Okay, so it wasn’t a bus after all

But that doesn’t mean natural resources minister Shawn Skinner escaped completely unscathed from his episode on Backtalk on Wednesday.

Here’s the latest version of a story about comments Skinner made on VO’s afternoon call-in show.  The head on the story was “Retraction”:

The following story appeared on the web in a manner which left the impression that a minister was speaking about the C-NLOPB, when, in fact, he only referenced Nalcor in his call to VOCM Backtalk.

The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. On VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy, a caller said the provincially-owned utility would not allow an audit. However, Natural Resources Minister Shawn Skinner told the show that claim was untrue.

While the auditor general has complained that he was unable to get the information he wanted from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, he has never expressed any concerns about Nalcor or its predecessor, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

There.

That’s clearer.

Not.

Here’s the actual “following story” that this supposedly replaces, although you’ll notice that in the version above, there actually isn’t the bit of the “following story” that it replaces.

The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The A.G. complained recently that he was unable to obtain the information he was looking for.

However, the minister of natural resources, Shawn Skinner, replied on VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy that that claim is untrue. He said there is a provision for the auditor general to review commercially sensitive information.

What we actually have here is an entirely new version of Skinner’s comments.

In the new version, the caller was talking about Nalcor, not the offshore board. So Skinner didn’t throw the AG under any sort of bus. VO made the mistake. That was one of the possibilities in the earlier post and, frankly, it makes more sense given the very friendly relationship between the AG and the current administration.

All the same,  if you look at what Skinner was actually talking about, he did wind up raising a rather uncomfortable issue of another sort.  Skinner just reminds us all of  changes that Skinner and his colleagues made to the Energy Corporation Act in 2008 that effectively hid Nalcor from any meaningful public scrutiny and independent oversight.

That’s so much better.

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Skinner throws AG under bus

[Updated in another post]

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner threw outgoing Auditor General John Noseworthy under the bus on Wednesday as he contradicted the AG’s claim he can’t get access to some of the offshore regulatory board’s records.

Voice of the Cabinet Minister ran a story based on Skinner’s comments with the afternoon call-in show’s new host Pete Soucy.  Here’s the whole thing in case the disappear it:

The government is refuting claims by a talk show caller that the auditor general cannot gain access to the books from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The A.G. complained recently that he was unable to obtain the information he was looking for.

However, the minister of natural resources, Shawn Skinner, replied on VOCM Backtalk with Pete Soucy that that claim is untrue. He said there is a provision for the auditor general to review commercially sensitive information.

That’s pretty odd considering Noseworthy has been very friendly to the current administration on so many occasions.  Even the timing of his initial attack on the offshore board in 2008 could be seen as a way to help the incumbent Conservatives out in their efforts to put negotiating pressure on the oil companies or to poke at the guy who embarrassed Danny Williams so badly in Williams’ bizarro struggle to make Andy Wells the board boss.

So what gives?

Well, it could be the rumour Noseworthy will be running for the Liberals in the fall.  There doesn’t appear to be any substance to it at the moment but the rumour is strong.  Maybe Skinner wanted to start a pre-emptive strike on Noseworthy’s credibility.

And – as with the bullshit about Dean MacDonald being a long-time Liberal – rumours have a way of being accepted unquestioningly as fact by some in this town, if enough people repeat the same fairy tale often enough. well, that or if the right people say so.

That doesn’t mean Noseworthy won’t run in the fall. It just means there are no signs at the moment – even behind the scenes – that Noseworthy will be a candidate.  Now odds are that the opposition parties are both falling over themselves to get Noseworthy as a candidate just because someone said the guy would be a good catch.  See those rumours at work again? 

But there’s a difference between that and the idea Skinner is about to announce or that he is already locked in.  If Skinner was trying to undermine Noseworthy, he was acting on the basis of shite intel.

That isn’t the only plausible explanation for Skinner’s comment.  Now this is Voice of the Cabinet Minister after all, so there is a possibility they just misunderstood what Skinner said.

And, it could also be that Skinner is just wrong, again.

After all, it isn’t like he has never said things that are patently, obviously and demonstrably false before.

