Williams, Dexter ink secret energy deal …but with whom?

A service contract between a public authority and a private sector concessionaire, where the public authority pays the concessionaire to deliver infrastructure and related services, Typically, the concessionaire, who builds the infrastructure asset, is financially responsible for its condition and performance throughout the asset lifetime, or the duration of the agreement.

P3 Canada Fund definition of public-private partnership

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams and Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter have apparently signed a deal to build underwater electricity transmission between the two provinces in partnership with a private sector company or companies.

Williams revealed the agreement when he launched into yet another tirade against the province of Quebec during a hastily-called news conference in St. John’s last week.

Williams said that the two provinces applied for federal funds in late June under the federal government’s public-private partnerships infrastructure funding agreement.

But that’s all he said about the secret deal.

Six weeks after the provinces reached an agreement, the people of both provinces still don’t know when the deal was signed, the conditions of the agreement, how much taxpayers will be on the hook for or the proposed financial arrangements with the private sector company or companies the two governments are or will be partnering with.

In his scrum, Williams very obviously avoided giving a simple, direct answer to a question on costs. He said only that the project cost would be billions depending on which combination of dams and transmission routes NALCOR built.

The cost of the project is currently estimated at more than $14 billion, including an interconnection to the United States. A study completed for the Nova Scotia government earlier this year  - reported by the Chronicle Herald but no longer on line - put the cost of the interconnections between $800 million and $1.2 billion.

Williams also made the false statement in his scrum that the decision of the Regie de l’energie – presumably meaning the May decision – had blocked NALCOR transmission through Quebec.

Meanwhile, though, the public doesn’t even know the name of the company or companies involved in the new secret deal on an intertie to Nova Scotia.

And obviously, there has to be a private sector partner or partners involved even if the two provincial governments haven’t said anything about that aspect of the deal.

The federal government established the $1.2 billion P3 Canada Fund in 2007 to “develop the Canadian market for public-private partnerships for the supply of public infrastructure in the public interest.” The fund will supply qualifying projects with a maximum of 25% of the projects qualifying direct construction costs. 

Typically, public-private partnerships include private involvement in everything from design to the long-term operation of public infrastructure. As the fund’s annual report puts it,

[t]he P3 procurement model is unique in that the private sector assumes a major share of the responsibility for the delivery and the performance of the infrastructure – from designing the concept, architectural and structural planning to its long-term maintenance.

The public sector gets needed infrastructure at reduced risk and cost.  Among the examples cite din the annual is the Confederation Bridge between PEI and New Brunswick.

In order to qualify for assistance under the fund, the private sector partner must have a substantive, continuing role in the project.  It must design or build the project and finance or maintain and operate it. [Round Two application, s. 5.2] 

In a P3 project, the private sector partner would also typically share in the profits of a long-term project as well as adopt risk. In some scenarios, as the application appendices suggest, the project may offer potential spin-off money-making opportunities for the private sector partner separate from the core public interest in the project.

Infrastructure assets developed by public authorities are rarely used to generate additional revenue. In some instances, private sector providers are motivated to develop opportunities for revenue beyond the public authority payment stream and this could be used to reduce the cost to the public authority.

Applicants must submit a business plan for the project between September 2010 and March 2011.

While Danny Williams mentioned a connection between the secret deal and the Lower Churchill, the Nova Scotia intertie is a separate project.  

It’s also bizarre that Williams mentioned possible shipment of power from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland and Labrador.  Demand projections used in the Lower Churchill environmental review show that demand on the island isn’t strong enough to support development of the Lower Churchill, let alone warrant importing power from Nova Scotia.

And if the intertie carried Lower Churchill power, there’d be no need to send Nova Scotia power into Newfoundland and Labrador.

A connection to Nov Scotia without the Lower Churchill would facilitate the development of untapped alternate energy potential on the island of Newfoundland.

To do that, though, the provincial government would have to abandon the 2007 energy plan and Williams’ obsession with the Lower Churchill.

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Fact Check: the mainstream and Williams/Quebec

The following quotes all appeared in recent media stories about Danny Williams’s comments on energy developments and Quebec.

Neither of them is true.

1.  Montreal Gazette:  “…after Quebec's energy regulator refused to grant a request from Nalcor Energy, Newfoundland's energy corporation, for capacity on the Quebec power grid.’

2. CBC:  “particularly after regulators in Quebec in May dismissed Nalcor's bid to move power to U.S. markets on Quebec's transmission system.”

3.  Telegram (Transcontinental):  “after Quebec’s energy regulator decided not to grant Nalcor Energy’s request for capacity on the Quebec power grid.”

Here’s what actually happened:

NALCOR started talks with Hydro-Quebec’s energy transmission division on access to the Quebec grid in order to transmit power from the future Lower Churchill project.  HQ conducted studies based on the route and load options NALCOR indicated it was interested in studying. The goal of the studies were to determine whether capacity existed on the existing infrastructure to handle the new demand or if the companies (NACLOR and HQ) would have to build new transmission lines.

Premier Danny Williams has consistently stated that NALCOR would pay reasonable prices for transmission including the construction of new transmission facilities.

HQ completed the studies and informed NALCOR of the results.

NALCOR submitted five complaints to the Regie de l’energie for adjudication.  None of these was an application for access to the Quebec grid.

Among other things, NALCOR sought to stop the clock on 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 an intention to book the space.

As well, NACLOR sought a ruling on what was including in the Quebec management grid.  One effect of the ruling on one appeal, if NALCOR had been successful, would have been to displace existing power generation and transmission from Churchill Falls in favour of non-existent Lower Churchill power. 

NALCOR lost each of the five appeals.  None of the decisions prevented NALCOR from proceeding with acquiring space on the Quebec grid.

The Regie did not, at any time, refuse to grant, decide not to grant or dismiss NALCOR’s bid for access to the grid.

As it appears, NALCOR opted for its appeals because it did not have a project and power to transmit, nor did it have a prospect of developing it within the time frames originally proposed.  It opted instead for administrative delay tactics. 

In June 2010, Danny Williams told the House of Assembly that NALCOR did not pursue other contracts for transmission at the time  “because we did not have any power to sell.”

Earlier that same month, Williams confirmed that the Lower Churchill is up in the air indefinitely.  The Telegram buried the comment  - a nugget of hard news - at the end of another story.

However, when it did have power to sell, NALCOR successfully concluded a contract to wheel power through the Quebec grid.  At the time – April 2009 – Danny Williams declared that the transmission deal was historic as it opened the way for future developments. The NALCOR appeals to the Regie de l’energie predated the April 2009 deal.

The facts of the Regie decisions on NALCOR appeals are contained clearly in the decision of the Regie on NALCOR”s appeals. They are available in English and French from the provincial natural resources department’s website as well as from the Regie de l’energie in French.

It is understandable that mainland reporters might rely on other news reports without checking the details.

It is inexplicable why local reporters continue to make false statements when the correct information is right in front of their faces as to what actually took place.

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Traffic Drivers, August 9-13

1. The Old Man, Old Habits and Old Chestnuts
2. The World the Old Man Lives In
3. NALCOR: the power of constipation
4. Connies, pork and electoral ridings
5. AbitibiBowater creditors meeting
6. The Search for Meaning Challenge
7. Connies and “Stimulus”
8. Jerome! if you want to
9. Disclosure/scheduling delay Vermont/Quebec hydro deal
10. [tie]  A summer like no other:  torquing in Technicolor on the cheap
11. [tie]  Williams-era capital spending pales in historical terms

Quebec and Vermont signed a long-term power purchase agreement on August 12.  here’s the Montreal Gazette version.

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Finance department reveals low tech privacy shag up

An unidentified employee in the finance department mailed personal information on 78 applicants to the province’s heating subsidy program to an unidentified person outside the provincial government.

There’s no indication in a typical wordy government self-praise release what information actually went out in the envelope.  The release only tells the sort of information government collects for the program.  If the phantom recipient got all the information, it included: the applicant’s name as well as his or her spouse’s name, social insurance number, and “whether the amount of family income falls above or below a particular threshold level.”

