Maternal mortality #nlpoli

Black women in the United States are twice as likely to die as a result of complications of pregnancy and childbirth as are white and Hispanic Americans, according to new research.  The story turned up in The Economist over the weekend.

Between 2006 and 2010,  the death rate for black women was almost 40 per 100,000 deliveries compared with just over 10 for Hispanics and whites. 

But there’s more.

The United States is one of only eight countries globally to see its maternal mortality rate head up in decade 2003 to 2013..”American women are now more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as their counterparts in Britain, the Czech Republic, Germany or Japan,”  according to The Economist.. The overall American rate of maternal death is 18.5 for every 100,000 live births.

Seven with one blow #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Seven companies in Newfoundland and Labrador have reached a deal with Elections Canada in the Penashue illegal contributions case.

According to Canadian Press, the companies have reached an agreement with Elections Canada in which the companies admit to making illegal contributions and promise not to do so again.

“Executives of Air Labrador Ltd., Dee-Max Innu Tautshuap Ltd., Innu-Chiasson Construction Ltd., Kakatshu Construction Ltd., Labrador Sales Ltd. and N.E. Parrot Surveys Ltd. admit they directed their companies to donate $1,000 each to Penashue’s campaign.

The CEO of Pennecon Ltd. [the seventh company] admits that six of his company’s officers were involved in sending Penashue’s campaign a $5,500 corporate cheque.”

Federal election finance laws prohibit corporations from making political donations.

-srbp-

Arse Foremost #nlpoli

Politicians help out with each other’s election campaigns all the time.

There’s nothing unusual for a municipal politician to work on a provincial or federal campaign or for a federal politician to help a provincial colleague.  Sometimes  the one politician will work as the campaign manager for another.

Usually,  the politicians don;t broadcast the fact. There are many reason s for this. Not the least of the reasons is that the campaign is about the person seeking election, not the staffer, regardless of the fact that the staffer might be well-known publicly in his or her own right.

That’s one reason  why it is so odd for Conservative Jonathan Galgay to be so vocal and public about the fact that Liberal candidate Paul Antle has taken Galgay on as his campaign manager.

That’s gotta suck, big time #nlpoli

All the country’s provincial and territorial leaders – except for Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia – are in Newfoundland and Labrador this week for their annual conference.

What an  opportunity for Paul Davis in an election year.  He gets to show himself off looking all leader-like and premieral or whatever the word is for it.

The first day of the meeting the premiers and territorial leaders discussed aboriginal issues in Goose Bay.  In the afternoon, Davis laid on an all-expense-paid trip to the super exciting megaproject at Muskrat Falls.

And then everything went horribly wrong.

It was Greek to me #nlpoli

After days of intense talks,  the Europeans apparently have finally reached a final deal to help Greece out of its latest financial misery.

Greece is broke.  With a gross domestic product of about US$238 billion, the country had a government debt of about US$346 billion.  Some of the country’s banks have very low reserves of cash.  People have already made a rush and withdrawn their money from them.  This has forced the government to impose a tight limit on withdrawals in order to avoid a bank collapse of the type that hit Newfoundland in 1894.

Under the new deal,  the European Union will place officials in key parts of the Greek government in order to ensure that the Greeks actually implement reforms that are part of the bail-out deal.

It’s a tough response, but then again the Greeks are in a tough economic spot.  The third tough spot, since 2009. For all that, though, there are people around the world who believe the whole problem is imaginary.  They believe that something called “austerity” is the real culprit.  If you just got rid of it, so this way of thinking goes, the Greeks could go back to the way things used to be.

Cripple you say? #nlpoli

Unnamed Conservative “insiders” have been talking about the Ches Crosbie nomination fiasco as if it was a rejection of a new Tory Jesus or something.

The way they talk you’d think people are waiting breathlessly for the pictures on Jane Crosbie’s Twitter feed of young Ches taking his first steps across Virginia Lake, just as his father and grandfather did at his tender age without getting so much as a bunion moistened.

Some of these nameless Conservatives   - to use the words from the CBC story – .”believe Ches Crosbie could have raised at least $100,000 by now for his run in Avalon. Many of those donors will now sit on their wallets rather than give cash to another candidate.”

Now that’s an interesting claim.

Overcooked Ambition #nlpoli

Nameless Conservative Party insiders predict that without Ches Crosbie as a candidate, the federal Conservative party will be crippled in Newfoundland and Labrador in the next election.

Supposedly Ches could have raised $100,000 dollars already.  But without Ches, they won’t raise a penny. Volunteers will stay home, too.  