Who knows?  Lots of strange things are turning up in the news these days as the political world slowly twists itself in a whole new bunch of shapes.

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And there goes another one

Jim Baker, incumbent Conservative in Labrador west announced today he won’t be seeking re-election in the fall.

Baker claims he made the decision in 2007.  Odds are you’d have a very, very hard time finding anyone who voted for Baker or the Pavement Putin who can recall that they announced their intentions before polling day in 2007.

More importantly, though, Baker is another sign that the December deal is crumbling.  Back then, all the incumbents would have sworn on a stack of His Speeches that they’d run again. 

Now?

They are walking to the exit, one by one. 

Baker’s an interesting one though because he only has a few years in office.  He won first in a by-election in 2007 and then got re-elected in the October 2007 general election.  In other words, Baker doesn’t appear to be eligible for a pension.

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And this just in from K-L-A-N News…

The headline:

“Financing Announcement for Foreigners to NL This Afternoon”

The little script story had less objectionable language in it that was much closer to what the official media advisory said.

Even immigrants would have had a much friendlier ring to it than “foreigners”.

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Republic of Moose

In an announcement that had absolutely no ties whatsoever to the current election campaign, the provincial government today tossed $5.0 million into a variety of efforts that are supposed to reduce the number moose-vehicle accidents in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The provincial government will spend $1.0 million on the traditional make-work job of clearing alders and other scrub from the sides of provincial roads.  this time though it will be clearing alders and scrub specifically to reduce moose accidents.

Out of the hundreds of kilometres of paved highway in the province, the government will build protective fencing on 15 of those kilometres as part of an experiment to see if it might keep moose from wandering onto roads where they get hit by cars and trucks. As one perceptive tweet comment had it, though, no one has explained how the government will measure the success of their efforts to reduce something that happens at random. 

Kinda makes the experiment silly, but as we noted, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact moose accidents are a political issue the government has ignored until now when it is – purely coincidentally – an election year.

There are other reliable indicators, though.

You can tell the provincial government is serious about this project because they spending the same amount of money cutting down on moose accidents that they spend subsidizing production of the CBC series Republic of Doyle.

You can tell the announcement had nothing to do with an election because both opposition party leaders couldn’t wait to praise the ruling Tories for making this splendid announcement.

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Loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls “electioneering” says NDP MP from Quebec

Noob Bloc NDP member of parliament Raymond Cote made it clear on Tuesday he disagrees with his party on a loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls project.
According to Canada.com:

"It's a gaffe to have dealt with that sporadically," the MP for Beauport-Limoilou near Quebec City said. "It was an electioneering announcement that only added fuel to the fire."

Cote believes the solution will be to push the federal government to provide the same sorts of benefits to other provinces.

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Skinner makes false statement in letter to Telegram editor

Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner is writing more letters to the editor of the Telegram these days that the former Open Line hydro queen sends tweets.

The government must have polling showing that the Muskrat Falls project isn’t going over well among the great unwashed.

In his latest epistle to the unclean, Skinner writes:

Hydro must comply with legislation and regulations that require it to ensure sufficient electricity is available at all times. If supply is required to meet demand, then the Electrical Power Control Act states that this new generation must come from the least-cost source.

That would be great.

It would be peachy, if it only it were true.

But it isn’t true.

Now there’s no way of knowing if Skinner didn’t realise the letter had at least one false statement in it or the person who drafted the letter didn’t keep current with current events so this is not a lie.

But there is absolutely no doubt that what Shawn wrote to the Telegram’s editor is not true.

It is false.

It is incorrect.

Newfoundland and Labrador Regulation 92/00 exempts the Lower Churchill project from the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994:

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is exempt from the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994 and the Public Utilities Act for all aspects of its activities pertaining to the Labrador Hydro Project as defined in section 2 [of the regulation].

Section 2 describes the entire project, including Muskrat Falls and the power line to Soldier’s Pond.