The release also doesn’t say when the information originally went out, how long it was before officials in the the finance department figured out the mistake and who it was that got the information by mistake.

It only really tells you that the provincial government is serious about privacy and that they cleaned up the mess in their usual efficient way.

There’s no praise like self-praise.

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A campaign against typos in the Untied States

Your humble e-scribbler* brought you links to the campaign against typos back when it happened in early 2008 all as a way of segueing into a riff on some local typographical errors.

Well, now the duo who traipsed around the United States of America armed with sharpies and a grammarians sensibility, are the proud authors of a book on their adventure.  The title is the Great Typo Hunt.

Typos are a scourge, as regular readers of this space know all too well.

Typos also manage to creep into federal grant applications:

Are their opportunities for the private sector to generate revenue by delivering ancillary services to the public?

Maybe there’s public cash available in this country to develop software that would check for typos.  There’s got to be provincial cash for something like that.

Such an innovative idea.

Surely.

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* corrected typo

Loyola new ambassador to Dublin next?

Looks like Loyola Hearn is up for a new job.

With former Prince Edward Island Tory Premier Pat Binns shifting from his comfortable digs in Dublin to more comfortable ones in Boston, that leaves a diplomatic post open. Binns went to Dublin in 2007 to replace a career diplomat who’d been in the job of about a year.  Binns’ relocation looks to be a bit premature.

Word around Ottawa for some months now has one of the architects of the Conservative Party merger heading to the Emerald Isle to replace Pat Binns. Yes, folks, if the rest of the little scenario plays out, Loyola Hearn will be the new Canadian ambassador to Ireland.

Loyalty to Stephen Harper certainly seems to have its rewards so it wouldn’t come as any surprise if the next diplomatic appointment sent Hearn to his native soil.  Hearn stuck with the party he helped create and its new leader through the family feud. 

Now that the feud is officially over its would be only natural for the leader of Canada’s other Reform-based Conservative Party to endorse the appointment.

Wonder what Danny would say about that appointment given the harsh words he used to have for Loyola?

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Housing starts in NL down by 28% in July

Housing starts in the province were down 28% in July 2010, compared to July 2009 according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. [Link to Telly story]

There were 195 starts across the province in July 2010 compared to 270 in the same month of 2009.

More interestingly, only 19 of the 195 starts were outside the metropolitan St. John’s area.  That puts a July 2010 CBC story on the economic boom that is supposedly Grand Falls-Windsor in a different light.  it also gives an excellent sense of what is happening in the provincial economy, as a whole, when one gets beyond the overpass.

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The Old Man, Old Habits and Old Chestnuts

labradore lays bare the foolishness that is the Old Man’s latest anti-Quebec tirade.

Score one for His Premierness’s crack research and intelligence team; after all it was just three weeks ago that Quebec’s intergovernmental affairs Minister — unlike some provinces, they actually have one — telegraphed his province’s opposition to federal subsidies for transmission lines.

…

Curiously, these nefarious Quebec plots seem to cycle at about three-month intervals; His Premierosity exposed the previous one back on May 12th.

And yes, ladies and gentleman, the last time the Old Man got in a back-risking lather was during the month his pollster was in the field collecting numbers.

Funny how that happens.

Regular readers of these scribbles will recall that the Premier’s foray into the anti-Quebec realm prompted this rather neat diagram of The World as the Old Man Sees It.  Thousands of you read it, no doubt laughed and – in a great many cases- downloaded it as the wallpaper for your computer desktop.

Perhaps it’s time to get some tee shirts made up. They’d go like hotcakes.

Levity to one side – and it is hard not to snort at this same old story being recycled yet again -  your humble e-scribbler would be remiss if there were not reminders of the following salient points:

1. There is no Lower Churchill project the power from which would presumably course down these currently non-existent but hopefully federally-funded transmission lines.  NALCOR has no customers and doesn’t have the $14 or so billion the thing will cost.
2. Not so very long ago, Danny Williams was working feverishly to get Hydro Quebec to take an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, with no redress for the Churchill Falls contract included.  This would be – of course – completely contrary to his pre-2005 comments/commitments on the subject.  This is the biggest story of 2009, if not the entire Williams administration to date.  It remains one story that the conventional media in the province have steadfastly – and one must say now very deliberately – refused to mention for almost a full year. They have determined it is an “un-story” despite the evidence from natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale’s own mouth.
3. There is no Lower Churchill project.
4. Your humble e-scribbler first discussed the whole idea of the permanent campaign and the quarterly poll goose in a series of posts in 2006.  There’s “The ‘Danny’ Brand”, “Playing the numbers”, “The media and the message” and “The perils of polling.”
5. There is no Lower Churchill project.
6. The bit from the CBC story after “particularly”  is false:  “Williams has had a tempestuous relationship with Quebec officials, particularly after regulators in Quebec in May dismissed Nalcor's bid to move power to U.S. markets on Quebec's transmission system.”  The Regie d’energie did no such thing. Anyone who read the decision in English or French would know that. Your humble e-scribbler’s challenge from May remains unanswered.
7. There is no Lower Churchill project.
8. This bit is absolutely true:  “when we have a situation when one province is deliberately trying to thwart at least two other provinces, and indirectly affect four other provinces, that's sad."  And the Old Man should know since the last time it happened, he did it.

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A summer like no other: torquing in Technicolor on the cheap

One of the great things about summer for perpetual campaigning is that cabinet ministers can spit out sheer nonsense and reporters for the local paper won’t even bother to ask pesky questions.

Like how will an imaginary project could ever  lower carbon emissions in the real world.

And in this bucolic world, where minister’s publicists apparently don’t have to pitch a puff piece, even one of the most incompetent of ministers can sound like she knows something.

The result is better than the stuff pumped out by the official government publicity system:  in this case, the reporter’s name goes on the piece and it appears in a local newspaper. Having gone through a supposed editorial review, the resulting piece suddenly has way more credibility than it actually deserves.

Charlene Johnson – arguably the second biggest bumbler in the current provincial administration  - recently got the chance to dazzle readers of the Western Star with her thoughts on how the province has an opportunity to lead the world in tackling global warming.

“There are opportunities to use energy more efficiently, displace fossil-fuel based power generated by Holyrood with renewable energy from Lower Churchill, and ensure we continue to manage our land and forests in ways that store greenhouse gases rather than release them to the atmosphere,” Johnson said.

If Johnson knew something more than her briefing books or was willing to speak frankly, she’d acknowledge a couple of relevant points here.

The most obvious is that the Lower Churchill doesn’t exist and likely won’t exist within the next decade or two.  As such, any ideas about reducing emissions from Holyrood using the Lower Churchill is just pure bullshit.

Second, the government’s energy plan places economic benefits ahead of environmental ones.  It isn’t about sustainable development or reducing the province’s greenhouse gas emissions.  It isn’t an energy plan or environmental plan as much as it is a business plan.

Everything is held hostage to the LC anyway, but the project talks about ways of building new energy generation for export.  It doesn’t address local needs at all.  If it did, the plan would set policies that encouraged energy conservation on the island and the development of new generation that has a low environmental impact. 

You can see this rejection of local needs in the Lower Churchill environmental review documents, for example. The first thing that strikes you is that the LC isn’t needed to meet current or anticipated energy needs on the island. 

Those demands are so minor that a combined program of conservation (including improved efficiency) coupled with new generation (more than 54 MWs of wind) would meet any demand anticipated in the LC documents.  And just remember that document was drawn up in a world where all that hydro from Abitibi’s Grand Falls-Windsor operation was making jobs in central Newfoundland.

As for Labrador, the Lower Churchill documents plan to continue using diesel generation, despite the fact power lines for the Lower Churchill would pass right by some of the communities it plans to leave on diesel generation. As astonishing that seems, that is the project the province’s environment minister is holding out as a way of dealing with emissions in the province.

