Bond Papers readers know more than provincial energy minister

Both the federal and Quebec provincial governments may have released the text of their agreement on underwater resources in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last week but Newfoundland and Labrador natural resources minister Shawn Skinner didn’t even see a copy until today – March 28.

As he told the provincial legislature during Question Period:

…It just came into our possession over the weekend is my understanding. I actually saw a copy of it this morning myself. I have not had an opportunity to review [it]…

Anyone with access to the Internet could have had a copy of the deal the day the federal and Quebec governments released it.

That’s where your humble e-scribbler found it last Thursday for a post that appeared on Friday.  That post included this assessment:

What’s most interesting about the Laurentide Accord, though is the fact that it is modelled, generally, on the Atlantic Accord (1985) between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government or the similar Nova Scotia offshore accord.

As Skinner told the House, his officials did manage to figure out this much since they clapped eyes on the agreement over the weekend:

What I am told by officials at this point, where they have done a cursory review, is that it is very similar to the accords that have been done with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. The agreement is very similar…

Tomorrow, Skinner will likely be telling everyone that Quebec doesn’t get Equalization offsets, that provincial spending is unsustainable and Elvis has left the building.

Or at least that’s what he understands from briefings provided by his officials.

Sheesh.

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Election Eleven: NL seats at the start

Here’s the way things are shaping up in the seven Newfoundland and Labrador ridings at the start of Election ‘11:

1. St. John’s East:  Held by New Democrat Jack Harris at dissolution.  Harris will face Conservative Jerry Byrne and Liberal John Allan. 
2. St. John’s South-Mount Pearl:  Held by Liberal Siobhan Coady at dissolution.  She’ll face challenges from former provincial Conservative cabinet minister Loyola Sullivan and New Democrat Ryan Cleary.
3. Avalon:  Held by Liberal Scott Andrews at dissolution.  Andrews beat Fabian Manning in 2008 and Manning will quit his senate seat on Monday to take another run at a seat in the Commons.  Big question here is the potential rift internally within the Conservative camp.  Provincial Conservatives including health minister Jerome! Kennedy worked hard to destroy Manning the last time out.  Only time will tell if they can pry the hatchets out of each other’s skulls and bury them deep enough in the ground to elect Manning. 
4. Random-Burin-St.George’s:  Liberal Judy Foote.  Conservative Herb Davis, an ex-pat who ran against Foote last time, is the most most likely challenger again.  No word on the NDP possibilities.
5. Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls:  Scott Simms is the Liberal seeking re-election.  No word yet on NDP or Conservative challengers
6. Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte:  Gerry Byrne’s held the seat for the Liberals since Brian Tobin vacated it in the mid-1990s. Nil thus far on NDP or Conservative challengers.
7. Labrador:  Todd  Russell, the Liberal stalwart will face off against Peter Penashue for the Conservatives.  No word on a NDP candidate.

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Williams knifes successor

The rift between Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale goes way beyond just a minor tiff.

Williams turned up at a book launch a couple of days after leaving the promise on a vacation.  Williams told reporters who showed up that Dunderdale and her crew are so concerned at distancing themselves from Williams that they won’t even let him have cabinet ministers’ cell phone numbers.

CBC quoted Williams:

"I think it's very clear that the premier and her staff have felt that it's appropriate to distance themself from me," he told reporters Sunday at an event to launch a photo book of his often combative life in politics.

"And if that's the case, so be it. That's her right as premier of the province," he said.

A couple of things stand out about this last twist in the tale.

First, it would be hard for Dunderdale’s staff  to control who has cell phone numbers. Certainly, her office could monitor calling patterns on government phones via the cell phone provider but there’s nothing to give the office control over private cell numbers.

Second, there’s the question of why Williams would want to have all the cabinet numbers.  Evidently he is interested in influencing cabinet deliberations.  In that context his comment about “her right” seems to be a little less than sincere.

Third, the fact Williams is openly discussing the rift is an obvious tactic to put Dunderdale under even greater pressure.  He knows that she holds office purely by someone else’s good will.  Dunderdale knows it and lots of others do, as well.  More than a few people will have noticed Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien in the CBC video of Williams at the airport a few days ago. 

Kevin’s a proud member of the Dan-Club for Men. Jerome’s another.  Ditto Tom Marshall.  While Kevin may not have much clout, Tom and Jerome do. 

Some Conservative loyalists, especially those who still believe in Williams’ invincibility and his infallibility, won’t take too kindly to Dunderdale now that Williams has criticised her. 

Fourth, you now have to wonder why he’s undermining his hand-picked successor so readily.  Williams told reporters the rift has nothing to do with Elizabeth Matthews and the botched offshore board appointment.