The whole issue got huge discussion during a recent sitting of the legislature.  It’s been in Shawn’s briefing notes for months. Your humble e-scribbler discussed it at length in the following posts:

• Dunderdale to hide important Muskrat details from public scrutiny
• Dunderdale flips and flops;  Muskrat exemption errata
• Dunderdale in action:  one Homer moment after another
• Dunderdale using rigged deck against public on Muskrat Falls

Muskrat Falls power does not have to be the cheapest power.  In fact, the entire project financing only works because consumers will be forced by law to pay for the whole thing plus a profit while export customers will get it for gigantic discounts.

So if Shawn is so obviously, blatantly, totally wrong about such a fundamental issue as this, how many other things is he wrong about?

Or to be more accurate…

If this sort of blatantly false statement can wind up in public with the minister’s name on it, how much other stuff from Nalcor and the provincial government on Muskrat is also false?

 

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Definitely cabinet material

A man arrested for allegedly assaulting police officers with an electric drill says he plans to seek the Provincial Conservative nomination in Port de Grave district during this fall’s provincial election.

Here’s a chunk of the story from Voice Of the Cabinet Minister before it is disappeared:

The man accused of assaulting a police officer with a drill over the weekend will be juggling a number of events over the coming weeks. Garry Drover, 49, intends to seek the PC nomination in the district of Port de Grave for the October election.

Drover appeared in provincial court this morning and was released on several conditions, including keeping the peace and abstaining from the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Initially, he was ordered not to enter any establishment that sells alcohol, but he requested that that condition be revoked, as he has a number of campaign rallies already scheduled to take place in bars and pubs.

Drover says at the time of the weekend incident that got him arrested, he was preparing a camper for his campaign. He says he and a friend were testing the sound system when they were pulled over by the police. Drover told reporters after he was released that he does not believe the charges he's facing will affect his campaign, since he is innocent until proven guilty. He insists he did not intend to break the law.

Campaign rallies scheduled in bars and pubs?

There’s never a dull moment in local politics.

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You say potato, I say road apple

Kathy Dunderdale thinks it’s all much ado about nothing.

Dunderdale commented in response to a Telegram editorial that noted a set of reports prepared for Nalcor on the Muskrat Falls mega-debt project were not as Dunderdale as previously described them.

All pish-posh and trivial.

“Semantics”, she called it, as if the meaning of words  - what semantics is really about - was a trivial thing.

In the House of Assembly this past spring, Dunderdale met questions about the cost of the project with claims that the project had been blessed by what she called “independent audits”.  Take this exchange with Yvonne Jones on March 29 as typical:

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

…

I ask the Premier today: Will you tell us how it is possible to build a steel transmission line across the Province today for less money than it would have cost thirteen years ago?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

…

More than that, Mr. Speaker, we have had two independent audits of the methodology used by Nalcor to ensure that the process is as good and the information as good as can be had at this point in time.

The Telegram got hold of a copy of one of these “independent audits” and found that the thing wasn’t independent.  One of the people involved worked or had worked for Nalcor on the Muskrat project.

What’s more, the thing wasn’t an audit.  The Telegram quoted directly from the report where the authors say “this is not an audit”.

That isn’t all.

The thing also wasn’t a review of the financial aspects of the project that addressed the validity of the projects cost projections.

And it also wasn’t a review of the premises on which Kathy and Nalcor’s Ed Martin are justifying the project.  These guys doing the review didn’t look at the long term trending in energy prices, the possible implications of high oil prices on electricity costs, replacing Holyrood or alternatives to building this project at this time in this way.

What they were doing is checking to make sure the crowd at Nalcor hadn’t forgotten anything as they headed down the road to a destination they’ve already committed to hitting.

This a perfectly legitimate function and good on the Nalcor crowd for consulting experts in doing things in which the Nalcor team has pretty much zero experience.

But – and this is a big but – there is a huge difference between what Kathy Dunderdale said the reviews were, what she apparently implied they were and what they actual were. The difference in meaning is like finding out, as the hapless burghers of Ontario found out when they flicked Ernie Eves’ Conservatives from office, that they weren’t in good financial shape as they’d been told.  Instead they were in the hole to the tune of five or six billion extra.