This is not a new idea, by the way.  The 2005 climate change action plan contains the same fundamental bias in favour of large, expensive megaprojects.  It anything but a modest development of wind energy because wind is supposedly intermittent.  However, experience elsewhere shows that wind can deliver consistent power levels if a series of projects over a wide area are joined together and managed effectively.

There are opportunities for Newfoundland and Labrador in the fight against global warming.  The problem is that the provincial government policy rejects ideas that could take advantage of those opportunities or puts obstacles in their way.

Anyone can see the fundamental problems in the provincial government’s policy – it doesn’t actually have a sustainable development act or a green energy policy, for example – if one had the time or took the time to read.

Fortunately for Charlene, the crowd at the Western Star didn’t have the time to get ready for her.  As a result she gets to spout complete bullshit and have the Star present as if it were gold.

What better way for a bumbling minister top spend August than torquing in Technicolor on the cheap.

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A summer like no other: the labradore analysis

Take a gander at this analysis at labradore of the stunning blizzard of funding announcements from a single ministry in the Williams administration.

More than one third of all releases issued since June 1 have been from a single department and all involve hand-outs of government cash. The traditional ministry of pork – transportation – is in second place with 8% (23 releases).*

Now your humble e-scribbler has another perspective on the Summer of Love, Part Deux in the works, but in the meantime, labradore gives a couple of useful observations:

For two, a whole lot of little funding announcements, of a few thousands to tens of thousands of dollars at most, keeps the public mind dutifully associating Danny Williams-Government with the expenditure of money, in a wide variety of geographic locales, without the sticker shock of using roads, schools, or hospitals to generate happy headlines.

For three, there really isn’t anything of substance going on inside Danny Williams-Government that can be used to keep the flow of Happy News flowing in a pre-pre-election summer. Anything big and important that can be delayed until calendar year 2011, will be. That leaves the smaller stuff.

There will be plenty more small stuff next year - don’t be so foolish – but both those points are dead on the money. It is a perpetual campaign in Newfoundland and Labrador.  The politics never stops. Only the naive and Danny-lovers would have you believe otherwise.

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*  Corrects from typo in original.

Offshore #oilspill review gets indefinite extension

A provincial government review of offshore oil spill response that was supposed to be done with 90 days will now have an indefinite extension.

The initial news release  - issued May 12 - said that the “consultant will meet with the Department of Natural Resources to develop a work plan to complete the scope of work within 90 days.”

That means that under the original deadline, the commissioner was supposed to hand in his report on August 12.

In a news release issued on August 9, natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said he would now have an extension.  She didn’t indicate the new deadline.

Dunderdale said the the extension came at the request of the commissioner. She did not say if the extension came as a result of the consultation that was supposed to happen three months ago in order to ensure the work was done by the original deadline or if it came more recently.

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Polling month update: This post was written based on the news release issued by the department on 09 Aug 10.

While Dunderdale didn’t think it was important enough to mention in the news release, both the Telegram and CBC are reporting that Dunderdale expects to receive the report in November.

November is the next polling month. How convenient.

But how firm is that deadline?

Disclosure and scheduling delay Vermont/Quebec hydro deal

A 25-year power purchase agreement between Hydro Quebec and Vermont is being held up because of HQ’s concerns about disclosure of sensitive commercial information,according to Vermont Public Radio.

HQ is reportedly concerned that some information, such as pricing, be held back from public disclosure when the deal goes to the state’s public service board for review and approval.

The deal involves the Vermont Energy Commission, which has already agreed to the terms, but other entities, like the Burlington city energy authority will also buy a small portion of the 225 megawatt purchase.  Burlington and other similar authorities will have to put the deal to a public vote.

“Simple logistics” is also reportedly still holding up the deal. Mid-summer proved to be a difficult time to ensure that politicians and state and provincial officials are all available at the same time when some of them would be taking vacations.

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Williams-era capital spending pales in historical terms

Danny Williams is proud of how much money his administration spends, like, for instance, the amount spent on roads, bridges, schools and other public works.

In the run-up to the 2007 general election, Williams told the St. John’s Board of Trade that his administration “invested like never before in neglected and crumbling infrastructure, and creating significant employment.”

Here’s what he told a small audience in Ottawa in early June:

We [weathered the recession better than anybody] by taking our already aggressive infrastructure strategy from four years earlier and expanding it. "Stimulus spending" was well underway in our province long before it became the trend of 2009.

A five billion dollar infrastructure plan in a province of our size is substantial to say the least, and has not only helped to create jobs and boost consumer confidence; it is also rebuilding communities so that we have the economic foundations necessary to succeed.

He just “expanded” an “already aggressive” infrastructure strategy. That’s the same line he used on Calgarians in 2009.

But figures available from the provincial government show that Williams’ claims don’t match reality. There was no shortage of capital spending nor could Williams’ approach be characterised accurately as aggressive let alone unprecedented.

Between 1991 and 1995, for example, public sector capital spending in the province ranged between 25.4% and 30.4% of the total CAPEX spending in the province.  From a low of 9.4% in 2004, Williams has doubled the share of CAPEX spending but the highest year is still only 18.4%.

But the real tale comes when one looks at the actual amounts adjusted for inflation. In 1991, for example, while the province experienced the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, public sector capital spending was $548.8 million in 1991 dollars.  It peaked at $898 in 1994.  During that time the entire provincial current account budget was less than $3.5 billion.

Adjusted for inflation (to 2009), though, capital spending in that same period ranged from $853.62 million to $1.284 billion.  The best the province has seen since 2007, by contrast is 2010, where public sector capital spending is expected to hit $1.127 billion.

The figures are available at the provincial finance department’s website.

This comparison does not take into account the project delays and massive cost over-runs experienced during the Williams period to date.  Almost half the capital works projects announced in 2009 as “stimulus” were either begun or announced previously. At least one dated back before 2003.

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Connies and "stimulus"

According to the parliamentary budget officer, capital works projects funded by the federal government's stimulus program are far enough behind that some of the provinces and cities might lose out on the promised cash from Ottawa.

According the PBO report, an optimistic projection would see all projects finished on time, a middle scenario would see 936 projects unfinished by the deadline resulting in $293-million or 7.3 per cent of infrastructure stimulus money going unspent. A pessimistic scenario would see 1,814 projects missing the deadline, resulting in $500-million - or 12.5 per cent - of the infrastructure stimulus lapsing.

Meanwhile in the easternmost province, a Reform-based Conbservative Party has consistently had trouble delivering everything from capital works to legislation. Cost over-runs are now the norm.

And if that wasn't bad enough,almost half of their "stimulus" was actually old stuff already underway.

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AbitibiBowater creditors meeting

10:00 AM Eastern Time, September 14, 2010 at the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure.

Big ad in the business section of the Monday Globe and Mail.

Will the provincial government be there?

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NALCOR: the power of constipation

Supposedly all we need is to know that the provincial government’s energy corporation, d.b.a. NALCOR, is “aligned” and will take all the time it needs in order to arrive at a “quality decision” on whether or not to install emission control equipment on its diesel generating plant at Holyrood.

For now, let’s leave three things out of this discussion.

First, this isn’t the place to rehash the nonsense which is NALCOR’s two, inherently contradictory position on Holyrood.

Second, and related to that, let’s not draw too much attention to the fact that NALCOR chief executive Ed Martin’s proposed solution to the $600 million cost of cleaning up Holyrood’s act is a multi-billion dollar pair of hydroelectric dams in Labrador and a giant set of power lines, the lines by themselves estimated to cost more than three times the scrubber cost, that will stretch out to the Avalon.

And third, let’s not note that NALCOR’s own capital plant maintains that Holyrood will have to continue running for the next two decades at at least one quarter to one third its capacity.  In other words, it won’t be shutting down at all.  As such, NALCOR will have to spend the $600 million or so in order to reduce noxious emissions from the plant regardless of whether the Great White Whale gets built or not.