But here’s the thing: 

CBC’s  story on Thursday is essentially more of the same completely preposterous Ches-the-Saviour-of-the-Conservative-Nation fairy tale that John and Jane Crosbie have been shovelling since Canada Day.

The long summer campaign #nlpoli

Liberal leader Dwight Ball kicked off a 10 week campaign swing around the province this week.

It’s basically a tour of the local festivals coupled that the party leaders do every summer.  This one is a bit different.  Ball has a few planned speeches mixed in there somewhere and Ball will be driving a white car with a big picture of him on the side.

As the Telegram’s James McLeod reported on Tuesday, Ball told reporters that the tour will “be about the economy and jobs. It’ll be about health care. It’ll be about education and many other things.”  Those are the top three issues with the public as identified by public opinion polls.

Mostly, Ball said, the aim is to have a “grassroots” summer of meeting with people and talking about the issues that affect the province — and talking about how the current government is letting people down. [Telegram]

Mostly, the tour will be about real consultation.

Confidence Builder #nlpoli

The public utilities board asked Liberty Consulting to review Hydro’s decisions in 11 projects.

Hydro is looking for a rate increase.  The board wanted to make sure the increase was justified.

Of the 11 projects, the consultant found:

• “Liberty found Hydro’s decisions and actions imprudent in seven of the eleven specific projects or programs set for examination by the Board. Liberty identified adverse cost consequences associated with six of these seven projects or programs, laying a foundation for consideration of the propriety of their recovery from customers. Liberty found planning and execution of the seventh project imprudent, but concluded that Hydro would have borne essentially the same costs even in the absence of such imprudence. 
• Of the remaining four specific projects or programs, Liberty found that Hydro had acted prudently with respect to three. Liberty did observe significant weaknesses in the supply planning process related to one of these projects, the new combustion turbine, but not to a degree that would constitute imprudence. For the fourth, Liberty concluded that while Hydro acted prudently in making its decision, some of the costs incurred were influenced by imprudent prior actions.
• The twelfth area of Liberty’s review consisted of an identification of 2014 actual capital costs and operating expenses that could be attributed to imprudence. This identification lays a foundation for later efforts that seek to identify any such expenses that may form part of Hydro’s estimation of a 2014 Revenue Deficiency of $45.9 million.”

“Liberty found that the costs that Hydro could have avoided in the absence of the instances of imprudence found by Liberty were:

• Actual 2014 capital costs of $10.9 million (as reported by Hydro)
• Actual 2014 operating expenses of $13.4 million.
• Estimated 2015 operating expenses of $2.6 million.

With that sort of report, you just know that Nalcor has just gotten everything exactly right at Muskrat Falls.

-srbp-

Canadian Forces recruiting centres and demographics #nlpoli

The Canadian Forces is planning to move its three full-time recruiting staff out of the office in Corner Brook and move them elsewhere.

From now on,  recruiting on the west coast will take place like it does pretty well everywhere else in Canada:  via the Internet.  The military recruiting system will send staff out to Corner Brook a few days a month.  They can always travel to high schools or job fairs to promote the Canadian Forces as they do now.

Documents leaked to David Pugliese at the Ottawa Citizen  last month said that the Corner Brook office has one of the lowest numbers of recruits in the Canadian Forces system.  The Corner Brook office, along with the one in Sydney Nova Scotia and Oshawa Ontario are affected by the changes.

Impotence and weakness #nlpoli

If you take John Crosbie’s version at face value,  the Conservative Party rejected his son Ches as a candidate for the party in Avalon because of the intervention of David Wells.

Wells,  the son of retired justice Robert Wells,  is a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador.  He is also an influential Conservative, the sort of fellow who normally goes about his business largely out of the public spotlight.  .

Thanks to Crosbie, Wells is in the public eye.  According to Crosbie, Wells didn’t  “want Ches to be elected as an MP in the district of Avalon or any federal district because he would be too independent-minded and [Wells] wouldn't be in control as he has been now for a couple of years of most of the transactions between Newfoundland and the federal government.”

What the venerable Conservative was doing with that accusation was telling us less about the specific events that led to Ches’ rejection and more about a bigger story behind the scenes in Conservative politics.

Way behind schedule #nlpoli

The reports you will likely read in the conventional media all peg the Muskrat Falls project as behind schedule.

That’s what the latest project update from the provincial government and Nalcor says.

The media reports are also citing an overall number that has the project modestly off schedule.

You need to look at the whole report.

Through a glass, darkly #nlpoli

Imagine that Newfoundland history is enclosed inside a gigantic room.  Inside the room everything is pitch black.

