to service a project which, as everyone knows, doesn’t even exist. As such, any current surplus – no pun intended – is irrelevant.

The studies for the future demand showed that capacity will be needed down the road a ways to handle the power coming from a project which still exists only in the over-wrought imaginations of the Old Man and his entourage.

Not surprisingly, though, this extra capacity would be exactly the sort of thing which – as NALCOR’s release confirms – both the company and the Premier have said repeatedly they’d be prepared to pay for whether it was in Quebec or New Brunswick.

So why is Ed Martin issuing news releases late on a Friday tilting at imaginary windmills?

Aside from desperately trying to ignite some distraction from the Expropriation FUBAR Follies or giving your humble e-scribbler yet more to ridicule, only the Old Man likely knows for sure.

But let us assume, for a second, that there is a surplus currently and NALCOR is willing to buy space today or was willing to scarf it up at any time back to 2006 when they first stuck in their request.

As part of the ongoing discussion they could have worked out a deal with Hydro Quebec at any point.  In fact, once the capacity studies were done, they had 45 days to either close the deal or merely indicate their intention to buy.

They didn’t do that.

Instead they started a round of procedural motions in front of the Quebec energy regulatory board.

Then after a couple of years of wrangling, they have managed to lose every single one of the five motions they brought.  They lost them not because the process was biased but because the motions themselves  - like this release - lacked merit and substance.

After all, if there is capacity on the line and if there was a project and if NALCOR was ready and willing to pay to get power to market, the company would have optioned the space rather than tried to stop the clock.

Since they haven’t optioned the space, then anyone with two clues can draw a logical conclusion.

Res ipsa loquitur, as the lawyers would say.

The facts speak for themselves.

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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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