Okay.

So if that isn’t it, what does Williams want so badly that he is willing to openly attack her less than a week before she formally takes over as Tory party leader?

Don’t guess relations with the federal Conservatives.  Those were already on the mend long before now. 

Something else is going on.

The challenge now is to figure out what Danny is playing at.

One thing is for sure, Kathy Dunderdale has an even bigger political problem inside her own administration than anyone thought, even as recently as Thursday last week.

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Harper and coalitions

Without hypocrisy, some political leaders wouldn’t have anything to stand for.

Last night, a post from 2008  - “Taking power without an election” - suddenly found renewed popularity.

Given Stephen Harper’s condemnation of coalitions after he dropped by the Governor General’s place on Saturday, it becomes all the more hysterically funny to recall that in 2004, Steve thought coalitions were the cat’s ass.  They were just the answer the GG should give if the prime minister came a-calling looking for an election writ.

Coalition governments are bad.

Unless Steve is heading one.

Then they are good.

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Traffic without any shocks, March 21 to 25

Your humble e-scribbler keeps scribbling and you, faithful readers, keep on reading.

Here’s what you were reading this past week.  There’s a pattern to it, but see if you can spot the surprising element to what’s been hot all week and the not so surprising element to what hasn’t been hot.

1. Believing things that aren’t true
2. Hell hath no fury…
3. Feds, Quebec announce joint deal on offshore resources
4. Muskrat Falls power may never go to new England: Nalcor
5. No Equalization offsets for Quebec
6. Lies, damn lies and throne speeches
7. Selling cheap power to Quebec
8. Cleary to unquit for NDP again
9. Dunderdale’s leadership woes deepen
10. Orchestra Pit Theory of Political News Coverage

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Show him your love…this Sunday buy a book

What with all the fuss this week about Danny friggin’ off on a plane rather than show up for a love in with his Fan Club, your humble e-scribbler got a Dunderdaleish shock when this e-mail showed up in ye olde in-box:

What better way to show how much you love him – compared to those ungrateful Tories – than to show up and plunk down some hard cash so you can have his big mug on your coffee table.

Dunno if Danny has a piece of this book action or if he’s just helping the boys out with the marketing.

Heck, it isn’t clear to anyone if the Old Man is even gonna show up for that matter.  After all, this ad may well have been drawn up before he took his latest trademark hissy-fit. What an ironic turn of events as nothing shows Danny’s nature and style than the contemptuous “pffft” he threw at his former party-mates last week.

Even if he isn’t gonna be there, show up and chat with Paul Daly and award-winning writer Russell Wangersky.  You might even want to buy the book.

And if you are so inclined, pick up Bill Rowe’s tome as well.  Tons of copies of the thing are destined for the remainder bins if you don’t.

Better idea:  bundle them up and send them off to the Tokyo electric company.  They could use the fodder to help bury that troublesome reactor.

Anyway.

Sunday.

Russell and Paul signing their books at Chapters.

Support two local artists.

See you there!

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No Equalization offsets for Quebec

The new offshore resource agreement between the federal government and Quebec is a significant step toward developing oil and natural gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

As with the similar situation between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, another major step will be settling the interprovincial water boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

What’s most interesting about the Laurentide Accord, though is the fact that it is modelled, generally, on the Atlantic Accord (1985) between Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government or the similar Nova Scotia offshore accord.

The Quebec agreement doesn’t include a specific joint management board.  Instead, it describes a transitional period in which major decisions will be shared between the two governments. 

That period of equal management might actually last a long time. Section 4.1 of the agreement commits the governments to table legislation on joint management.  But that must happen only two years after someone finds a commercially viable discovery. In the meantime, everything will be run by a both governments equally.

That’s a pretty sharp contrast to Newfoundland and Labrador where the provincial government has significant control over offshore resources.

There’s also a sharp contrast on revenue sharing.  While both the Atlantic and Laurentide Accords give the provincial governments 100% of revenues from offshore resource development, Quebec won’t be getting any extra payments to offset drops in Equalization. in both Atlantic provinces, the provincial government set and collected all offshore revenues and in addition got 12 to 13 years of federal transfers to replace declines in Equalization.

If Quebec winds up with huge oil and gas money flowing in, you can watch its Equalization entitlements drop like the proverbial stone. That’s big news for the federal government. Quebec collects more in Equalization transfer from Ottawa than all the other provinces combined. Cut that out entirely or even cut it down significantly and the federal government will wind up with billions of extra cash in very short order.