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Trade talks with Europeans = “doing a back-room deal with a group of serial rapists”

What your humble e-scribbler said:

this guy could be an accident waiting to happen.

Wait no longer.

After musing about breaking his major campaign promise to the people of his riding, noob Bloc NDP member of parliament Ryan Cleary decided to inject himself into another discussion on a subject he knows nothing about, namely international trade talks between Canada and the European Union.

The comments turn up on his blog, something he may well be forced by jack Layton to shut down very soon [hotlinks in the original]: 

Why should Newfoundland and Labrador be concerned about the Harper government’s secret free-trade negotiations with the European Union?

Because they could screw us to the wall.

The same Europeans nations that fished out/raped the Grand Banks are negotiating a deal with the Government of Canada.

And no one reports to Parliament on the status of negotiations.

In other words, Canada is doing a back-room deal with a group of serial rapists.

How scary is that?

How scary indeed.

Well, it is pretty scary when a member of parliament cannot even report accurately and factually on things that are already well established.  This is a guy, after all, who is expected to render thoughtful judgment on all sorts of issues ranging from the taxes you pay to the criminal law in Canada.

So if he doesn’t know basic stuff, then it is a pretty good bet his lack of information has a good chance of coming back to bite you and me on the ass.

The talks aren’t secret. The national media have been reporting it for years.  So too did the local media in Newfoundland and Labrador all during the time the former investigative reporter was plying his trade. They even carried a story on it this past March, noting that the provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador had joined the talks.

Evidently, they weren’t so secret after all.

Then there’s the issue of blaming Europeans for destroying fish stocks on the Grand Banks.  That’s a line pushed by Cleary’s buddy Gus Etchegary.  The only problem:  it is a load of codswallop.  The Europeans, Japanese and – you guessed it – Canadian companies including one Cleary’s buddy used to help manage all had a hand in driving cod to the brink of extinction.

As for reporting to parliament, the federal cabinet shows up in parliament every day the House of Commons sits.  When Cleary is in his desk in the House, they are all the people to the left, right and immediately behind that fellow the Speaker keeps calling “the Right Honourable the Prime Minister.” 

Each day, people around Cleary get to ask questions of those ministers.  If they wanted, they could even ask about these talks because – as ministers of the Crown – they are directing the talks.  If Cleary wanted, he could ask about them so they could report on the talks.  They might not give him intimate details – negotiations are usually confidential – but they will confirm the talks are going on.  In other words, they aren’t secret.

And if Cleary and his buddies have a problem, then they can raise their concerns in the House and in the media and maybe provoke some discussion about it.

So in six sentences, Cleary gets off to a rotten start and that’s before we consider the issues that are at stake for Newfoundland and Labrador if the talks fail.

Instead he has opted to shoot his mouth off based solely on an opinion derived entirely from – you guessed it – obvious ignorance.

In the greater scheme of things, the House of Commons has seen its fair share of these self-important blowhards over the decades.  Usually, they tend to frequent provincial politics in these parts but every now and then one of the little darlings gets into a position where they can display their profound ignorance on a national scale.

Cleary will likely delight the punters.  The tinfoil hat brigade will cheer him on as he rants about things he – and they – evidently know nothing about.  So much for looking after the best interests of his constituents and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Bloc NDP may have a few days of embarrassment. But since Cleary has already confirmed your humble e-scribbler’s first prediction, we can go a step farther. 

It is only a matter of time before the new Chief Spokesperson of the League of Professional Victims launches into a tirade on another of his favourite targets:  the nefarious, perfidious and generally odious crowd from Quebec and their efforts to take control of Labrador and destroy Newfoundland.

Perhaps Cleary will tell his fellow Bloc NDP MPs what he told macleans.ca:

“I don’t think I have a big mouth. I just have something to say and I’m going to say it.”

Oh to be a fly on the caucus room wall after he flings that crap at every fan in sight.

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AG finishes term with more fumbles

Outgoing auditor general John Noseworthy held to his pattern of making less-than-accurate claims or claims without evidence, this time with respect to the offshore regulatory board.

Noseworthy’s claims and the accurate information from the board are in a story available at the Telegram website.