Why Ed Martin and his boss, the Old Man, continue to pack around about this and bullshit the people of the province is beyond rational comprehension.

Instead of that, let us focus Martin’s suggestion that maybe some new types of generation might allow NALCOR the dirty power at Holyrood with some nice clean stuff. That might be cheaper, sez Martin than the environmental cleaners.

For starters, Martin is already sitting on juice to help replace Holyrood.  He got it as a gift from Danny in December 2008.  The only problem – apparently  - is that the interconnection between the Avalon and the rest of the island cannot carry the whole load. 

NALCOR needs some cash to make things happen. NALCOR has the cash, of course, or the capacity to borrow it, thanks to some generous gifts of public money  - yours and mine – courtesy of the Old Man and his crowd. The company is in a nifty position, frankly, since they get to play at being an oil company without having to pay all the costs.  NALCOR won’t pay the owners of the resource  - you and me - a penny in royalty for the oil we’ve given then.  We get the liability and the cost.  Martin and his crowd get the cash.

Pretty sweet deal, if anyone is asking.  And frankly, given the generosity of the current administration with resources and cash – yours and mine - it wouldn’t be too much if you and me expected Martin to install the cleansers and the new line most ricky tick.  He can spare us the bullshit and just get on with the job.

But it is when Martin mentions wind energy that he turns from a purveyor of  annoying bullshit to profound disingenuousness.

As Martin knows, this province has the smallest amount of wind power installed or under development of any province in the country.  It is a mere 54 megawatts in two sites. Tiny Prince Edward Island has more than twice that already on the go.  In short, this province, the one the Old Man and his retinue proclaim as a current and future energy warehouse is so far back in the field that it is not even close to being able to see the far distant ass the of the last place contender for the Crown.

There are two reasons for that.  Assuming that Martin read the Lower Churchill environmental applications he already knows that there is actually no reason to build the LC if the main reason is shipping power to St. John’s.  There’s really no need for additional generating capacity and, as it stands, NALCOR can now reduce Holyrood to virtually nil capacity.

As for the rest of the province, that is, the largest bit of it, the reason there are no wind farms under consideration is simply because NALCOR and the province don’t want them.  Official government policy subordinates any new generation, from small hydro to wind, to the Great White Whale project.

Put another way, innovation is dead as a doornail in Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial government’s energy policy is working against the best interests of the people of the province.

Ed Martin’s comments to CBC recently could just as easily have been summarised with a parody of the old Mexican bandito line:  “Innovation?  We dun need no stinkin’ innovation.” Martin merely affirmed the power of constipation that afflicts the administration and its energy company, at least when it comes to innovation and energy.

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Connies, pork and electoral ridings

On the federal level, the Globe and Mail reports that the federal Conservatives directed federal spending cash from the stimulus program heavily toward battleground ridings.

Wow.

Connies, pork, patronage and polls all tied together.

Quel surprise.

Meanwhile, in a small province to the east ruled by a Reform-based Conservative Party,  nothing could be further from the truth.

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Telly Torques Tourism: one story, two headlines

Submitted for your approval:  the same story with two headlines. 

“Northern peninsula needs to spark interest: group” as the Telegram put it.

Ho hum.

But what about ‘Tourism association looking for ways to battle drop in visitors” as you find it in Western Star?

This is a good an example as one will find of an editor sticking a headline on a story that doesn’t match the story underneath. Sometimes it is the result of unadulterated stunnedness.  Sometimes, it is deliberate.

The telegram headline makes it sound like the Viking Trail Association just needs to pull up its socks and do better.  But the actual story includes this comment from Barbara Genge of the Viking Trail Tourism Association:

The Northern Peninsula falls under the umbrella of the Western Destination Marketing Organization, which is a setup Genge says has expectedly seen a drop in marketing funds specifically to the region. Since they are one piece of the whole western region, she says they are competing with other areas for what is available.

In order words, the Viking association is losing out to other more populous areas or ones led by people with more clout.  A UNESCO World Heritage site may be getting short-shrift.

The Telegram headline covers up a far more intriguing and complex tale. The Western Star – where the story originated – actually got it right.

And the story actually includes a balancing view from the umbrella tourism association.  Mike* Clewer, executive director of  WDMO told the Star:

“We have limited resources, both financially and in human terms, and we try and do the best we can, which is to work with groups like that who are trying to help themselves,” Clewer said.

But none of this is as devoid of flavour as the Telegram would have you believe.  It’s almost like they were trying to make you skip over it.

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* Mike, not Mark.

Telly Torque: fact checking edition

A Telegram story on local bloggers includes this statement of supposed fact:

Blogs have been discredited by mainstream media because their content generally doesn’t go through as rigorous an editing or fact-checking process as you’d see at an official news organization.  Theoretically, you can say anything, regardless of veracity, provided it isn’t legally problematic.

Funny thing is this statement is complete, total crap.

It is incorrect, inaccurate, non-factual and generally a false statement.

The Telegram writer doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to support it.  Of course, it’s the kind of ridiculous generalisation for which there is no evidence. It is not actually a fact but an opinion.

And, in case you missed the point, it is an opinion based on no known facts of any sort.

For all that, the comment made it into print after passing through a supposedly rigorous process of editing or fact-checking.at the Telegram, a reputedly official news organization.

Score another one for the mainstream.

- srbp -

Anatomy 101 #fail

Sometimes people can get a bit buggered up in their discussion of technical issues.
Like for instance, the hot subject of "liberation therapy" as a treatment some people are proposing for multiple sclerosis.  This involves inserting a small balloon into veins at the back of the neck in order to open up the blood vessels and allow greater blood flow.
Here's how one blogger described it recently:

Unlike angioplasty liberation treatment goes deeper into the veins in patients heads than typical angioplasty

The procedure involves a small incision in the groin to insert a catheter into the blocked vein that is opened with a small balloon.

That is exactly how it appeared, dropped punctuation and all. Deeper in the patient's head apparently involved going "in the groin". Let's leave aside entirely the definition of what angioplasty is and hence what "typical angioplasty" might be.

Let's just look at the description of heads and groins.

Now your humble e-scribbler is not a doctor, nor does he even play one on television.  Yet at the same time, this connection of the head, neck and groin by the unnamed blogger appears to be something of  an epic failure of basic human anatomy.

Well, that is unless he thinks peoples' heads are supposed to be up their asses.

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Traffic Drivers, August 2 - August 6

1. Ah, that explains everything.
2. Holyrood pollution and the Great White Whale
3. Quebec's possible new role as an energy player
4. Kremlinology 24: the Whine List
5. Polling month starts in earnest
6. Jerome! if you want to
7. Privatize NALCOR?
8. I knew Marilyn Monroe
9. Court docket now online
10. Coming or going?

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Show us the tit and we’ll suck it

Newfoundland and Labrador is the only place in the western world where private sector businesses look to the government as the key to economic diversification:*

“If we have some guidance and support, take some initiative on our own, we can grow Corner Brook,” [ the vice president of the Greater Corner Board of Trade] said. “I think it is a great time to be doing business or setting up new business in this region. If people are interested in that, have an entrepreneurial spirit, to let that take control and get that business off the ground.”

There is no entrepreneurial spirit in Corner Brook, evidently, not if the local business association thinks that increasing government spending is the way to “grow” the economy.

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*  Here’s the link left out of the original piece.  The same e-mail correspondent who pointed out that glaring error in the timed post also noted that the quote doesn’t support the government hand-out thesis.  Well, with the link to the whole story, it should now be clearer.

Diversification links to investment, but the investment sought is public cash:

Meanwhile, Goulding said it was important for these seven ministers [ on the cabinet committee] to realize the realities of the business sector in western Newfoundland and ensure that government does all it can to support business.

The vice-president said businesses need support and training in such areas as succession planning and getting business starts. In terms of attraction and retention of businesses, that is where he said the provincial government has to step up as a follow to the establishment of business retention and expansion co-ordinators and a performance management system for regional zone boards.

