Decisive Moments in Politics #nlpoli

The NDP are down five points,  the Liberals are up two and the Conservatives are up three, according to the latest Corporate Research Associates poll.

Voters are abandoning the New Democrats who are down by one third from 15 points to 10.  The Liberals and the Conservatives picked up those disaffected former New Democrats, with the Conservatives actually doing better than the Liberals.

Small problem:  that’s not what happened.

What’ve you actually got here is one of the finest possible examples of how the way CRA presents its own numbers can mislead people who want to figure out what is happening with public opinion.

Let’s talk about pol-i-cy. #nlpoli

Some people are making issue lately out of the fact that – supposedly  - the Liberals have not released any policies.  The Liberals will be government soon and no one knows what they plan to do.

There are two types of people talking like that.  One are partisans, mostly Conservative, but with a few New Democrats.  The Conservative interest in this idea is pretty obvious.  They want to shift the pressure of their team and onto the Liberals.  They want to change the channel.  But more than that, they want to expose the Liberals for the frauds they are. 

Hebron delayed at least 12 months #nlpoli

CBC news reported on Thursday that the topsides module for the Hebron project won’t be delivered on time. 

Rather than arriving in 2015 for mating with the concrete base,  the entire structure for the living, drilling, and support spaces won’t arrive until sometime in the middle of 2016.

The original project timelines called for the topsides to arrive in early 2015 for mating to the concrete base.  That would allow time to float the structure to the site,  fix it in place, and start drilling the production lines into the field.  The original plan called for first oil in early to mid- 2017.

The one year delay in topsides fabrication will likely mean a one year delay in first oil.  it’s hard to imagine how it could be any different.

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Muskrat Falls more than $8.3 billion: Nalcor #nlpoli

Prompted by Wednesday’s post on Muskrat Falls costs,  a couple of readers drew your humble e-scribbler’s attention to a tidy little briefing note posted on the Nalcor website. 

It’s not really obvious – some might say it is buried - but if you going looking you can find it and a lot of other useful information.  That’s a shame, really because this little two-pager was far more informative than anything that’s actually come out of the mouths of the Nalcor brass or provincial cabinet ministers.

As it turns out, Ross Wiseman did a bit more than bugger up his fractions.  And your humble e-scribbler was off by a bit in trying to unravel Ross’ version of things, too.

Just do the math: Wiseman confirms Muskrat Falls cost at $7.3 billion #nlpoli

Twitter sometimes produces some gems.

Like on Tuesday when Tom Baird,  a mathematics professor at Memorial pointed out that the province’s finance minister had a wee bit of a problem with basic math.

“Just do the math,”  Ross Wiseman told Liberal leader Dwight Ball during Question Period on Monday.  “ Based on the current projected cost of that project of $6.9 billion, our investment over time, over the life of that project, the construction of that project, will be about $2.3 billion…”.   And that $2.3 billion, according to Wiseman was the 25% investment the provincial government had always said it would put into the Muskrat Falls project.

A chilling non-answer #nlpoli

The fact that Premier Paul Davis refused to give a simple answer to a simple question should send a chill up your spine.

MR. J. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, at least thirty-five children have died while receiving service from this Province since 2009.

I ask the Premier: Has he been briefed on these deaths? If so, will he provide a report to the House of Assembly?

PREMIER DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, any time a person loses a loved one, I cannot think of anything that would be more difficult, challenging, and have a greater impact on a family. If it be a family who has a child who has a relationship with a government department, is either under a program or receiving services – because many of those children that the member opposite is referring to were not in the care of the government, were not in the care of Child, Youth and Family Services, but may have been receiving some supportive services from government or have had other relationships with government.

Any time those types of incidents happen –

MR. J. BENNETT: Have you been briefed?

PREMIER DAVIS: I am sorry, I say to the member opposite; this is very important, so just please bear with me.

These are very, very important to us as a government. I know how important it is to the minister, I know how important it is to the staff, and we take every step possible to ensure the safety of all children in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[via Hansard]

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Rational. Disciplined. Principled. #nlpoli

Back at the start of the current Conservative administration in 2003, they were very sharply aware of the problem with using one-time revenues for day-to-day spending.

They were so concerned about using that one-time money that they tried to get the federal government to do the impossible, namely give the provincial government here a permanent handout equal to oil revenues, in addition to the oil revenues that the provincial government collected.