In his latest accusation, Noseworthy said he did not have full access to the offshore board records.  Fact is, he did.  What Noseworthy couldn’t get was proprietary information belonging to the oil companies.

“We invited him in. He had sent four people in, they were here for four months conducting an audit. He had full access to the board,” [offshore board CEO Max] Ruelokke said.

But Ruelokke said Noseworthy’s staff did not have access to information provided to the board by oil companies — which the companies deem to be proprietory [sic]— and that’s because of section 119 of the Atlantic Accord Act.

The act states companies have to approve the release of the information to any third party.

“When we asked (the companies) to do so, on behalf of the auditor general, they refused to do that. So we couldn’t release it to him,” Ruelokke said.

The distinction is significant.

Your humble e-scribbler has raised questions about Noseworthy’s attack on the board – and that’s what it has been – from the beginning.

The most recent post on the topic raised the question  of why Noseworthy had failed to produce a report or bothered to update the public on it since he launched his public attack on the board in 2008.  Maybe Noseworthy’s most recent unfounded accusation was an effort to deflect attention away from his own shortcomings.

While Noseworthy enjoys local “media cred’ – that is, they will never, ever question any of his pronouncements – the retiring auditor’s record is far from pristine.

Noseworthy missed millions in House of Assembly overspending that continued well into 2006. The accurate figure turned up in some fairly simple analysis done by the Green commission. 

Despite having access to financial records kept by the comptroller general, Noseworthy did not once report on the obvious overspending in some House of Assembly accounts until after his auditors stumbled across irregularities in 2006.

From the rings to spending by individual members of the legislature to the actual rules in place during the period, Noseworthy or his crew simply didn’t do the homework in many cases to know what they were looking at. That didn’t stop him from making claims that were baseless or that lacked evidence.

And to cap it all, Noseworthy still hasn’t completed the tasks set out for him in a 2006 cabinet order.  Instead he substituted his own commentary on individual member’s spending in an incomplete report he issued to wide media coverage.

And on that one Noseworthy also missed one fairly obvious problem in the House scandal: diversion of public money for partisan purposes. It’s obvious wrong and there was way more to it than just the $11,000 he did report.  Three times that turned up during subsequent criminal trials of former members of the House.  And while Noseworthy couldn’t have reported that while the investigations and trials were under way, it was the most fundamentally corrupt practice he should have seen raised in his original audits.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Noseworthy focused on trinkets.  In one news conference, Noseworthy said that he and his staff “did not find” any rings.  That led many to believe initially that the rings did not exist. They quickly turned up, however if one looked. Obviously, Noseworthy and his staff didn’t look.   

In perhaps the most bizarre case, Noseworthy replaced his actual recommendations for a report on government operations and substituted one he never made.  He then reported compliance with his invented recommendation in a review he produce of government compliance with his reports.

The matter gets to be all the more serious when you realise the subject of the original report was an apparent lack of adequate management of public money handed out to private sector companies.

Noseworthy has never explained the discrepancy in what he reported originally and what he claimed happened later on. Nor did Noseworthy report in his self-assessment that one of the companies covered in the original report had gone bankrupt in the intervening two years.

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That Was The Canada Week That Was

Political mythology was the top of the reading list here at Bond Papers in the days leading up to Canada Day.

The top post noted that a national Conservative insider complaining about political myths was a bit like Aesop bitching about fables.

The second most popular post brought some evidently embarrassing attention to local lover of political myths who went out for the Olympic medal in political bullshit by making what he himself subsequently criticized as ridiculous comments.

The third post noted some problems with a local news story on the same political controversy that the second post covered. You’ll find another critique of a local news story in the one on gouging consumers that ended up tied for the fifth spot on the Top 10 list.

Not done with the political mythology theme, readers also loved the fourth place post.  Another in the Dundernomics series made a penetrating insight into the obvious:  Premier Kathy Dunderdale can’t seem to get her story straight on Muskrat Falls.