Every now and again,  someone opens the door and goes inside the room to take a look at an event somewhere in the past.  They don’t have much in the way of light to help them see.  When they get to whatever spot they are looking for, they take a picture and bring out with them to tell the rest of us the story of what they saw in the dark room.

If you had hundreds or even dozens of people going in and out of the room,  after a while you might build up a really clear picture of all the stuff inside.  Unfortunately,  only a few people have gone in.  Some of them have come out with nothing more than sketches.  Some of them brought cameras and a couple had the sense to get short movies.

For anyone who wants to understand what happened in our collective past, you can see what kind of a problem there is.  Not only have we only had a handful of people go in, a lot of them go to the same place over and over again.  In some cases,  people interested in the local history don’t even go into the room  any more. They just describe to us the sketches and out-of-focus snapshots taken by others.

John Crosbie and the Last Crusade #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Every story told thus far about Ches Crosbie and the riding in Avalon has the unmistakeable odour of bullshit about it.

The latest twist, namely that Senator David Wells was scuttling a potential rival as The Biggest Conservative in Newfoundland and Labrador, is a bit more in the realm of plausible but it still doesn’t quite ring true.

Jihad against people who dissed Harper?

The Great War and Newfoundland Political Memory #nlpoli

“It is sobering to think,”  historian Sean Cadigan wrote in the Telegram on Tuesday, “that the memory of the casualties of war has been used partially for later political purposes for almost a century.”

Cadigan was recounting the history of the ceremony on July 1 that started in 1917 to mark the anniversary of the battle in which hundreds of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians died in a few short minutes.

It is possible that, in the process of "remembering," we may be in danger of forgetting the real aspirations of the men of 1916 when we gather on Memorial Day tomorrow.

Sobering though it may have been,  Cadigan had no trouble using the corpses at Beaumont Hamel for his own purpose and that is where we begin. 

Forget-me-not #nlpoli

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Forget that Orange Wave Thing #nlpoli

Two-thirds of respondents to the most recent Abacus-VOCM News poll said they believed the Liberal Party will win the next provincial general election.

That’s an important question because recent American research suggests it is a good indication of the actual vote result than the traditional “which party will you vote for?” question.

There’s another reason why this question is important.  Look at the contrast between NDP and Conservative supporters.  More than half of New Democratic supporters think the Liberals will win. 

Only  28% of Dippers think their own party will win the next election.   A majority of provincial Conservatives think the Tories will win. But get this:  37% of Tories think the Grits will come out on top.

People who think there is some kind of NDP wave about sweep the universe can think again.

Rex, re-districting, and getting it right #nlpoli

Rex Hillier:  the first political victim of the bill that redrew the political map in Newfoundland.

Simple story.

Easy peasey.

And complete crap.

The not-so-rare leap: @abacusdata June 2015 #nlpoli

Two different polls from two different pollsters using two different polling methods have shown basically the same thing:  the New Democrats and Conservatives are duking it out for second place, both of whom remain well behind the Liberals who hold a massive lead in provincial politics.

Corporate Research Associates (May) showed the Conservatives still slightly ahead of the New Democrats.  Abacus Data’s most recent poll for VOCM shows the New Democrats slightly ahead.

Abacus’  David Coletto described the NDP  jump as “rare”, but that’s not really the case.

Porter makes history #nlpoli

Steve Porter made history on Thursday night.

He defeated an incumbent in the House of Assembly  - Rex Hillier  - in a party nomination fight.  This doesn’t happen very often, mostly because political parties in Newfoundland and Labrador have seldom held nomination contests at the district level involving incumbents.

That isn’t a function of the lack of interest among prospective politicians. It’s just been the practice to grant incumbents a lock on the district once they win the nomination the first time. That’s one of the reasons why local politics can’t really be considered to be highly competitive.  The parties restrict the opportunities for challengers to enter the fray.

Porter tried for the nomination before and lost to Hillier in a squeaker.  He didn’t put together a strong get-out-the-vote operation the last time and wanted to give it another go. This time around Porter had some help from experienced campaigners.  It made a difference.

Aside from the specifics of this particular situation, contested nominations are an important way of refreshing a political party.  The competition keeps everyone on their toes.

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She's a class act all the way #nlpoli

The House of Assembly closed on Tuesday, likely for the last time before the next election.

Sure,  Premier Paul Davis said he may call the House back in the fall for a quick amendment to a law, but for most members, Tuesday was the last day of the session.

And for some members, like George Murphy, it was their last day in the House of Assembly, period, full stop, end of story.

They all got a few minutes to say a few words and get emotional.