“What they need to do now is expand on those types of programs,” he said. “Let’s get those business retention and expansion co-ordinators out in the field, on the ground, talking to entrepreneurs and new and upcoming businesses to give them the support that they need.

NL posts part-time employment gains in July

After a couple of months of big changes – up and down – in employment, Statistics Canada is reporting the number of people working in the province grew by one half of one percent in July compared to June 2010 and 3.3% compared to July 2009.

The biggest gain came in part-time employment. That’s up 8.9 percent month-to-month and 14 percent year over year.  Full-time employment dropped one percent compared to June but is up one and a half percent year over year.

Total employment grew by 1,000 jobs from 218,800 in June 2010 to 219,800 in July 2010.

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Privatize NALCOR?

The head of the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party wants to turn Marine Atlantic over to the private sector:

“I say privatize it because it’s a government organization and it smacks of being government-run,” he said. “I think a lot of the problems they’re having sometimes deal with unions. ... Maybe a private operator will come in, get rid of the unions and get things back on an even keel. I think it’s a drastic step, but sometimes drastic measures are what’s needed.”

Makes you wonder how he’d feel about NALCOR, another Crown corporation that can’t seem to deliver on its commitments. The latest one is a 2007 commitment to clean up emissions from its thermal plant at Holyrood. 

According to NALCOR chief executive Ed Martin, he and his team are “aligned” on the issue  - shades of 2012 - but will take as much time as necessary to make a “quality decision”.

Someone should ask the people of Holyrood if they agree with Wayne Bennett.

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Jerome! if you want to

So the Premiers are getting together and one of the Premiers can’t go.  Let’s say he has a bad back.

The meeting is about the economy.  Who does he send to stand in for Hisself in all his premierifficness?

Three guesses.

Hand-picked usual stand in, d.b.a. deputy premier Calamity Kathy Dunderdale.

Nope.

Intergovernmental affairs minister Dave Denine.  Seems logical.  It’s a meeting among governments and that’s pretty much the definition of what an intergovernmental affairs minister should be doing.

Nope again. Dave Denine may have the title but he is really just building up pensionable time.

Hmmm.

Economy, right?

Finance minister Tom Marshall.

Nope for a third time. The Old Man sent the province’s health minister to an economic meeting.

Sure the guy was finance minister for a few months, but there are other people with nominal responsibilities that cover the meeting agenda topics long before you get to Jerome! Kennedy.

Curious.

Among other things, what you have here is a clear sign that Jerome! is one of the trusted handful who actually run the province.  Despite his griping, Danny does run the place just like he used to run the private businesses.  He handles things with a few trusted chums and that’s it.  Jerome!, Tom and Kathy are the latter day version of Steve, Ken and Dean. If something needs doing, Danny will turn to one of those three to get it done.

And let’s face it when the Old Man bitches about pesky things like internal party politics – let alone politics generally – what he is really saying is that he wished the world would frig off and let him rule his fiefdom as if it were a law firm or cable television company. 

The only thing he has ever asked is that people regard his voice as if it were the voice of God Himself. The only reason the Old Man has a caucus, a cabinet of more than three in the first place and a legislature of 48 is that he can’t easily get rid of the constitution.

Understand that and you understand everything.

Understand as well, that when the Old Man finally does pack it in, Jerome! is likely the guy to replace him.  Kathy and Tom are heading for the door likely before the next election.  Joan Burke may have a war chest but odds are that we’ll be talking about Premier Kennedy once Danny flips to Florida permanently.

Some of you may be wondering about the talk at the meeting about the economy and what role the federal government should play in continued stimulus spending.  You may be pondering what impact any of this will have on Newfoundland and Labrador. Premiers are agreed that the federal government should continue to spend.  They are only divided on the question of how much. Quel surprise.

Newfoundland and Labrador would be in an embarrassing spot on this issue and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Jerome! has to say. 

He could not easily side with the other “have” provinces who now want the private sector to drive the recovery.  After all, Jerome! and his friends have presided over an unmistakeable – and presumably deliberate -  weakening of the private sector in the province.  Never mind Danny Williams’ claims about leading a Reform-based Conservative Party; his actions don’t match his words. 

Rather, the “have” province of Newfoundland and Labrador would have to side with the “have not” provinces like Ontario that want the federal government to keep pouring cash from its bank account to keep the place going. Williams, Kennedy are forecasting yet another record cash deficit for 2010. More are on the way in a province where public spending is the only thing keeping some parts going at all. Danny Williams, the leader of a Reform-based Conservative Party would have to wind up in the same position as Jack Layton, begging for Stephen Harper’s help.

It’s a good thing Danny’s back went out.  Jerome! can sneak in and sneak out without anybody really expecting him to say much.  If Williams had shown up then all his contradictory positions would be laid bare. His piss poor relationship with his fellows would be on display for all the world to see. He’d have a pain, alright, but a bit lower than his back.

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Kremlinology 24: The Whine List

The Old Man likes to bitch about stuff.

After 61 years, he’s gotten good at it.

For the past seven years he has liked to bitch about his current job, the one he campaigned for.  People aren’t grateful enough.  He has to deal with too many “distractions”, stuff like a request from someone who wants a copies of all his public speeches.

For some reason that was a problem.

For some reason that was such a problem the Old Man’s staff originally slapped a $10,000 bill on the guy to try and discourage him.

Whine, moan, bitch and complain.

Blah, blah, blah.

In the National Post fluff piece on Wednesday, the Old Man couldn’t resist a little bitching about politics.  This is not unusual.  The Old Man likes to bitch about his chosen profession. Apparently politics distracts the province’s most successful politician from running the province:

That would be my preference, I’ll be honest with you, if I could just roll up my sleeves … and spend 99% of my time running the place.

Now, to be frank, this sounds a bit like an excuse.  Whenever the Old Man gripes about the time he doesn’t spend running the province, it sounds like he is trying to explain why something or other hasn’t happened. Like he is trying to tell why he failed or shagged up.

Mind you, none of this fits with his other claim that everything these days is spiffy and perfect, especially compared to the past  - thanks entirely to him.

But that’s another issue.  For now, just let that gripe cum excuse settle into your brain for some time later on.

Instead, for this post, just notice the list of complaints the Old Man trotted out this time.  Number One on the Old Man’s Whine List is this:

In politics, you have to deal with the internal politics of your own party.

Whatever does that mean?.

There are problems inside the provincial Conservative Party?  People are unhappy with something. 

Are they surprised to find they are part of a Reform-based Conservative Party, rather than the Progressive Conservative party of a short while ago?

Heaven forbid it could be with the Old Man’s leadership.  Most observers likely thought that the troubles that beset other parties – stuff like overblown egos and frustrated leadership aspirations – just don’t happen in The Party the Old Man Created By Himself from whole cloth, without help from anyone and where nothing existed before.

So what sorts of internal politics could be occupying so much of Danny Williams’ time that he can’t give proper attention to the province?

Well, maybe it has something to do with when the Old Man finally decides to leave and who will replace him.  Not like we haven’t seen the odd sign or two about that before. You can tell this is a sensitive issue inside the The Party The Old Man Made because it attracts the usual collection of sock puppets and fanboys.

Or maybe it is something a bit more mundane.

Like the stuff you do just because you have to do it.

Or two cabinet ministers deciding to pack it in suddenly and unexpected only adding to the string of miseries that added up to be 2009 for the Old Man.

Yes, there’s plenty to gripe about if you are prone to negativity.

It’s just odd sometimes what those people chose to complain about first.

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Coming or going?

Calamity Kathy Dunderdale, Danny Williams’ hand-picked choice for deputy premier, thinks the future of Corner Brook is built on manufacturing:

The minister said Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, despite its challenges, is a fundamental piece of the economy, thus has the support of the provincial government to help the company through these difficult times. She said both government and Kruger share a positive outlook of the mill’s future. Combined with that, the provincial government has created a new strategy to revitalize and diversify the forestry industry, particularly the integrated sawmill industry.