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Dunderdale’s leadership woes deepen

Bad enough that Danny Williams is pissed at Kathy Dunderdale.

It’s worse now that everyone knows it.

Things took a slightly worse turn Thursday when Dunderdale faced a scrum of reporters all interested in this problem she’s having with her patron. She tried to put a brave face on it, right down to expressing her shock that he had decided to jet off to somewhere else rather than attend.

The story’s even turned up in the Globe and Mail. 

That would be another downside to the whole thing, incidentally.

But that’s not the end of it.

Dunderdale felt compelled to assure the universe that Danny Williams – the fellow who frigged off last December in a manner Dunderdale herself said was shocking – could rest assured that he had “the full support and loyalty of caucus, cabinet and the party.”

What party leader of any consequence would pledge her unflinching fealty to the guy who used to have her job?

Next thing you know she’ll admit she really is taking orders from him and that he is now able to fulfill a promise he made long ago:  to be premier but not take a salary from the government for doing the job.

Kathy Dunderdale has serious political problems that her Stacy and Clinton make-over won’t fix.

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Feds, Quebec announce joint deal on offshore resources

Natural Resources Canada news release:

“The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Natural Resources, and Nathalie Normandeau, Quebec Deputy Premier, Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife and Minister responsible for the Northern Plan, today announced that the Governments of Canada and Quebec have reached an important accord on the development of oil and gas resources in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"This is an important day that is the result of a great deal of hard work," said Minister Paradis. "Under a co-management framework, Quebec will derive significant financial benefits from resource-related activities. This accord is a concrete example of the two Governments collaborating to create jobs, energy security and economic opportunity in resource communities in the regions of Quebec and Canada. The Government of Canada will continue to work with Quebec to ensure the responsible and sustainable development of our natural resources."

"This is an historic day for Quebec. After more than 12 years — and thanks to the tremendous work of our two governments — we are very proud to announce that the Province of Quebec has an agreement that will give us 100 percent of the revenues from the development of our oil and gas in the Gulf. It's truly a great day for Quebec," said Minister Normandeau.

The Quebec government is undertaking a strategic environmental evaluation before allowing the development of oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The results of this evaluation will be known in 2012.

Since 2006, the Governments of Canada and Quebec have achieved several milestone collaborations. The accord is a key element in the continuation of that work.

The accord will be implemented by means of mirror legislation that will be tabled by the federal and provincial governments before the Parliament of Canada and the National Assembly of Quebec. The accord will be implemented in steps, and rigorous environmental assessments will be conducted before any oil and gas development begins.”

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Hell hath no fury …

Like the Old Man when he’s pissed off.

Reporters caught up to former Premier Danny Williams at St. John’s airport on Wednesday.  Not surprisingly they asked him about a report this week he won’t be attending a tribute dinner the party planned to throw for him during its leadership convention.

You’ll find the CBC version at about the 10:00 mark in the Here and Now broadcast.

Now usually, the Old Man would insist that nothing could be further from the truth whenever he wanted to deny something, even when the story was accurate.

In this case, there answer is conspicuously different. Glenn Deir asks Danny about the suggestion that there is some kind of rift between him and his successor.

“Not interested in getting into that”.

“No Comment”.

And reference to a tribute that will happen at some point in the undetermined future.

Put that together with the smirk on his face and you can pretty much guess that the Old Man is mightily fried with Kathy Dunderdale about something.  One version has it that Danny didn’t think Dunderdale and her crew had done enough to defend his former communications director in the controversy over her appointment to the offshore regulatory board.

If that’s the case, then Kath may well have some serious political cracks inside her caucus.  She doesn’t hold her current position by virtue of anything other than someone else’s good graces.  More than a few members of her caucus would likely take the view  - if pushed - that they owe their seats to the Old Man not to Kathy.

She’s gotta be feeling a little uneasy. There’s an implication to his tone, his smirk and reference that reporters should ask Dunderdale about their relationship.

If nothing else, his decision to jet off to Florida or wherever he’s gone instead of handing the reins formally to Dunderdale robs her of any symbolic continuity, any trace of his legacy. Instead, there will be some kind of tribute to Danny – with the focus solely on him, obviously – at some time in the future.

Imagine trying to get yourself sorted out for an election campaign while your predecessor and his pals are pissed off at you behind the scenes.  On top of everything else she’s facing, Kathy probably never expected she’d have to face Danny chucking hand grenades at her.

This is going to be one interesting political year and it’s a long way from over.