And after all the formal proceedings were done,  the three party leaders got to speak.  It’s fascinating to see what they said about their colleagues, as recorded by Hansard

Purity Factories' advertising no treat at all #nlpoli

Venerable local food manufacturer Purity Factories has a new advertising campaign featuring its delicious cream crackers.

On a billboard in the east end of St. John’s,  the line in big letters opposite a shot of the product says “not gluten free.”

The tag below it right next to the company logo is “Treat yourself.”

If all you know about gluten is the current bullshit diet fad based on junk science, then you might think this is a clever ad.

But for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians with celiac disease,   there’s no treat in eating food with gluten.

George Murphy quits politics #nlpoli

Whenever anyone runs down politicians as a group,  remember George Murphy.

And then give the boor who ran down politicians a lash in the arse.

That’s basically all that sort of person is good for:  a target for your boot.

We need more people like George Murphy in public life,  not fewer. He is a fundamentally decent, generous, and thoughtful person. While there are plenty of people like George in public life, thankfully, and in life in general, we can never have enough.

Tree Politics #nlpoli

From your humble e-scribbler's yard,  the province's political parties as revealed by trees.


First, we have the Conservative Party.

Knows it's a tree

Lots of branches down below.   Up at the top, a few little shoots who some times look like they are on top.

The truth:  no matter what it looks like, there remains only  One True Leader.

Second, we have the Liberal Party.

Knows it's a tree.

Lots of branches down below.

But a bit of a mess up on top with a  bunch of different branches trying to be the leader.

Third, and last, is the New Democratic Party.

The same tree as the rest,  just a lot smaller, and a bit heavy on one side.

Thinks it's a rose bush.

-srbp-

No equity? No surprise. #nlpoli

It didn’t take long for Paul Davis to get the comparison he was looking for last week.

The Telegram - not surprisingly – offered it up in the editorial on June 17:

“Premier Paul Davis pulled a Danny Williams Tuesday,”  the editorialist wrote.

Davis told the annual NOIA oil and gas industry conference that a deal to develop Bay du Nord was mere weeks away.  Never mind the complexity of the project:  500 kilometres offshore,  in very deep water,  very deep under ground.  Never mind the complexities of international law not fully resolved yet.  Never mind the project economics – whether it can be developed profitably -  are still unknown.

Never mind anything.

The goal was the comparison.

What district is Earle in, again? #nlpoli

Since the bill to change provincial districts cleared the House last week,  the provincial New Democrats have been tweeting sanctimoniously about the harm done to rural districts by the bill.

All those rural seats lost,  they wail.

All very undemocratic,  they cry.

And all very much a load of shit, at least as far as the Dipper claim goes.

The politics of information #nlpoli

A couple of recent post are reminders of how important it is to take a look at issues in the province from another perspective.

On June 10,  you will find a post about crab fishermen from New Brunswick who want to sell their catch to a company near Corner Brook.  The problem is that federal regulations limit where the fishermen can sell their catch. The policy is rooted in the sort of local protectionism that lay behind opposition in some quarters to European free trade.

Thursday’s post (June 17) was about remarks by Quebec’s energy minister about offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Pierre Arcand argued that Quebec had better sort out an agreement with the federal government over jurisdiction for the offshore resources.

Old Harry was sitting there waiting for development and Newfoundland and Labrador,  Arcand said,  was ahead of Quebec.  The result could be that Newfoundland and Labrador would  wind up reaping huge benefits from the Old Harry field.  Quebec, meanwhile, would be left behind. 

Newfoundland forcing Quebec's hand on Old Harry #nlpoli

The Bay du Nord field is far offshore and far from development, Paul Davis’ optimism notwithstanding.

It’s way the hell offshore (about 500 kilometres),  way the hell under water (more than two kilometres) and then way the heck under the sea bed  (about another two kilometres).  It’s not going to be easy and it sure as heck isn't going to happen in less than five years.

Premier Paul Davis likely talked up the prospect of an agreement  to develop Bay du Nord because he needed something to say at the annual offshore development conference this week.

What’s curious, though, is that he never mentioned a far more interesting project that is far easier to develop.

A troublesome and costly pattern #nlpoli

There are so many problems raised by Premier Paul Davis’ zeal to sign an agreement with Statoil for the Bay du Nord that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Perhaps the best place to start is with the deal announced the day before Davis’ oil news.  The provincial government gave $6.5 million in public money to an insurance company to establish a major corporate office in St. John’s. 

Newfoundland and Labrador got the company to move here by engaging in a bidding war with other provinces that were anxious for the business.  Newfoundland and Labrador essentially gave away the most.