Then they tried to get the federal government to exclude those one-time revenues from the Equalization formula so the provincial government could get the oil money and the hand-out at the same time. That didn’t work either.

The one thing the Conservatives didn’t do – for all their rhetoric about independence – was to act like a responsible, independent government.  They didn’t manage public finances for the long haul.

Welcome to the bottom of the rabbit hole #nlpoli

Putting a freeze on any discretionary spending is the very least that the provincial government could do in light of the dramatic – but entirely predictable – volatility in oil prices that have made the government’s huge budget deficit even larger.

The fact that Premier Paul Davis finally admitted on Thursday that oil prices are likely to remain low for the foreseeable future – something that has been clear for some time now – is a pathetically small sign that the provincial cabinet is finally starting to realise the depth of the problem the provincial government currently faces.

As small and as pathetic as it is, we do at last have a sign.

A Biblical finish #nlpoli

Paul Davis wasn’t around on Tuesday night to talk to reporters about the by-elections.  He had a family medical problem to deal with.

So the job of speaking for the government fell to Steve Kent, the self-promoting wonder from Mount Pearl whose fan club makes Danny’s look like a bunch of slackers.  No biggie, said Kent of the losses.  we are hard at work.  Lots to do.  Look how far we have come. Yada. Yada.  Yada. Gotta keep our stick on the ice.

Steve Kent spews clichés so often he has become one.  His buddy,  Sandy Collins called the night time talk show on VOCM after the votes were in.  No biggie.  Lots to do.  Keep our stick on the ice. They are all so scripted someone said to your humble e-scribbler.  Not scripted,  sez your scribbler:  sharing a mind. 

They all think alike.

Like Susan Sullivan,  who backed John Ottenheimer in the leadership, and the guy who won, Paul Davis.

The ABCs of the Conservative Implosion #nlpoli

“What does Paul Davis do now?” 

That was the start of the conversation.  A serious question after the latest in a string of by-election losses for the provincial Conservatives deserved an equally serious answer.

Well, said your humble e-scribbler,  that assumes he and his fellow Conservatives actually want to do anything.  Davis was the leadership candidate who promised to keep the party on its existing course in every respect.  They firmly rejected not only making changes but even appearing to make changes.

Everything we can see – poll results,  talk around town,  you name it  - says that voters want some changes in politics.  The Conservatives refuse to change.  And so it is that they have lost by-election after by-election after by-election.

It’s not rocket science.

Experience and government #nlpoli

In the 1980s, local entrepreneur Craig Dobbin bought a batch of helicopter service companies across Canada and merged them with his own company  - Sealand – to form Canadian Helicopters. 

By the time Dobbin died in 2006,  CHC was one of the largest providers of helicopter support services in the world.

Not just Newfoundland and Labrador.

Or Canada.

Or even North America.

The world.

Judge Headroom #nlpoli

The Crown Prosecution Service lost an application last week to overturn a decision by a Provincial Court judge.

That’s not the newsworthy thing.  The Crown wins applications and loses them all the time.  What’s important about this is the back-story
.
The Telegram covered the decision itself, although you can read the whole decision for yourself. The Crown applied to the Supreme Court in Grand Bank to overturn a decision by Judge Harold Porter on a case in Clarenville on the grounds that Porter had presided over the case in Clarenville from his courtroom in Grand Bank by teleconference. 

The Crown wanted to force Porter to sit in Clarenville.  There’s been no judge there for the past six months ago since the judge there retired.  There’s a relatively light case load in Clarenville so Porter has been handling Clarenville.

And that’s where the rest of the story begins...

The Apprenticeship of Constable Davis #nlpoli

People are looking back a century to the start of the First World War so,  on the political side, it’s interesting to take a trip back and see what things were like then.

The Prime Minister was a guy named Edward Patrick Morris.  He was a lawyer, popularly known as Ned.  By the time he got to the Prime Minister’s Office, in 1908, he’d been in the House the better part of 30 years and he served in cabinets under different premiers going back to the late 1880s.  Morris’ predecessor – Sir Robert – had pretty much the same sort of background.

Compare that to recent Premiers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Federal Boogeyman #nlpoli

The Liberals kept poking at Premier Paul Davis in the House of Assembly on Wednesday about the European free trade deal announced last year.

