Brian Peckford’s memoir now on sale #nlpoli

Updated:  Book signing dates below

The room at the Battery Hotel and Suites was packed with former politicians and public servants who were involved in some of the most important events in the province’s history over the past 35 years.

Noticeably absent from the launch of former Premier Brian Peckford’s memoir were members of the current Conservative caucus in the House of Assembly. 

Well, except for St. John’s South MHA Tom Osborne. 

Tom stood out. 

And that’s saying something.

What’s the hang-up this time? #nlpoli

 

Via VOCM:

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he is looking forward to working out details for the Muskrat Falls loan guarantee with Premier Kathy Dunderdale. … Flaherty says the feds have made a commitment to provide the loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls, but they still need to work out the details.

Working out the details?

Merciful jumpin’s!  At this rate, the damn dam will be built before they work out the details on the loan guarantee.

-srbp-

Bleeding and Motivation #nlpoli

The provincial Conservatives who hang tight around natural resources minister Jerome Kennedy like to say that you have to look at the motivations of people commenting on Muskrat Falls. According to the pro-Muskrat folks, you have to discount the opinion of people who have an interest in seeing the project stopped.

Let’s accept that for a second.

So by the same token we would have to check all the pro-Muskrat types to see if they have a bias that would allow us to completely disregard any opinion they would offer in favour of the mega-debt nightmare.

Your future is in their hands #nlpoli

Forget the engineers, economists, lawyers and all the people who have examined the Muskrat Falls project in great detail.

They do not matter.

The people who will approve Muskrat Falls are politicians.

The future of Newfoundland and Labrador is in their hands.

The fate of your province will be determined by Keith Russell:

Four people can get together roadside up by Muskrat Falls, with magic markers and some sticks and a little bit of cardboard, and they’ll make the news. I don’t see the point at that...

It certainly is the flavour of the month. Everybody’s got their own agenda as to why it should or should not be developed, but what you’re seeing here, especially up in Labrador, is people who have never been there, have never had any historical ties to the site, who have never had any family that ever hunted or trapped remotely close to the area, everybody’s getting’ their picture took, everybody’s talkin’ about their ancestors.

I don’t know, I just find it, you know — it’s nice to be concerned about the land, it sure is, but now this is the opportune time, if you will, for people to jump on the bandwagon, and claim to want to be part of the environmental movement to see this project stopped, which to me, it’s just silly at this point.

-srbp-

Separated at Birth: Kent and Cleary edition #nlpoli

For the longest time after Kathy Dunderdale became Premier, Mount Pearl North Conservative Steve Kent proudly proclaimed on his website that he was party of the Danny Williams team.

Dunderdale demoted him.

As recently as Hurricane Tuesday, Kent’s website was distinguished by the total absence of the Premier from its pages and pictures.  There’s like one picture and absolutely nothing else.  Kent’s slogan is there”  I’m on your side”.  But the you doesn’t seem to include Kathy Dunderdale.

Well, apparently Ryan Cleary feels the same way about Thomas Mulcair as Kent does about Dunderdale.

Over to you, Mr. Mulcair.

Or back to you, Kathy Dunderdale.

Maybe Steve will change his website if she gives him the cabinet seat he craves with every pore of his ambitious being.

-srbp-

The sum of all fears #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale says that it is gratifying to have the support of the majority of the people of the province, as recent polls show, according to the Premier.

In another corner, former natural resources minister Shawn Skinner thinks it is great that the Conservatives have the support of six in 10 of the people surveyed.  He was referring to the responses in a recent Corporate Research Associates poll asking people whether they were satisfied or dissatisfied with the current government’s performance.

Shawn and Kathy missed some rather important things.

Polls, Politicians, and Messages #nlpoli

Cabinet is where the real political power sits in a parliamentary democracy. Ministers have enormous power both individually and collectively.

Only the first minister – the prime minister or premier – gets to decide who sits at the cabinet table. That’s a power first ministers are always careful to preserve because it is the ultimate expression of their control over their caucus.  People want to get to cabinet and the only way in is through the premier.

Changes in cabinet are often rumoured but until they happen, they are not real.  Only the premier and her closest, most trusted advisors know what is coming.  They only tell the people involved at the last possible moment.  The expectation  - often a clearly spoken expectation - is that the people who know will keep their mouths firmly shut. 

So when CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane can report that a cabinet shuffle is imminent, attributing information to multiple unnamed but apparently high-ranking Tories, you can understand that Kathy Dunderdale’s administration is in far more serious political trouble than it first appeared.

That and a buck fifty… #nlpoli

Former natural resources minister Shawn Skinner thinks that the Progressive Conservatives can turn around their current abysmal polling numbers if once they get beyond Muskrat Falls and turn their attention to other things.

Skinner was part of the political panel this weekend for On Point with David Cochrane.

Well,  that and a buck fifty and you have a cup of coffee.

The Swirl Continues #nlpoli

As it appears, all the talk last week in the Telegram editorial about the unusually large churn in the senior ranks of the provincial public service caused a bit of a churn in the stomachs of some people around St. John’s.

Some of them – including one curious series of Twitter comments – insisted the whole thing could be put down easily to retirements because we have an aging work force.  That’s an old one that local Tories have used to try to explain this away when SRBP raised it before.  We’ll get to that in a little bit.