That’s what happens when you bargain in a weak position.

The Moveable Fixed Election Date #nlpoli

Arguably, the greatest fairy tale the Conservatives spread after 2003 was that Danny Williams didn’t take a salary from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The truth was he collected every penny of his salary from the day he entered the House of Assembly until the day he left.

The second biggest fib they told was that there were fixed election dates.

Brad Wall's case for abolishing Premiers #cdnpoli #nlpoli

Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall thinks that making the senate an elected institution that better reflects Canadians is too hard.

Rather than reform the senate,  Wall wants to get rid of it altogether.

Wall thinks that the provincial Premiers should do the job currently done by the senate.

Here’s why no one should take senate abolition seriously.

Here’s why those proposing it don’t have the best interest of Canadians at heart.

Small things and big differences #nlpoli

The Auditor General delivered his annual report on some of the provincial government’s programs and services on Wednesday.

We learned, among other things that provincial government consulting contracts have gone horrendously beyond the amount originally budgeted.  The worst case was a contract – presumably related to the Corner Brook hospital  - that wound up  being 780% beyond the original budget. 

One of the big culprits in the escalating costs were change orders.  Those are, as the name suggests, changes to the original contract required because of changes made by the government. That was the case both in capital works contracts that involved changes to construction but in service contracts as well.

A tonic for NDP Amnesia #nlpoli

When he was a member of the House of Assembly in Newfoundland and Labrador,  NDP member of parliament Jack Harris  double-billed the legislature for more than $2,000 in expenses and made $27,066 in "donations" from money originally intended to operate a constituency office and inform voters about his activities.

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Related:  Jacks and the Auditor General

The cost of out-dated ideas #nlpoli

The Barry Group plant near Corner Brook pays a better price for crab than a competitor in New Brunswick.

New Brunswick fishermen can't steam across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and sell their product in Corner Brook because of restrictions on their license.

They are same sort of restrictions that apply to local fishermen and which lay at the heart of regressive measures like minimum processing requirements.  The result is that fish processors in this province lose out on product for their plants and fish plant workers can't get enough work.

Don't believe it?

Check out a recent story in l'Acadie Nouvelle. [translation by google and SRBP]

"They are interested. They saw the quality of .my crab and they asked me how they could do to access other crab like that. I replied that the best way would be to open a factory in the Acadian Peninsula. Sure, between showing interest and actually doing it, there still has work to do, but at least they can learn," he said.

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Deaths in Modern Conflict

The Fallen of World War II from Neil Halloran on Vimeo.

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The Politics of Menses #nlpoli

Until now, we had no idea how our governments valued menstruation.

Some of you might be surprised to think this was a question but now we have an answer.

Both the federal and provincial governments decided last month to remove the harmonised sales tax from tampons, napkins, and other feminine sanitary products.  In Newfoundland and Labrador, that added 13% on every purchase.

The government in Newfoundland and Labrador refused to put a value on the tax, but your humble e-scribbler is willing to take a shot at it.

A lot can change in three months #nlpoli

The Liberals and the Conservatives dropped in the most recent Corporate Research Associates poll and all that vote went to the New Democrats.

Let’s look at the party choice numbers without the skew of looking only at decideds.  Here’s a chart showing the CRA results since the last general election, including Monday’s numbers.

Red = Liberal

Orange = NDP

Blue  = Conservative

Thin blue/black = Undecided,  do not know,  won't answer.

Small ball, election dates, and other minutae #nlpoli

Later today, Premier Paul Davis will introduce a bill in the House of Assembly that, among other things,  sets the next provincial general election for the last week of November. The most likely day for voting is November 24, with the official campaign starting 21 days before that.


There’s no surprise in this. The Conservatives have been talking about November as an option since January when they introduced the plan to cut public representation in the legislature. Reporters asked Liberal leader Dwight Ball at the time if he thought the election should be delayed to November to avoid a clash with the federal election set for October 19. Ball said he didn’t have a problem with the delay.

For the past couple of weeks, Ball has been insisting that the Conservatives need to have the election done by the end of September. That’s the anniversary of Paul Davis’ election as Conservative leader. It’s also the third different position, incidentally, that Ball has taken within the past six months on the timing of the next election. At the end of last year, Ball told the CBC he thought people should go to the polls in February in order to let a new government deal with the provincial government’s financial problems. A couple of weeks later, Ball had no problem with a November. Now, he wants it all done by the end of September.

Q2 2015 Poll Speculation #nlpoli

Corporate Research Associates boss Don Mills has done a good job of teasing the results of his latest poll, due Monday.