The rest of the stories on the list – with one exception – are all about Kathy Dunderdale and Muskrat Falls.  The exception, the story at Number 8 on the list, is about a huge energy story in Vermont that involves  a local company that just happens to be one of the largest private utility companies in Canada. 

It also went pretty much unreported by media in this province.

1. Payback is a mother
2. The federal government is out to kill you
3. Get me re-write
4. Dundernomics 101:  dazed and confused
5. Gouging consumers on gas and Taken up by the ferries
6. A room with a view of the pork barrel
7. The price of a loan guarantee
8. Fortis, Gaz Metro in war for Vermont utility
9. Wealth transfer
10. A tisket, a tasket... and Phriday Photo Phunny

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Innu vote overwhelmingly for something

The Innu of Labrador voted overwhelmingly in favour of something on Thursday.

News media are calling it the “New Dawn” agreement and say that the vote approves the Lower Churchill development, gives Innu compensation for Churchill Falls and does a few other things.

Not the least of those other things is “pave the way” for Muskrat Falls.

Beyond that, details are sketchy.

Kathy Dunderdale, seen at left waiting to receive communion outside the House of Assembly,  took time out from her junket to Europe to issue a news release about the vote.  The release contained no details on the deal.

What exactly are we talking about here? 

A very good question, grasshopper.

In late 2008, Danny Williams announced something called the New Dawn agreements. 

You can find a news release on it, as well as a link to a document signed by the provincial government and the Innu nation.  Labradorians might find the accompanying map – the one detailing Innu land – to be a bit more interesting than anything else.

Supposedly it was the last step before a final agreement set to be finished by the spring of 2009.   That release had lots of interesting details in it, including reference to privatising Churchill Falls.

Local media didn’t report on the details very much.

Okay. 

That’s an exaggeration.

They didn’t report the details at all.

And then suddenly it wasn’t the end of negotiations.

Like poof,  the Innu had to negotiate again.

They cancelled a vote scheduled for January 31, 2009 in the face of so much opposition to the deal the Innu Nation leadership had no choice but stop things cold.
Lots of talks and rumours of discussions followed but at no point did anyone discuss – nor did anyone report – anything on what the Innu and the provincial government were talking about.

Even last November, the Innu were the most noticeable cloud raining on Danny’s “I am outta here” parade. 

From an American consular briefing note leaked earlier this year, we know that Emera balked at the first discussions about something called the Lower Churchill project.  In the end, Danny Williams gave away a whole pile of stuff in order to get them to show up for his surprise retirement announcement.

So what did the Innu get for all their hard bargaining from the guy who was that anxious to get out the door of the Premier’s Office he gave Emera 35 years of free electricity, discount electricity above and beyond that plus a share of transmission revenue in Newfoundland and Labrador no other company has, all in exchange for building a power line across the Cabot Strait?

Emera didn’t have to negotiate half as long as the Innu to get their free gifts.
And they didn’t have a legitimate claim to own the land and resources everyone wanted to develop.

And that was after Williams used the legislature to seize generating plants from other companies just because he could.

T’would be nice if someone turned up some details and told the rest of us what the Innu voted on.

Like say, is this the final deal and will it pave the way for Muskrat Falls.  Or is it - as Dunderdale’s news release says plainly -  a “non-binding agreement” that will form the basis for future talks and an Innu land claims agreement?  In other words, this vote doesn’t pave the way for anything except more talks.

This is a wee bit more important to the future of the province, after all, than the name of Danny Williams’ latest hockey team. 

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The Tops for June

Muskrat Falls.

Provincial Tory political fortunes.

Those are the two main themes running through the most popular posts for June.

1. Nalcor negotiating Muskrat transmission with Hydro-Quebec
2. Dunderdale disapproval doubles
3. Well, she asked for one…
4. Cross Sheila off your list...
5. Will bad Tory polls change candidate slates
6. Payback is a mother:  Conservative edition
7. United the Left and Well, did she know in advance?
8. Nightmare on Muskrat Falls
9. Phriday Photo Phunny
10. Minister Chickenshit

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A tisket, a tasket

You gotta love subtle minds, especially subtle political ones able to see nuances of meaning or the possibility you could rub your tummy and pat your head simultaneously.