Quoted in the same article, finance minister Tom Marshall has another thought:

Marshall said it is important to create a knowledge-based economy in this area of the province to replace a declining manufacturing-based industry, something he contributed mainly to the competition of low cost producers around the world. He said the plan is to create an energy warehouse, utilizing the Labrador hydro and alternate sources such as wind, to offset that impact of lower labour costs of those competing manufacturers.

Now not only are these two ministers saying completely contradictory things at the same time, the finance minister is also proposing another nonsense.  Not only is Marshall’s future based on things that don’t exist – and likely won’t – but he is proposing to use cheap power as an offset to cheap labour costs overseas.

The Labrador hydro project is basically a fiction.

Wind power, and other forms of alternate energy, are basically a non-starter thanks to current government policy and the obsession with the Great White Whale.

As for giving away power, the last time that was tried, the people of the province wound up with Churchill Falls and the phosphorous plant at Long Harbour.  Given that the finance minister is advocating the use of public money for such a hare-brained scheme should cause a great many people to lose sleep.

Not the least of the bleary-eyed and stressed-out crew would be the people who believe the current administration is a Reform-based Conservative Party that wanted to “get our fiscal situation under control.”

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Quebec’s possible new role as an energy player

If exploration turns up a significant amount of oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, expect a ton of political weight to shift toward the province at the same time.

Rob Silver went down that road recently in his blog at the Globe and Mail. Silver posed a hypothetical situation in the federal government tried to introduce a carbon offset scheme at a time when Quebec is in the same boat as “Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia”. Quebec’s interest may well shift as does its economic situation, according to Silver.

On the surface that’s a penetrating insight into the obvious. Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, shifted its environmental policy based on nothing more profound than electing what Danny Williams described as a Reform-based Conservative Party.

Now most voters in the province – including a great many Progressive Conservatives - likely didn’t think that’s what they were getting into back in 2001 or 2003, but that’s what they got. No need to wonder any more why the sustainable development act never got farther than it did in 2007. The whole thing was nothing more than a political ploy for an election year.

In any event, Silver’s idea of a provincial government shifting its policy based on a shift in economic interests isn’t an amazing thought.

On another level though, Rob Silver’s comments provoke another thought related to Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Your humble e-scribbler tossed out the idea a couple of years ago that a “few years from now, the poorest province of the country will join the select group of provinces that do not receive Equalization. That will have a major effect on the balance of the forces in the country which is always maintained in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle.”

The idea was that a normally outward-looking province and its people could alter the balance of power in the country, especially at the national level, once the province was no longer perceived as an economic basket case. Now part of that idea was premised on a new administration and a new policy beyond the current one and its isolationism and wastefulness.

Admittedly it turned out to be a bit of a stretch. Newfoundland and Labrador today is more isolated than it has been for most of the past century.  Its influence at the national level in Canada has never been lower. The decline is a direct result of reckless provincial policies since 2003.

One can only imagine what might occur in a world where Quebec has significant oil and/or gas resources in addition to its other sources of influence.

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Ah, that explains everything…

The Old Man, quoted in the National Post, describes his own political party’s philosophy:

We have a Reform-based Conservative Party which is probably ideologically more right-wing.

More right wing than what he doesn’t say, but that’s not the key bit.

But here’s a question:  how many Progressive Conservatives in the province, the ones that like to put weight on the progressive side of the ledger, knew that in 2001  they started supporting a “Reform-based” Conservative Party?

And on what the Old Man calls the “other side”, he just talks about how much money he spends:  “We’ve doubled our health-care budget. We’ve put a lot of money into education.”

There it is, though, straight from the horse’s mouth: Newfoundland and Labrador is currently run by a  “Reform-based Conservative Party.”

That explains a lot of things.

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Poll Goose, Day Two: 10 of 12

You’d swear someone was polling.

Of the dozen announcements made on Tuesday [August 3], 10 of them either announced public money or warned news media to stand by for an announcement of public cash for something.

Of the two odd-ball releases, one was a release about participation in a national basketball tournament while the other was about health care consultations.

Wednesday should be quiet as it is a civic holiday.

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As pure as the driven snow…

But besides the scientific reasons, Gilkinson said there is a political reason for the trip as well.

He said under United Nations rules, coastal states are obligated to “identify and characterize” VME’s adjacent to them.

“It’s important these areas be identified and mapped,” said Gilkinson.

Curious how a news story can include more than a little bit of editorialising.

That quote is from an August 2 story in the Telegram on the recently completed exploration of areas offshore Newfoundland and Labrador. Notice that following the obligation of coastal states to conduct oceanic research is considered by the Telegram to be a “political reason”.

The project turned up a couple of dozen new species, and generally added significantly to our collective knowledge of the east coast offshore. But that is “political”, as if international obligations – United Nations rules – put some kind of tarnish on things.

Notice as well that while the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had a leading role in this expedition, the Telly story didn’t do much beyond mention that the guy they quoted worked for the federal fisheries ministry. He was – in the words the Telly writer chose – merely “on the trip” that was “out of” the Bedford oceanographic institute.

Incidentally, Bond Papers told you about this expedition back on July 21, while the ship doing the work was still offshore Newfoundland.

Now by contrast in early July, the Telly nearly blew a collective blood vessel endorsing the Premier’s decision to drop millions of provincial taxpayers dollars on studying how many fish are in the ocean.  The research is supposed to help “us” make better fisheries decisions.

At no point did anyone at the Telly suggest that this little expenditure might be political.  No one bothered to point out in the Telegram, that the “us” spending the money only has to decide how many fish plants to license. That doesn’t require a detailed knowledge of capelin populations near the southeast shoal.

The announcement came based in no small measure on the unfounded claim that the federal fisheries department had basically given up on research altogether.  Nothing at all political in those false claims, apparently, at least as far as the Telly was concerned then or is concerned now.

And of course, this recent expedition in no way proved the inherent bullshit in the earlier claims about DFO and and its supposed lack of fish science.

Nope.

According to the Telly, only the federal program had any hint of politics in it.

The provincial government’s news, by contrast, was apparently as pure as the driven snow and in no way looked like a pile of snow on Duckworth Street at the end of a long hard winter…well at least as far as any possible hint of political motivation might be concerned.

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Polling month starts in earnest: five of six announcements detail public spending

August is polling month for the provincial government’s pollster.  You can tell because on the first working day of the money, cash announcements and announcements of announcements flowed like water:

• a “celebration” of the first anniversary of interest free student loans;
• $22,000 for culture and heritage groups in the finance minister’s district (called a region so they can claim they don’t hand out cash based on political districts);
• $15,675 in money for sports in the Port au Port district;
• $10,000 for something called “regional games”, this time in the “central” region;
• More than $116,000 in job creation money for St. George’s-Stephenville East district;
• Notice that there’ll be a health funding announcement on Tuesday; and,

There were 12 announcements made on August second.  Two were public advisories and another four were media advisories, including warning of a media availability later on Monday and a funding announcement on Tuesday.  One of the dozen announcements covered the closure of the school for the deaf.

In other words, outside of the media and public routine announcements, the provincial government issued six news releases on Monday.

Five of them were about spending.

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The politics of financing post-secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador

Nottawa lays it out very neatly:

It's a political masterstroke. Having already taken all the political credit for the revenue generated by his predecessors, Williams is now doing the same with expenditures of his successors. It's brilliant. Whether or not it's sustainable is another thing.

That would pretty much put post-secondary education financing in line with the rest of the current administration’s management of public money:  unsustainable.

Then again, nottawa sets out that sort of thing as well when he notes the costs in the policy re-announced today by the province’s education minister:

What is the point is that this announcement, at the time of its making, and on its one year anniversary is really not an "investment" of the "Williams Government" in any way shape or form. It's a commitment made on behalf of Williams' successor, the person who'll one day have to account for the cost of borrowing money at 4, 7, 8 or even 10% in order to lend it out to post-secondary students interest-free.