"Significant" change in voter intentions, Mills tweeted on Friday and repeatedly over the weekend.

It's all fed a great deal of speculation.  Someone fed the self-styled Hydroqueen internal Liberal polling numbers and she has blogged them and tweeted about them repeatedly. Your humble e-scribbler jumped into another conversation based on the foggy early-morning memory and since that memory was so horribly wrong,  here's a review of the recent poll numbers based on more than memory.

So are those Hydroqueen numbers the sort of results CRA will release?

About how the predictions of further Liberal decline or of a Conservative rise?

Will CRA show any of that?

Probably not.

Politicians and other damn fools #nlpoli

On Wednesday, politicians in Newfoundland and Labrador condemned the federal minister of fisheries for making a decision about the fishery in a province based on politics instead of economics or science.

The politicians were so upset with Gail Shea that they passed a resolution demanding that she allocate a quota of fish to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians based on political rather than economic or scientific reasons.

There was no sense in their resolution that what was sauce Prince Edward Island goose was also sauce  for the Newfoundland gander, if that’s what you are thinking.  Nor was there any sense of hypocrisy or irony or whatever self-awareness it would be that makes one criticise someone else for doing what you then do.

The fact that some of the politicians explained their support for the resolution using false memory only sweetened the humour in the whole affair.

The Persistence of False Information: free electricity version #nlpoli

An exchange on Twitter reminded your humble e-scribbler on Wednesday evening of the power of false information to persist despite either being disproven or, in this case, being an obvious nonsense.

Not surprisingly, the discussion was about Nalcor, Emera,  the Maritime Link and a block of electricity that Nalcor gets under the Muskrat Falls deal.  There is a lot of false information about these subjects that just won’t die.  Let’s just deal with the free block of electricity.

Duff in the Hole #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Dwight Ball’s announcement last week about Liberal Party funding was a good example of how relatively simple mistakes can turn a good-news announcement into a major public relations problem.

Another aspect to the story is a good example of how false information can make the story worse.

Politics, CETA, and the fishery #nlpoli

The European trade deal came up in the House of Assembly on Monday.

Everyone kept to the same lines they've been kicking around for months.

Believe it if you want,  but if you want to find out what is really going on,  check out the interview your humble e-scribbler did with Jamie Baker of the Fisheries Broadcast last week.

-srbp-

Related:

• Province increase CETA demands after crucial agreement (December 2014)
• Abbott and Costello meet the trade deal (January 2015)
• Conservatives abandon ridiculous position on European deal (May 2015)

For want of a nail... #nlpoli

Dwight Ball demonstrated last week how very simple things can turn into problems very quickly. He handed his political opponents a stick they can use to beat him with. The fact they really don;t have much more than innuendo and speculation doesn’t matter. He’s given them a weapon.

Ball confirmed on Friday that the Liberal Party could have released relevant information on the party’s debt repayment on Wednesday.

Ball named the three banks involved in the debt forgiveness deal and indicated the total amount involved.  On Wednesday he had balked, noting there was a non-disclosure agreement in place.

What Ball also confirmed in the process is that he and his team simply weren’t ready on Wednesday for the announcement.  That’s not the first time Ball and his team have made this kind of a simple cock-up.  The simplest way to fix it would be to re-organize the senior end of his office.  Ball needs to bring in some new people, especially ones with significant political experience.  to augment his existing team.

Parting Gifts #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Peter MacKay may have quit federal politics but that didn't stop him from porking up the federally-appointed courts before he left.

On Friday, MacKay appointed former provincial Conservative Party president Cillian Sheahan from Corner Brook to the Trial and Family Division of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.

That was one of about a dozen appointments MacKay made on his last day in office.

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More delays in taking out the trash #nlpoli

On Monday,  municipal affairs minister Keith Hutchings announced that the provincial government was setting back the clock on the provincial waste management strategy.

Well, they sort of announced it. 

You see, the news release posted by the government uncommunication elves buried the news under a lot of self-congratulation.

And what they didn’t bury they just left out altogether.

Yesterday #nlpoli

The news should have been good.

Party leader Dwight Ball announced on Wednesday that the Liberals had rid themselves of the debt the party has carried around since the 2003 election. As Ball explained it, the party negotiated with the three banks involved and persuaded them to write off the interest and penalties. The party had then paid off the $500,000 that remained.

The Liberals’ opponents have used the debt as a rod to beat Grit backs. Can’t manage the province’s accounts if you can't handle your own, the Conservatives joked.