That would be most definitely not like the political geniuses of the last decade -  Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale  - who always saw the world as consisting of two polar opposites:  what they wanted to do, and the pathway to complete destruction.  With Danny, his tendency to gainsay got to be especially funny since he was known to wind up arguing with himself on some major issues like Equalization.

The latest example is Kathy Dunderdale’s comments to the Telegram editorial board.  In the latest offering from that rich gold mine, Steve Bartlett tells us that Kathy Dunderdale has no time for any talk of a sovereign wealth fund.

For those who don’t know what that is, a sovereign wealth fund* would be what they do in smart countries, like Norway, to make sure their oil money continues to benefit the country long after the last drop of oil is gone. 

Basically, the Norwegians put a bit of their oil wealth into an investment fund and let it make more money for them.  They do lots of other things with their oil money, like build roads, bridges, tunnels and schools and such.  But they put some of it aside for a rainy day.

Now bear in mind the Norwegians have a shitload of oil and natural gas.  They are not really in danger of running out in the near future and there is always a good chance that all the exploration going on offshore Norway will turn up a few more gushers.

Still, they still thought it might be wise to start a rainy day fund. 

You know. 

Just in case.

And now several billion or trillion dollars later, they are doing just fine.

Some people have suggested the same idea here.  The most recent one is Wade Locke. Kathy thinks it is foolishness:

"People talk about a legacy fund all the time and we respond to that by saying, 'That's our legacy fund, the investment in infrastructure.' Because unless you have roads and wharves and hospitals and schools, your economy can't grow," she says.

There’s that binary thinking again.  No chance of doing more than one thing.  Sovereign wealth fund or infrastructure.  The word “and” is not in Kathy’s vocabulary.

One of the many things Kathy missed is that all those roads and wharves and hospitals and schools don’t really produce any money to pay for their own upkeep.  That’s especially true in a province like this one where the economy has grown increasingly less diverse over the Tory term of office. So it is great to spend a bunch of money on all that lovely infrastructure but if that is all you have done with the cash, you really haven’t done much in the long run.

The sensible answer would be to do several things with the oil money.  Invest some.  Spend some.  Pay down debt with some.  Build some infrastructure with some.

What Kathy and her mates have done is put all the province’s financial eggs into one basket.  It’s basically the same thing the Tories did with their own political leader:  one egg to rule the basket.  Sadly, when the time comes and the egg goes, as it inevitably will, all you wind up with is the sad case of …well…an empty basket.

And who really wants to be left with a basket case?

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*  Paragraphing change and rewritten sentence to make it clear that the sentence after this mark wasn’t a comment made or or attributable to  KD.

Fortis, Gaz Metro in war for Vermont utility

Newfoundland and Labrador-based Fortis (CA: FTS)  isn’t alone in its bid to buy Central Vermont Public Service.

The CVPS board announced on June 27 that the company has authorized talks with Gaz Metro on Gaz Metro’s unsolicited acquisition offer.  Gaz Metro is offering $35.25 per share.  That’s slightly better than Fortis offer of $35.10 per share, which the CVPS board accepted in late May.

CVPS is the largest electrical utility in Vermont.

Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin thinks the Gaz Metro offer is better for the state given that Gaz Metro already owns an electric utility and a natural gas utility in the state.

Fortis isn’t happy with the unsolicited offer from a rival. The company wouldn’t comment on the story earlier in June with Canadian media but  Vermont Public Radio quotes Fortis chief financial officer Barry Perry as saying: 

"It is a hostile bid. In the utility sector, hostile bids are not normal.  They're rare, in fact.  So, usually you end up negotiating a transaction, the board selects a party and that's the end of it.    The party is then required to get it approved by the regulator and the shareholders of the company. In this case GMP did decide to go hostile. It is a little unusual."

Under the agreement with Fortis, CVPS could wind up paying Fortis US$19 million if the deal with the company falls through.

If it is successful, Gaz Metro would create a new utility that includes a share of the state’s transmission assets.  VPR reported that as part of the merger, Gaz Metro would create a public trust comprising 30% of the shares in the state transmission utility. The trust would reportedly generate $1.0 million a year in income.

