Kremlinology 42: Dependency and the Loan Guarantee #nlpoli

The cost of the Muskrat Falls project has escalated to the point where the provincial government can’t do it without a federal loan guarantee.

Premier Kathy Dunderdale said as much on Wednesday when she finally got around to meeting with reporters two days after her meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In her long rambling answer to the first question, she called the loan guarantee “important” at least twice. How far they have come since Danny Williams first started down the entirely political road to build the entirely political project.

Labrador Mining and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale is bothered enough by his detailed critical analysis of Muskrat Falls that she has been known to single him out in fundraising speeches in the province and in the House of Assembly.

Journalists like CBC’s David Cochrane are tweeting requests for the guy to get in touch.

Yet so far Nalcor hasn’t challenged any of his commentaries at the Public Utilities Board or previously here at SRBP.

Today, they have another reason to pull at their hair.

The Boyo called Brazil #nlpoli

Obviously, Premier Kathy Dunderdale got squat from her meeting with the Prime Minister on Monday. 

You can tell because all she had to say on the day of the meeting was nothing.  Her office issued a statement that – for some inexplicable reason – hasn’t turned up on the provincial government’s website.

You can also tell because a media scrum she had scheduled for Tuesday got bumped off until noon on Wednesday.

English v. Pike: Game on! #nlpoli

Supreme Court Trial Division, Court Room 7, Duckworth Street.

10:00 AM.

Be there or be squarer than you’d normally be as a lawyer or person interested in lawyer stuff.

William J. English vs Mark D. Pike et al.

Tone, Standards and Political Suicide #nlpoli

The song from MASH was wrong.

Suicide is not painless.

And political suicide is more painful to watch than any other kind.

38! #nlpoli

This will be a record year fort changes in the senior ranks of the provincial public service.

On Friday, Premier Kathy Dunderdale announced change number 38 for 2012.  That puts her one off last year’s record total.

And as we told you a couple of weeks ago, she’s on track for 49 changes this year.

Cabinet ministers must be pissed off about this constant disruption in their departments.

-srbp-

Title Shuffling #nlpoli

The news via Twitter looked a lot bigger than it actually is.

David Cochrane tweeted on Saturday:

Sources: Premier Dunderdale shaking up staff on 8th floor (Premier's office). New deputy chief of staff Lynette Carroll (more)

Premier's new press secretary Debbie Marnell, new Director of Policy Denise Payne, new Assoc Dep Chief of Staff Derek Rideout (more)

Premier current press secretary Milly Brown moves to Special Assistant for Comms

Those moves continue a staff shakeup that started this summer with @LynnHammondNL taking the top Communications job on 8th floor.

Take a gawk at the provincial government telephone directory, though, and this looks a lot less impressive than you might think.  Here;s what these people were doing before and what they are doing now.

Name	Old Title	New Title
Lynette Carroll	Director of Policy	Deputy Chief of Staff
Derek Rideout	Director of Operations	Associate Deputy Chief of Staff
Debbie Marnell	Communications Specialist (TCR)	Press Secretary
Denise Payne	Special Assistant	Director of Policy
Milly Brown	Press Secretary	Special Assistant

Basically they’ve brought Debbie Marnell from a junior comms job in Tourism, Culture and Recreation to replace Milly Brown in the job of dealing with reporters day to day.

Brown goes off with a new title but there isn’t anything from the job description or her background that is a clue to what she’ll be up to.

Lynette Carroll, whose LinkedIn profile shows her as the Tory party executive director, moves from policy director in the Premier’s Office to deputy chief of staff.  No one filled that job in the Dunderdale Premier’s Office before.  They’ve created a new title for Derek Rideout but maybe not a new job to go with it. 

Rideout, incidentally had the title of Principal Assistant to the Premier whenever they last changed the PC Party website listing for the party executive board.

Maybe these changes will fix some problems on the 8th Floor but on the whole this looks a lot more like changing some titles and maybe changing some salaries rather than bringing in new staff with new skill sets.

This sort of stuff doesn’t change performance and poll results.

-srbp-

Sex and the cabinet #nlpoli

If all the speculation about a cabinet shuffle in the near future turns out to be true, it will be interesting to see if Premier Kathy Dunderdale breaks the fundamentally sexist nature of her current cabinet.

Kathy Dunderdale is justifiably proud of being the first woman premier in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history.  The fact that she is the first woman to hold the job is what makes her choice of cabinet ministers stand out a bit. Frankly, it’s a wee bit odd that no one has mentioned a curious pattern that appeared.

The Budget and Oil Prices #nlpoli

Just when everyone thought it was safe, a  gigantic Twitter exchange erupted on Wednesday evening between Telegram report James McLeod and Deanny MacDonald, the guy everyone thinks is already the Liberal Party leader .

They wound up discussing oil prices and the provincial government budget, something you’ll find in Macleod’s article in the Thursday Telegram.

Now that is what you call interesting #nlpoli

Labradore infuriates Connies both provincially and federally because the guy just knows his stuff and needles the little darlings at every chance.

On Tuesday, he posted a chart showing the number of words recorded by Hansard for each member of the House of Assembly during the last session.  He even colour-coded it by party for ease of reference.

You can find the whole chart here, but let’s take a look at a specific spot on the big picture.

If some of the provincial Connies, were quick to identify Tom Osborne as “deadwood”, then you have to wonder what they think of the people who participated less in the House than Osborne did.

People like Tony Cornect, Ray Hunter, Tracy Perry or John Dinn, all of whom spoke less than Osborne did.

Things got so bad in caucus, apparently, that Tom Osborne decided to leave rather than put up with it.  Is he the only one who will cross the floor this fall?  We could wind up with the “independent” party made up of as many members as the Liberals or the New Democrats.