As it turns out, that joke was on us: the Conservatives couldn’t handle the public accounts themselves. They promised to pay down the debt and make everything right. Instead, and starting from Danny Williams, they racked up debt after debt. They spent every nickel the provincial coffers could suck in and borrowed more besides.

The party debt was a big cloud hanging over the Liberals’ heads. Getting rid of it was supposed to be great news.

And it would have been had Dwight not buggered up the announcement.

Conservatives abandon ridiculous position on European trade… again #nlpoli

In January, trade minister Darin King wrote a letter to his federal counterpart about the European trade deal.
King said the provincial government would:

1. withdraw from any trade talks OTHER than the one about the European trade deal, and,
2. should “the federal government fail to honour the terms of the June 2013 agreement to establish a fisheries fund, you will appreciate that the Province will reconsider its support for CETA.”

On Tuesday, King announced the provincial government would:

1. resume participation in all the ongoing trade talks, and,
2. accept the European trade deal, but not the bit on minimum processing requirements.

That last one will leave Canada open to a challenge by Europeans if - and only if - the provincial government ever invokes minimum processing requirements in dealing with a European company. There’s not much danger of that since the provincial government has been granting more and more exemptions from the out-dated policy.

Besides, the federal government is already working on a mechanism to pass the cost of any damages from a trade dispute on to the province that caused them. They started work on that little gem after the current Conservative administration in this province violated the North American free trade deal and seized hydro-electric assets belonging to three companies under an entirely false pretense.

When Darin King said the government would “let the chips fall where they may” he knew full well that the provincial government would take it in the neck if it ever used the minimum processing requirements provisions of current legislation.

What you have here is a climb down. The provincial government position was always a transparent pile of nonsense. As CBC’s access to information research confirmed last week, the provincial government has been granting more and more exemptions from the minimum processing regulations. In practical terms, that means they have already abandoned MPRs and won’t use them to trigger any CETA problems.

What local media still haven’t reported is that the heart of this dispute has been a political fraud by the provincial government. It tried to radically alter the deal in 2014. The federal government rebuffed the provincial government’s effort to rejig the deal. Faced with no prospect of success in its scam, the provincial government abandoned its ludicrous position.

Both the Liberal and NDP criticised the government for submitting to federal perfidy. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but the truth never stopped a politician in this province from opening his mouth before. Tuesday was no exception.

Incidentally, the letter from King to his federal counterpart as well as the news release that King issued on Tuesday are both pretty vague about what the provincial government is actually doing. King explained the details to reporters.

This is the second time the provincial Conservatives have abandoned a stupid position on the European trade talks. The first was Danny Williams’ refusal to take part in the talks in the first place Williams claimed he needed to protect the seal hunt.

-srbp-

The party is over #nlpoli

There are times when you wonder why anyone pays attention to a crowd like the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council.

They showed up in St. John’s on Monday to tell us that the major projects that have been driving the economy are winding down.

And they charged $230 to anyone who wanted to show up for that insight or for the other one quoted in the CBC online story:  the “party had to end.”

APEC?

No.

Try PIFO.

Penetrating Insight into the F**king Obvious.

Everything will be fine. Or not. #nlpoli

This pretty picture shows a very ugly problem.

Look at the point (2008) where the red and blue lines separate.  The area in between represents the annual deficit the provincial government has been running. It is the difference between the amount government spent (the blue line) and the amount of income the government had from everything that wasn’t oil and minerals.

All that space in between those two lines is debt.  It is either borrowing from the banks and other lenders or it is borrowing from ourselves through spending all our one-time oil money. If the government spends as they indicated in the budget, about two thirds of that gap on the far right is borrowing from the banks.  One third is from oil money.

Just for a bit of fun,  let’s project ahead into the future a bit to see what might happen.  We’ll use the oil price projections the government used.  And we’ll use the most recent oil production figures from the offshore board. You might be surprised at the results.

A week of truth for the Conservatives #nlpoli

Not that we didn’t know the provincial government had already granted exemptions to its supposedly sacred minimum fish processing requirements, but CBC this week gave us an insight into just how often the government has waived the MPRs.

In 2010,  the provincial government approved 11t exemptions out of 19 requests.  In the last six months of 2014 alone,  it approved 27 out of 29 requests. 

That’s quite a jump.

The wild spurt of exemptions came at exactly the same time  - ironically enough - that Premier Paul Davis was insisting that MPRs were an essential part of the government’s efforts to keep fish processing jobs in the province.

They were so important that he and his colleagues would only give them up for a $280 million slush fund of federal cash controlled by the provincial government.