For starters, let’s bring everything up to date. The more you dig, the more curious things you find.

Who wants to play Brutus? #nlpoli

Just as they ate up the Corporate Research Associates’ quarterly poll when the numbers favoured the local Conservatives,  the local media have reported the latest CRA numbers with equal enthusiasm now that the Tory numbers are lousy.

To put it simply, the numbers confirmed the general thrust of two recent polls and the local media have reported them faithfully. As CBC put it:

Kathy Dunderdale and Newfoundland and Labrador's Progressive Conservatives continue to lose ground among voters, a new tracking poll suggests.

Fairity O’Brien: Political Genius #nlpoli

On a day when the government’s pollster releases shitty news for his party, municipal affairs czar Fairity O’Brien decides it is a good idea to remind people of the miserable job his government did responding to Hurricane Igor.

Or as it is apparently known in some circles, Hurricane Ego.

For those who may not be familiar with the colourful cabinet minister, Fairity O’Brien is the guy who:

• doesn’t know what electoral district Snantny is in, and
• loves to commute between his home in Gander and his office in Sin Jawns, at taxpayer expense.

-srbp-

Did Mulcair really say that? #cdnpoli #nlpoli

According to CBC News, federal opposition leader Thomas Mulcair said that his party would honour a loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls project “even if price tag goes up.”

But did he actually say that?

As the mind ponders… #nlpoli

labradore takes a unique look at the results of this week’s Quebec general election and wonders what might have happened if a few votes shifted around.

“What if”can be a useful exercise sometime.

-srbp-

As the Public Service World Churns #nlpoli

The Telegram editorial on Wednesday noted the most recent changes to the senior executive at the natural resources department and put it in the wider context of changes during the past 20 months.  The editorial notes that in the budget document for 2011 called Departmental Salary Details show that

the province had 20 deputy ministers, four associate deputy ministers and 61 assistant deputy ministers — a total of 85 positions at the top of the provincial civil service.

In the last 20 months, Dunderdale has announced 54 appointments at the level of assistant deputy minister or higher.

To paraphrase the editorial, maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t matter that their figures show a 63% turnover in senior provincial public service management.

If you look at the period since Kathy Dunderdale became premier you will see that the Telegram missed a fair bit. If you drill deeper again and look at the pattern of changes, you can see even more.

Ya gotta love Rhonda..for LG #nlpoli

-srbp-

Disappeared Deputy? #nlpoli

Last summer, the provincial government proudly announced the appointment of a new deputy minister of natural resources.

The release included Diana Dalton’s biography.  She’s a lawyer who graduated from Dalhousie in 1979:

… Throughout the course of her career, Ms. Dalton has worked with the Governments of Nova Scotia and Papua New Guinea, as well as with the Department of Economic and Social Development, United Nations, New York. As an independent consultant she has worked in over 30 developed and developing countries in the areas of natural resources, energy and environment, including clients such as the World Bank, United Nations, national governments and private companies. Ms. Dalton has served for the past six years as Chair of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, and for two of these years she was also acting CEO.

As impressive as those credentials are, is Dalton still in the same job a year later?

Seems like more churning in the upper ranks of the public service.

Upper Churchill – an unexplored alternative #nlpoli

Muskrat Falls “not a competitive solution”

SRBP Exclusive

Over the next 55 years – the Muskrat Falls planning period – consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador could achieve savings of up to $4.0 billion if Nalcor used electricity from Churchill Falls, even if the provincial utility purchased the electricity from its subsidiary at market rates.

That conclusion is contained in  “Upper Churchill – the unexplored alternative”, a new analysis and commentary by JM, author of a 175 page analysis of the Muskrat Falls proposal submitted to the public utilities board as part of the board’s review.

“It is clear that Government and Nalcor did not provide a full, costed screening analysis of all the potential options,”  JM wrote in an e-mail to SRBP, “especially in the context of the shale gas revolution happening in the United States.”

JM reviews Muskrat Falls costs, assesses the merits of using Churchill Falls power in lieu of Muskrat Falls, and provides three mechanisms that could be used to gain access to the resource. 

JM notes that while the 1969 contract with Hydro-Quebec will be automatically renewed in 2016,

…the renewal … does potentially weaken some of the legal arguments successfully used by Hydro-Quebec in the earlier court cases. The de-regulation of the North American electricity markets should also ensure that Newfoundlanders gain access to energy at competitive rates. In the current energy climate Muskrat Falls is not a competitive solution.

-srbp-

Then or now? #nlpoli

Simple quiz.

When did someone make the following claims about an energy megaproject in Labrador:  1965 or 2012?

Up her nose, sideways #nlpoli

For some reason, Kathy Dunderdale wants to know who is criticising her pet project.

Now she doesn’t come flat out and say that, but you can tell someone got her goat pretty good during the public utilities board hearings into Muskrat Falls.

You can tell because Kathy said so in the House of Assembly on May 29.

Public hearing into secrecy request #nlpoli

It’s not just that the Muskrat Falls project is a bad idea;  the process by which the current provincial administration is forcing it through stinks as well.

If you want to see the problem take a look at the way the provincial government handled the public utilities board – it had no legal authority to conduct its own review of Muskrat Falls  - with what is happening in Nova Scotia on another matter involving that province’s utilities regulator.