Evidently financial management and economics were not included in the curriculum at Darin King’s alma mater.

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Holyrood pollution and the Great White Whale

According to the Telegram, Holyrood town council is expected to vote this week to ask the provincial energy company and the provincial government to follow through on commitments to reduce emissions from the thermal generating plant at Holyrood.

The problem both for the town is that it is stuck accepting NALCOR’s own contradictory statements on Holyrood.

On the one hand you have the statement contained in the provincial energy plan.  Under that version, the company would either install scrubbers and precipitators to deal with emissions or  - as a NALCOR spokesperson told the Telegram - “displace existing fossil fuel generation at the Holyrood generating station.”

But as Bond Papers readers know, Holyrood will be a crucial part of the NALCOR system no matter what.  This is not an either/or proposition.  The scrubbers and precipitators will have to be installed.  Even if the heavens open, miracles happen and NALCOR builds the Lower Churchill anytime in the next two decades, NALCOR plans to keep Holyrood on stream.

You don’t just have to believe your old e-scribbler.  Here’s exactly how NALCOR described it:

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.

Things don’t get any better, by the by, if you try and follow Calamity Kathy Dunderdale’s version of things.

What seems to be going on here is pretty simple.  NALCOR and the Premier are obsessed with a hydro megaproject that they just can’t build.  Everything else is being held hostage by that obsession.

For example, power from central Newfoundland can’t be used to replace Holyrood since the connection to the Avalon can’t bear the added load NALCOR won’t upgrade that transmission capacity unless the LC goes ahead.  At the same time, NALCOR won’t pursue alternative generation – like say wind power – because it is fixated on the Lower Churchill.  This sort of stuff is well laid out in the LC environmental review documents. 

And if that weren’t bad enough a decades old moratorium on small hydro projects remains in place. The 2007 energy plan committed government to lift it or keep it in place in 2009, the year they were supposed to start the Lower Churchill.

Guess what?

That decision is held up, as well, because the Great White Whale remains just out of Ahab’s grasp.

So if the Holyrood town council wants to get their local air improved, the first thing they need to do is toss aside the bumpf coming from the provincial government and NALCOR about the Lower Churchill.

Instead, they need to hold NALCOR to the statements in its 20 year capital plan.

And that means they need to come up with a timetable to install emission reduction equipment on the facility that NALCOR says will be a vital part of its system for decades to come.

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The July Drivers

Maybe you were one of the 11,472 visitors who hit 15,026 pages at Bond Papers during July.  If you were, odds are you enjoyed these, the 10 most popular pages from July, 2010:

1. General and master corporal face charges over relationship (so far out in front, it was in another month)
2. Five years of secret talks on the Lower Churchill:  the Dunderdale audio.  (The mainstream continues to ignore the big story but the public won’t)
3. Bristol collapses owing more than $6.0 million
4. And no fish swam (helped no doubt by a mention on the Fisheries Broadcast)
5. When will she get the flick?
6. HQ and NALCOR on same side in US transmission line play
7. Court docket now online
8. Scientists find new sea creatures near deepwater exploration sites
9. Telly web design sucks, kills RSS feed to popular content
10. There is a green hill (not so far away)

The number one story was a national story and involved illicit sex.  That’s two massive boosts for it right there.

Bur the surprise second is the story the mainstream media have completely ignored since it broke last September. They haven’t even mentioned it once, yet it is absolutely true and no one has even tried to refute it. Well, they may have ignored it but people are clearly very interested in finding out that Danny Williams spent five years secretly trying to sell Hydro-Quebec an ownership stake in the Lower Churchill, without any redress on the Churchill Falls contract.

In the end it was no sale and not for any other reason than they just weren’t that into him. They had other things to do. And everything else Danny’s uttered since last July on the Lower Churchill and Quebec is just plain ole bullshit.

Anyone who thinks fisheries policy isn’t interesting to people might want to take note of Number 4 on July’s hit parade. It’s all about fisheries policy. What’s even more remarkable is that it doesn’t endorse the bullshit – there’s that word again – that infests the Gus and Ryan show on commercial radio.

The court docket post remains popular, not to mention testimony to the number of lawyers who drop by Bond’s corner for a read and a larf.

The last post worth a special mention is the one about the Telegram’s site redesign.  There’s another post in the works on this but it’s on hold until the Telly crew manage to sort themselves out. Hint: a week is way too long to leave the blogs totally shagged up;  the positives on the new design are fast being overshadowed by the cock-ups.

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Quebec and Vermont to keep talking power

Quebec and Vermont have extended the July 31 deadline to reach a long-term power purchase agreement but officials quoted by Bloomberg are optimistic the two sides will reach a deal shortly.

The deal would see Vermont purchase 225 megawatts from Quebec from 2012 to 2038. When the two sides announced a tentative deal in March, they set 31 July as the deadline for the deal.

Vermont’s major electricity producer is looking at a long-term purchase to replace an existing one with Hydro-Quebec.  The state may also be in the market for additional power to replace generation at the 38 year old Yankee nuclear generator.

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Traffic Drivers, July 26- Jul 30

1. Bristol collapses owing more than $6.0 million.
2. Three on a match and then some: another failure of taxpayer cash give-away  policy.
3. Did he expense that?
4. The past in our digital present.
5. Game on! Feds and Quebec start talks on Gulf Accord.
6. Kremlinology 23:  a little something for everyone.
7. Court docket now online.
8. A view into the Afghan war.
9. Telly web design sucks, kills RRS feed to popular content. (A re-tweet really drove this one)
10. Drill baby, drill:  Dunderdale rebuffs Quebec concerns on border, oil spill response.

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iPhone mania (with picture)

A determined gaggle of iPhone devotees lined up in several places across Canada on Friday to get their latest fix.

This shot is outside the Apple store on Ste-Catherine in Montreal. They were there all day, lined up around the corner as well as at cell phone company outlets.

Did these phones come with the design flaw fixed for free?

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Sins of omission

“Five key bridges in the western portion of the T’Railway Provincial Park that closed in 2008 are now re-opened to park users. … [The five bridges are being ] replaced as a result of a $3.6 million allocation in Budget 2010: The Right Investments – For Our Children and Our Future.”

That’s part of the first paragraph of a happy-news release from the province’s environment.  It’s one of dozens issued every week in July as part of the happy-news offensive mounted by the provincial government in the run up to August’s scheduled polling by the provincial government pollster.

The release leaves out much relevant detail.

Not surprisingly, that detail is embarrassing to the provincial government and especially to the ever-embarrassing minister, Charlene Johnson.

For starters, the bridges in questions were all former railway bridges inherited by the provincial government in 1988 when the railway closed.  The provincial government took responsibility for the bridges but until 2008 – apparently  - did nothing with them.

No maintenance.

No repairs.

No inspections either, apparently.

At all.

That is until the federal government inspected a few that crossed over federally-monitored waterways.  They found a raft of them in what appeared to be perilous states of disrepair. 

In one case, one of the bridges had vanished entirely.  When inspectors showed up to take a lookee-look, they couldn’t find anything except the footings on either shore.

So basically this splendiferous investment of more than three and a half millions could have been avoided or at least spread out over time if someone – anyone – at any point along the way had decided to do some regular maintenance on the bridges.

Or even taken a peek at them once in a while.

Even an auditor general’s report in 2003 on inadequate inspection of road bridges seems to have prompted any action on the former railway bridges, the ones now used by pedestrians, snowmobilers and ATV operators.

None of this, by the by, stopped Johnson from claiming that her department prized public safety. As your humble e-scribbler noted at the time:

We understand the inconvenience of the closure of these structures; however, public safety has to be our number one priority," said Minister Johnson.

But...

Environment Minister Charlene Johnson said today the province does not conduct routine safety assessments of structures on the T’Railway, which is a provincial park.

“There’s no regular inspections, no,” Johnson said in response to questions from reporters.