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Believing things that aren’t true

Cynthia Downey, ace provincial Conservative cheerleader, declares her unflinching support for the plan to double electricity rates in the province in a recent letter to the Telegram:

I, for one, am glad to have a government with a good plan for developing the hydroelectric power and making it profitable for us by selling it in the northeastern U.S.

Unfortunately for Cynth, that’s not true.

Nalcor vice president Derrick Sturge said recently that Muskrat falls power may never go to the United States.  Nalcor isn’t counting on the United States market.

There’s good reason, too.  Right now the Americans can pump out so much cheap electricity that they are selling it into New Brunswick.  And that’s pretty much the forecast for the near future, at least out to the time Muskrat Falls will start pumping.

It doesn’t get any better, at least for Cynthia Downey.

She recites reason after reason for backing the deal but every one of her reasons is as wrong as that one about selling power to the United States.

She even trots out the old chestnut about shutting down Holyrood.

You’d think that a person who’d already been sucked in by a load of malarkey once before would learn to spot it again.

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Clean drinking water is a sign of progress

You know it is a good thing when two departments can join forces to issue a single news release praising a decade of clean drinking water training courses for municipal employees.

For those who have been hearing clean drinking water in the news lately, just recall a post on significant digits your humble e-scribbler wrote in December 2009.  Not much has changed in the past year and a bit.

Bravo for the workshop people.

Good on them for working hard to make things better.

But someone needs to hold feet to some fire to get action in a “have” province where something like 30% of communities operate routinely under boil water orders.

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Lies, damn lies and throne speeches

One of the glorious piles of foolishness you will see again in Monday’s provincial throne speech is the idea that no provincial or federal government before this current provincial one paid any attention to public sector capital spending.

For too many years, for want of proper infrastructure, our province languished while other regions of the country prospered.

It’s foolishness because every government delivered capital spending, even in the leanest of times.

Take a look at this table.  It shows public sector capital spending in the province from 1991 to 2011.  That’s federal and provincial spending combined and it includes construction as well as equipment.  The figures are compiled by the Statistics division of the provincial finance department using Statistics Canada figures.

The section marked Red I basically reflects provincial spending during the early 1990s recession combined with what appears to be any federal money that went into Hibernia.  That would account for the peak in 1995 and the drop off in the last year of the project before the GBS tow-out and first oil in 1997.

Blue II represents the combined federal and provincial Conservatives’ “stimulus” spending.

Red III  is a bit of an anomaly but since it covers both a federal and provincial election period, odds are good that there is a connection.  Anyone who can offer a reasonable explanation is welcome to chime in on that one.

What’s curious is that the first three years of the current provincial Conservative administration is roughly the same as that Red II period in terms of total capital spending.  It’s not because the provincial government was flat broke;  it wasn’t.

To the contrary, the provincial government had cash and announced a fair dollop of spending in the run-up to the 2007 election.  What seems to be reflected in this diagram is that a great deal of the capital works announced by the provincial Tories around the 2007 election just didn’t happen until two to four years later.

It’s one of those curious things but the current crowd what is ruling over us seem to have a chronic problem delivering their capital works projects.  They can announce them alright, but finishing the delivery seems to be a problem.

Oh.

And there is no coincidence that capex is peaking in 2011, a definite provincial and likely federal election year.

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Fried Clyde dumps Danny’s fish policy

Remember earlier in the month when fisheries minister Clyde Jackman abandoned the fisheries reform process?

Let’s just take a jump back to something that stood out from his newser at the time:

What Jackman did mention one too many times for comfort was the idea that some people think time will take care of the whole thing.  In other words, in an industry dominated by people rapidly approaching retirement, most of the people who would be “restructured” will simply leave the industry on their own if nothing else happens. He also talked about signs that prices might be climbing again soon, perhaps another clue as to what some in the provincial government might be hoping for.

No surprise, then, that Jackman is on the front page of the Telegram on Tuesday with this to say:

“…how can I justify, going forward looking for $190 million dollars, to justify a 30 per cent reduction (in harvesting), when the report clearly says that if you leave it alone it will restructure to an even greater degree than the ask that the FFAW put forward?”

How indeed, except that there is a difference in sheer human cost between an organized series of cuts and the wholesale slaughter that may well leave nothing much in the fishery to restructure when it is all over. You can see the same thread running through the front end of the letter Jackman sent to the processors and the union representing fish-plant workers and fishermen, now called “harvesters” in polite circles.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Jackman’s letter is that he winds up abandoning the position he and his colleagues championed for seven years. Gone is taxpayer-funded bailouts and buyouts.  In two successive federal elections, Jackman and his colleagues tried to get commitment after federal commitment to doing just that.