-srbp-

More mumbo on the mumbo-jumbo #nlpoli

Keith Russell apologized on Tuesday for comments he made a week ago about the religious beliefs of some aboriginal people in Labrador:

I don’t buy into the mumbo jumbo about the trail leading to the Muskrat Falls site as being sacred ground. You can romanticize and sensationalize that particular piece of land all you want, but it is a resource.

As CBC reported, Russell issued a written statement:

With regards to my recent comment about Muskrat Falls, I apologize for my poor choice of words,

There it is: apology.  Job done.

Well… yeah but read a bit more.

Come again, b’ys #nlpoli

Two things about the provincial government’s new website devoted to climate change and energy conservation:

First, they could have used an editor.  This big chart has a rather glaring error in it.  Can you spot it?

This seems to be a pretty simple problem with the layout.  Strange that no one noticed it given that it is such a big picture on the middle of a page.

Dunderdale Translator: expert edition #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale speaks her own language.

She uses words in a different way from the rest of the population.  Take the word “expert”, for example.  Dunderdale claims that she would welcome any expert opinion that contradicts her current plan to rack up billions of dollars in debt building Muskrat Falls.

Dunderdale confirms knowledge of Osborne’s views on her leadership #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed on the weekend that she was aware Tom Osborne didn’t support her as leader of the Conservative Party in 2010.

Dunderdale told CBC’s On Point with David Cochrane that aware that Osborne supported her as interim leader.  However, Dunderdale said that when she wanted to seek the leadership on “a more permanent basis”, she polled the caucus and called Osborne last.

When Cochrane asked why Osborne was last on her list, Dunderdale said:

“…because you don’t miss when somebody… when he says now publicly that he didn’t support me, that’s not something you miss…”

That’s just one of several contradictions or misleading statements Dunderdale used to continue the Conservative attack on Osborne’s character.

Your Future. Their Hands. More Russell #nlpoli

In 2011, Keith Russell was dumped from his position as a cabinet minister in the Nunatsiavut government.

Nunatsiavut president Jim Lyall issued a statement afterward that included this section:

Quite simply, Mr. Russell was not fulfilling his duties and responsibilities as a minister. The matter was raised with him previously, on several occasions, and I was assured by him that he would make a more concerted effort to work co-operatively with officials within his department and with the Nunatsiavut Executive Council. It is incumbent on all ministers to be actively involved on a regular basis with their respective departments, and to work with other members of the Executive Council to ensure the Nunatsiavut Government functions efficiently and effectively. By his own admission, Mr. Russell was not actively involved in the functions and operations of the Department of Health and Social Development, and had very little to no contact with senior officials within the department. He made that fact known to me and the First Minister, as well as other members of the Nunatsiavut Assembly and numerous officials. I had taken the liberty of raising the issue with Mr. Russell in hopes that the situation would change. Unfortunately, it did not, and we were forced to take action accordingly.

The future of your province is in his hands.

-srbp-

Your Future. Their Hands. Weakest Link edition #nlpoli

Fact:  Sandy Collins is the member of the House of Assembly for Terra Nova.

Fact:  Collins is a provincial Conservative.

Fact:  Sandy Collins supports Muskrat Falls.

Fact:  Collins was executive assistant to Paul Oram, a cabinet minister who had some problems with facts relating to the province’s recent history

Cabinet Audition #nlpoli

According to former Tory caucus member Tom Osborne, caucus knew a month ago that Kathy Dunderdale would be shuffling her cabinet in October.

That’s bizarre in itself.

But now we know why Steve Kent has been busily telling anyone who would listen and more who didn’t care about  his love for The Leader and her pet Muskrat Falls project.

It explains his one man Twitter war on behalf of Muskrat Falls.

And it also explains his Super-Shitheel behaviour and the shit-eating grin when he was out in August attacking Her enemies.

(Memo to Steve: your forgot to  change the website, sunshine.)

Now it is all clear.

Steve was auditioning for the promotion she screwed him out of before.

And he wasn’t alone, in all likelihood.

-srbp-

Osborne quits Tory caucus #nlpoli

Tom Osborne is part of the old townie Tory establishment in Newfoundland and Labrador.

He quit Kathy Dunderdale’s party on Thursday to sit as an independent member of the House of Assembly.  Osborne’s announcements sent a shock through the political community since no one saw it coming.  He cited a series of grievances he’s had with the way Dunderdale is running the party, although he never referred to the Premier by name.

Osborne’s announcement was a neat bookend to the week in which CBC’s David Cochrane reported on leaked news of a pending cabinet shuffle.  As SRBP noted, that sort of leak suggested that Dunderdale’s administration was “in far more serious political trouble than it first appeared.”

Osborne versus Kent #nlpoli

The only thing more entertaining than watching the “member that works” leave the provincial Conservative caucus was watching the provincial Conservatives send out the always-credible Steve Kent to talk about party loyalty.

Only a few short weeks ago, the pair were featured in a government news release praising up a can of Matchless paint.

-srbp-

Your future. Their hands: profound ignorance edition #nlpoli

Conservative member of the House of Assembly Keith Russell.

He’s at it again, this time on CBC Radio’s Labrador Morning:

I don’t buy into the mumbo jumbo about the trail leading to the Muskrat Falls site as being sacred ground. You can romanticize and sensationalize that particular piece of land all you want, but it is a resource.

Religious beliefs are just “mumbo  jumbo” for Russell and he is prepared to dismiss them utterly because it is just a resource to refuse.

You wish people just made stuff like this up but there he is, folks.

This guy has your future in his hands.

-srbp-