That sort of bumbling is why some people find it odd that Charlene has adopted a tone of haughty arrogance when dealing with issues like the Abitibi expropriation fiasco or offshore oil.

That sort of bumbling is also likely why Charlene’s publicists decided to torque this release without any reference  whatsoever - an omission in other words - to the mess that started it all.

But all of it doesn’t explain the real sin of omission here:  namely the explanation of why the Premier keeps this minister in a job for which she is clearly unqualified and at which she has clearly been a disaster of BP proportions.

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Game on! Feds and Quebec start talks on Gulf Accord

The Government of Quebec and the federal government started talks recently aimed at achieving an agreement on revenue sharing for any oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canadian Press reported.

Details about what the deal would entail, and when it would be implemented, remain vague. But [federal natural resources minister Christian] Paradis described the broad outlines while standing next to [Quebec natural resources minister Nathalie] Normandeau at an event earlier this week.

"We're talking about an administrative deal," he said.

"The goal is to create an office of hydrocarbons, as is the case in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland."

At the heart of the move is a potentially lucrative field known as Old Harry.  Believed to contain significant natural gas or oil reserves, the field lies across a boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador proposed in 1964 but never accepted. 

Both Quebec and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board have issued permits to Corridor Resources to explore Old Harry.

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Related:

• Jurisdiction dispute holding up oil exploration (January 2009)
• Corridor hits big gas (May 2010)
• There are gulfs and then there are oilspill gulfs (June 2010)
• Drill baby, drill: Dunderdale rebuffs Quebec concerns about border, offshore oil spills (July 2010)

Did he expense that?

Right on the heels of a new appointment for something called a “legislative assistant” comes a news release that tells us that Ed Buckingham  - member of the House of Assembly for St. John’s East - filled in for Charlene Johnson at an announcement in Burgeo.

This raises some interesting questions, not the least of which is who paid Ed’s costs.

You see they weren’t ministerial expenses so they don’t turn up on the periodic disclosure of expenses by cabinet ministers.

And they weren’t expenses in the House of Assembly because this is a government job.  Ed shouldn’t be expensing them in the legislature.

The department should be covering the bill.

But interestingly enough, they don’t have to disclose any of the costs for travel by this odd bird called the legislative assistant or even confirm what if any pay goes with the title unless someone goes through the exercise of submitting an access to information request.

Of course, you wouldn’t even think to do that because until the Paul Davis announcement, these little jobs flew under the radar screen.  Sort of like “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Funny idea for a government that supposedly wants to be open, transparent and accountable.

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Kremlinology 23: a little something for everyone

Newbie member of the House of Assembly Paul Davis picked up a rather conspicuous new job on Tuesday.

He is the new legislative assistant for the municipal affairs department. 

Now this stands out for a bunch of reasons. 

First of all, this job doesn’t really exist, as such.  It’s one of those made-up jobs.  There are parliamentary secretaries as set down by the Parliamentary Secretaries Act. These people help ministers of large departments in what are effectively training positions for future cabinet ministers.

But legislative assistants?  They aren’t really mentioned.

That’s the second thing that makes this noticeable.  This appointment got a news release praising Davis to the hilt.  There’s no reference at all to what the job entails.

You might be surprised to find that Tracy Perry is the legislative assistant in InTRD.  She’s actually on the departmental website.  But there doesn’t seem to be a news release on her.

But what about Ed Buckingham, the guy representing St. John’s East?  Well, there is a single passing reference to him – by district, not name – as the legislative assistant for environment. Maybe he got punted from the job:  he isn’t on the departmental website any more.

Thirdly, this one stands out because of all the departments needing help, municipal affairs ain’t it. The department doesn’t generate much in the way of legislation so it’s pretty hard to imagine what Davis is going to be doing. Charlene could use Ed Buckingham to help her find where the boundary on her responsibilities are.  And if Ed had his turn at the assistant’s gig, then Davis’ police experience in finding things could come in handy for Charlene.

Fourthly, Davis’ appointment stands out because it is in a department where the minister is on the mend from a rather serious illness. Might that be the reason he is on the job now? If Whalen is still on the mend, then Davis might be able to take on some extra duties as a proto-minister without actually forcing a cabinet shuffle.

After all, a cabinet shuffle would be rather noticeable at this point.  Someone already pointed out that we are overdue for a Williams cabinet shuffle. Is this an effort to skate by?

Fifthly, Davis is rather junior to be getting a nice little plum.  He’s the last man in. Others – like say, political rainbow man Steve Kent -  have been around the House since 2007 doing little more than nursing their frustrated ambition.

Sixthly and perhaps most tellingly, Davis’ appointment draws attention to the number of people in Danny Williams’ caucus who are drawing extra pay.

There are 19 people in cabinet, four parliamentary secretaries (the maximum under the statute), one parliamentary assistant and at least two and maybe three of these strange birds called legislative assistants.*

Then there is the speaker, deputy speaker, chair of committees, deputy chair of committees, whip, caucus chair and the vice chair of the public accounts committee.

Altogether, that’s 33 people out of a 44 member caucus in a 48 seat legislature. In any normal legislature, that would be just about all the Tory caucus.  That’s about the same number of people drawing extras as we saw in the last days of Roger Grimes’ crowd and in the late 1980s as first Brian Peckford and then Tom Rideout staggered toward the end of the 1985 mandate.

In both instances, the parties had been in power for more than a decade. The extra pay helps to placate people who might never get a shot at cabinet in a caucus that might not get re-elected to government again.

In other cases, the extra pay is a way of keeping the peace among a restless and ambitious crew.  Politicians without much to do – and that would be most of the Tory caucus these days – have a disquieting tendency to spend their time brooding and plotting.  A few bucks can go a long way to distracting the potential revolutionaries from their course or co-opting a perceived rival.

But does any of that fit?

Maybe yes. 

Maybe no.

There’s more to the Davis announcement than the couple of paragraphs in the release. Sometimes with these things it takes a while for the story to emerge.

 

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*  There could be another one, by the by.  There’s also a passing reference to one for Joan Burke.  It's hard to tell if this is an elected member or – as would normally be the case – a reference to a political staffer called the legislative assistant.  The staffer is the one who helps the minister or house leader manage the administrative aspects of the House.

Bristol collapses owing more than $6.0 million

The unexpected collapse of regional marketing firm Bristol leaves a string of secured and unsecured debts totalling more than $6.0 million.

The company has unsecured debt of more than $3.2 million and secured debt of $2.8 million. The details are contained in documents filed in Moncton with the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy and posted to the Chronicle Herald website.

Most of the creditors are media outlets the company had not paid for advertising placement. Bristol went into receivership owing NTV, Newfoundland and Labrador’s major private television broadcaster, more than $105,000, for example. Newspaper publisher TransContinental is owed more than $300,000 in various headings.

Other unsecured creditors include:

• the City of St. John’s, which is owed more than $27,000,
• the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador ($2,000),
• Fortis Properties ($104,056.60, possibly for rent for and renovations to its St. John’s offices), and
• Halifax Metro Centre ($83, 726.33),

Bristol also owes $1.7 million to the Bank of Nova Scotia and $1.125 million to Business development Canada.

Unpaid staff wages is over $229,000.

The bankruptcy filing lists more than $4.4 million in accounts receivable of which it expects to be able to recover $2.2 million. Total assets, including machinery, furnishings and securities totals $2,825,000.

That leaves $3,284,669.36 in debt that isn’t covered by any assets.

The Newfoundland and Labrador registry of Companies shows the following directors for Saga Investments, the holding company that owned Bristol:

• Rob Crosbie
• Richard Emberley
• Darell Fowlier [sic]
• Paul Kent
• Louis Leger
• Brian Mersereau
• Larry Nelson
• Noel Sampson

Some elements of Bristol date back over 30 years.  Bristol Communications began life as Saga Communications in 1976.  It changed its name to Bristol in 1992.

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