 

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The price of a loan guarantee

Ontario is planning to build two new nuclear reactors to meet the province’s energy needs in the near future and finance minister Dwight Duncan signalled on Tuesday that the Ontario government will be looking for help from the federal government.

The example he cited? 

You guessed it:  Muskrat Falls.

“They are certainly backstopping Newfoundland in exporting power to the United States,” he said. “Now I guess the question to them will become as we move forward, what are they going to do for Ontario?”

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Wealth transfer

As nottawa noted on Tuesday, the net effect of a provincial tax cut on electricity and a rate hike for the province’s Crown energy company isn’t what might appear at first glance.

First, there’s not going to be a drop in cost for consumers, as some might have thought.  He based the calculations on a monthly bill of $300 per month before taxes:

$339.26 is greater than $339. The government isn't giving you a discount this October at all. In fact, your monthly bill is actually going up. So much for "reduc(ing) the cost of living for all consumers". And on a year-over-year basis, they're sticking it to you slightly more, because the increased rates take effect this month, while the as-yet-imagined HST discount won't start until October.

Second,

all of those millions of dollars … that are going "back" into the hands of taxpayers represent millions less on the government's books in the form of tax revenue. But an equivalent or slightly higher amount is now flowing from rate payers into NALCOR's coffers, where it can be safely spent with far less public scrutiny. (Like this, for example).

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Taken up by the ferries

With a tender call to build six more ferries,the provincial government is still not finished sorting out problems with its last ferry contract.

Earlier this year, Kiewit Marystown delivered two ferries originally contracted in 2008  at a cost of $50.5 million.  They were supposed to be delivered in 2009 and 2010. The final delivery price was $27.5 million each.

The issue of cost-over-runs on the contract cropped up last week in an interview human resources minister Darin King gave to CBC’s David Cochrane.  King also said the provincial government has been trying to sort out construction of a third ferry at Kiewit but the ideas was hung up over cost escalations. 

According to the 2008 news release, the provincial government was supposed to purchase the engine for a third ferry in 2008 at a cost of $2.0 million. They were also supposed to start design work on a fourth, larger ferry.

The ferry project dates back to 2005.  When the provincial government announced the Kiewit deal a quarter of the work was supposed to go to a yard in Clarenville. Before work got underway, the Clarenville shipyard dropped out of the deal.

If the figures in provincial government news releases are accurate, the two ferries came in only 10% over budget. That’s actually low compared to cost over-runs on other provincial government tenders.

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Gouging consumers on gas

So the gas pumps in the province are prone to error in favour of retailers, as CBC reports.

Well, sort of.

We don’t know how many gas pumps there are in the province but CBC reports that of the 962 examined over a two year period, nine percent didn’t pump accurately.

Of the nine percent, 56% erred in favour of the retailer.  Logically, the remaining  44% didn’t pump the right amount but the consumer benefited.

But do the math on that to understand if you had a “decent chance” of not getting the right gas amount as the CBC story asserts. 

Fifty-six percent of nine percent of 962 works out to be 48.

48 out of 962.

That works out to be 4.9%.

So at any time you are buying gas, about five percent of the pumps across the province could be reading incorrectly in favour of the retailer.

Four percent of the pumps will make mistakes in your favour.

Gasoline watchdog George Murphy thinks that federal government officials should inspect every gas pump in the province twice a year in order to stop this. Taxpayers would bear the full freight for that, most likely.

Seems like a bit of overkill given the number of errors is relative small.

If you want to stop gouging consumers, it would be far easier and far less costly to consumers if we simply got rid of  the gas price fixing scheme the provincial government runs.  People like George Murphy agitated for that in order to protect consumers.

As it turned out, the government price fixing scheme gouges the people pumping gas into their cars 100% of the time.  The only people who benefit from it are gasoline retailers and the provincial government and they benefit from the price fixing scheme 100% of the time.

Five percent chance you could lose some money versus 100% chance of getting hosed.

There’s gouging and then there’s gouging, obviously.

That’s math anyone can follow.

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