Specifically, Liberal leader Dwight Ball asked Davis for the second day in a row about a joint federal-provincial fund under the deal that would see the federal government spend $280 million and the provincial government drop in $120 million on something to do with fisheries.  We say “something to do with fisheries” because there really hasn’t been much substance to go with the announcement in the year since the provincial government announced the thing.

Tuesday’s questions led to Davis admitting there was some kind of unspecified problem with the talks.  As the Telegram reported,  Davis told reporters outside the House that he “wouldn’t say [the funding deal was] falling apart, but having not been able to reach a finalized agreement yet is troubling.”

When the budget comes… #nlpoli

We’ve got a provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador that has been budgeting for years to spend more than it brought in.

Way back in the beginning, way before the oil money cut in suddenly and largely unexpectedly,  Loyola Sullivan said that people should expect the Conservatives to run deficits annually of half a billion dollars or more.  The logical implication of what he’d said in 2005 was that it might have been 2014 until the Conservatives balanced the budget.

Now to be fair,  Sullivan was speaking about the magnitude of the provincial government;s financial problem as he and his colleagues found it in 2004.  But at the same time,  by 2005,  we were also talking about how the Conservatives intended to run things themselves. 

They were clearly not as concerned about public debt as they had been in 2003.  Part of that might have had something to do with this idea they had of making a killing selling cheap electricity into the United States, but frankly,  Sullivan’s forecast of a debt of about $17 billion – which the Conservatives delivered on – suggests they really had something else in mind. 

Government Spending and the Economy – Again #nlpoli

A post last week offered a quick confirmation that, as finance minister Ross Wiseman said,  provincial government spending accounts for about 30% of the gross domestic product measured as spending.

A couple of people on Twitter took issue with that idea, apparently.  They also took issue, as it seems, with the contention around these parts that the situation Wiseman described was a matter of government policy as opposed to the random changes in the economy.

Let’s dig into this in more detail.  It really is quite important as the government has a very serious financial problem to deal with, what with the growing deficits and the weakening income. Wiseman mentioned the impact of government spending on the economy, incidentally, as a reason why he could not cut spending very much, if at all. 

Myths, then and now #nlpoli

You really do have to wonder how anyone could be expected to keep things straight when the people they rely on to help them understand keep changing their statements.

Take, for example,  the fight between the provincial Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador a decade ago over offshore oil royalties and Equalization. 

The Ego-mentary #nlpoli

Danny Williams’ hockey team tried a little marketing ploy this week.  They sent out a bulletin to news media disguised as a news release. 

They claimed the hockey team was locked in some kind of record breaking attempt with a crowd of mainlander for the most sold-out games.  While everything was going well, apparently, there was a chance that this week’s first game would fall short of the glorious goal of yet another sell-out.

What’s interesting about this pretty transparent marketing ploy is that it worked with the CBC.  Popular opinion, including among the crowd at the Mother Corp is that they just don’t do that sort of thing.  Well, the opinion is wrong. The folks over on the Parkway are as big a bunch of suckers for a good “us versus them” narrative as the rest of the crowd in the province.

Take a closer look #nlpoli

Premier Paul Davis hasn’t delivered any speeches, issued any news releases, or done anything else to explain who he is and what he wants to accomplish as Premier.

The guy has the job.

But he hasn’t told anyone anything about his plans.

On Wednesday, Davis had the perfect chance.  He delivered a luncheon speech to a few hundred people at the St. John’s Board of Trade.  

“Between now and next spring we’ll let our plans be known,” Davis told reporters after the speech.  “We’re planning as we’re moving along,” he added,  sounding suspiciously like an admission that they are making it up as they go along.

So what did he talk about in the speech?

Government Spending and GDP #nlpoli

A couple of weeks ago, finance minister Ross Wiseman said that he can’t cut government spending because it is such an important part of the economy.

Wiseman said government spending amounted to about 30%  of the province’s gross domestic product.  He was absolutely right, if you measure the gross domestic product based on expenditures within the province. 

As regular readers of this corner know, provincial government spending has become an increasingly important part of the provincial economy under the Conservatives. This reverses a very clear trend that has been underway for some time.   When you look at the numbers, it’s pretty clear.