What’s even more bizarre  - some might say disingenuous - about the Dunderdale’s government’s supposed concern for public spending is that it doesn’t apply to things like Muskrat Falls. 

It’s also a bizarre strategy to take in an election year especially when there are so many rural seats the Tories currently hold but where their grip might be weakening a bit.

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Selling cheap power to Quebec

The always reliable labradore has unearthed some fascinating information about a power deal between Nalcor and Hydro-Quebec.

Bottom line:

• Nalcor took forever to publicly announce the deal, and
• They are selling power into Quebec for about 20%
• of what Labrador and Newfoundland customers are paying.

Not bad, eh?

They even get a volume discount, something that will not be available to the residential consumers who will be bearing the full cost of Muskrat Falls in the future just so Nalcor can sell more cheap power to customers outside the province.

That’s the only way the “economics” of the current proposal make any sense to the people behind the scheme.

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Dunderdale government to cure arthritis

From the Throne Speech:

As My Government follows through in implementing its provincial wellness plan and its healthy aging strategy, it is also turning its attention to chronic diseases. Arthritis, cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, lung disease – unlike many acute illnesses that can be treated and cured – are chronic conditions which can remain with people for the rest of their lives. My Government will move forward this year to release a new Chronic Disease Management Strategy which will include a comprehensive and collaborative approach to chronic disease prevention and management throughout the province.

Chronic disease prevention.

Arthritis listed first.

As someone with arthritis, your humble e-scribbler is not going to hang around waiting for them to deliver on that one.  Hint: no one knows what causes arthritis. But if they can improve the pathetic arthritis support delivered via Eastern Health’s bureaucratic monstrosity, then more power to ‘em.

Gotta say too, now that Hisself isn’t writing the speeches any more, they are much better. One more mangled Kennedy quote and people were going to start flinging themselves under busses voluntarily.

But this speech has some decent writing including nice turns of phrase and some great structuring.

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New Dawn up for vote yet again

Apparently, the Matshishkapeu Accord will be back for the Innu people of Labrador to vote on.

This must be the final, final, final version of the final agreement announced two and a half years ago as being the final agreement.

Note, though, that all the feds have announced on Monday was a financial deal.  The rest of the land claim is still up in the air.

Just sayin’, in case anyone figured this was a done deal.

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Muskrat Falls power may never go to New England: Nalcor

From Nalcor vice president Derrick Sturge:

"Whether all of the energy ever flows to the New England market - who knows? A significant portion of that (40 per cent) may never hit New England. It may end up in Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick. But the key is that there is the option to flow to the (New England) market."

And then he said the thing is going up with or without a federal loan guarantee.

Newfoundlanders should keep an eye on their wallets with this guy Sturge and his buddies around.

They have no markets for the power outside the province.

That’s why Sturge uses all the conditional language like “may”.  It may go there;  then again, it may not.

Count on the “not’ given that the front end of the story makes it plain that Nalcor and Emera couldn’t actually settle on a price.  Muskrat Falls power was just too expensive.

So in exchange for Emera partnering on a line to Nova Scotia they’ll get free power for 35 years.

Talk about the price is right.

Free is always the right price, except if you are Nalcor customers in this province.  For you guys, Nalcor will be jacking up Newfoundland electricity rates and adding another five billion or so to the public debt.

And for what?

Well, since Nalcor’s own figures show there is no demand on the island that couldn’t be met other ways besides Muskrat, the answer to that question remains as much a mystery as why Kathy Dunderdale threw Shawn Skinner under a political bus last week with the Matthews’ debacle.

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Libya 1986 - OP El Dorado Canyon

This is a short video recounting the American air strike against Libya in 1986. 

The video mentions SA-3 Goa and SA-5 Gammon anti-aircraft missiles.  Together with the much older SA-2 Guideline, they still formed the backbone of Libyan air defence.

Well, that is until the past 48 hours.

Taking out Libyan air defences was the first phase of coalition military action against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.  Aircraft and cruise missiles reportedly struck anti-aircraft missile sites and airfields.

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High cholesterol Traffic: Now with extra pork!

From a pork-barrel almost appointment to a minister welcoming federal pork that never comes, this week the most popular posts are about Conservatives and patronage.

1. Matthews bails on board position
2. Operation Ridiculous
3. Head-scratching and nose-pulling in latest twist in Matthews appointment debacle
4. Matthews appointment to offshore kept secret until leak
5. Anyone seen John Hickey?
6. The disease spreads
7. Inadvertent media humour
8. Good Tory?  End of Story
9. No more give-aways indeed:  provincial government considering cash breaks for major oil companies
10. Pushback in New England on hydro lines

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