TBT: a cabinet divided #nlpoli

The latest case of the Premier and one of his ministers saying different things can’t be put down to brain farts.

You also cannot dismiss this because fisheries minister Vaughan Granter can’t speak in short spurts or whatever the heck that line was from last weekend’s On Point.

This one is a case of two cabinet ministers saying two different things.

Oil Royalty and Oil Price Forecasts (2015) #nlpoli

Don Mills says people in Newfoundland and Labrador have a false impression of the state of the provincial economy.

Wade Locke says Mills is full of it.

To bolster his argument, such as it is, Locke released a raft of pretty charts a couple of weeks ago.

One of them included a slide showing projected offshore oil production. (right)

Brain Farts #nlpoli

Some people have a hard time with the idea that a great many political decisions are not the product of deep thinking, extensive research, and agonizing debate.

They come from brain farts.

You can hear that pretty clearly in the most recent episode of On Point. The political panel talked about a couple of cock-ups by the Conservatives last week.

 In among the few nose-pullers the panel tossed out, the basic elements of the story were there.

Political Pandermonium #nlpoli

You can tell the election is already going on.  You can tell because of what some of the political workers are doing.

The Liberals are going door-to-door.  They are meeting voters.  They are asking for their votes.  Then the campaign workers write on Twitter and Facebook.about the “glorious day” of campaigning  they’d had.

Politicians tweet as well. The candidates tweet about their campaigning. The elected politicians tweet about the meeting they went to, or a government comment, or questions in the House of Assembly. 
Taking a lesson he learned from Reform Conservative turned Grit turned provincial Conservative Steve Kent, provincial Connie turned Grit Paul Lane goes places,  takes a picture of himself there, tweets it, and then frigs off somewhere else. The selfie makes it look like he stayed at the event.  That’s how he can be in so many places at the same time.

Lane also posts ridiculous pictures like this one about the May 24 weekend.  It’s a stock photograph of an Adirondack chair on a lake somewhere else in North America.

He used the same picture in a string of tweets over the weekend. People on Twitter made fun of Paul.  It looks like Lane had these pictures made as fridge magnets. Paul needs to decide if he has a moustache or not.

Owing it forward #nlpoli

The provincial government will balance its books this year by borrowing $2.1 billion.

Lots of people don’t know that,  as Michael Caine would say.

The government included in its budget plans this year a hike in the HST of two percent.

The tax hike will bring in $200 million.

That $200 million will just about cover the interest in one year on all the new debt the provincial government plans to add between now and 2021.

The $2.1 billion this year is the tip of a very big iceberg of new debt, you see. The new debt will go on top of the other $12 billion we already owe. The total cost just to pay the interest on that debt in 2021 will be $1.0 billion.

When people found out about the HST hike, they lost their minds.

Fast forward to 2017.

Never heard anyone say that before #nlpoli

“This may be our last shot at it,” said captain of industry Paul Antle this week as he set off to find other captains of industry to help him save the province. .

Gotta get off the oil, see. The Tories have frigged everything up..

Not so very long ago another rich guy-turned-politician said pretty much the same sort of thing.

The Liberals had cocked things up so badly – said captain of industry Danny Williams - that he was trying to get oil royalties that Ottawa was taking.

They weren’t really doing that, as Williams later admitted, but hey,  why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

“Williams provided [Macleans scribbler Paul Wells with] chapter and verse of his battle with Ottawa for a bigger share of the wealth generated by offshore oil. He passionately advanced the idea that this is his province's last, best hope to become a have rather than a perennial have-not.”  That was December 2004..

-srbp-

And it’s only Wednesday #nlpoli

Imagine, if you can, what it must be like to be Sandy Collins.  Sandy is a very young man who is -  right now -  living the first line of his epitaph.

Imagine, if you can do two at one,  what it must be like to be Veronica Hayden.  Veronica is Paul Davis’ principal assistant.

Both took to Twitter last weekend to harass Liberal leader Dwight Ball over the fact that he seemed to be saying contradictory things.

They must have been feeling very proud, strong, and determined.

And then it was Monday.

A Memorial at Gallipoli #nlpoli

The provincial government announced four years ago that a caribou memorial at Gallipoli would be part of the Honour 100 commemorations to make the 100th anniversary of the First World War.

For those who don’t know,  the Newfoundland regiment fought its first battles on the Turkish peninsula from September 1915 to January 1916.  Gallipoli is the only major battle site from the First World War that doesn’t have a caribou memorial.

That’s why the provincial government announcement in 2011 was such welcome news.

That’s also why it came as such a disappointing shock to so many people on Monday to learn that not only had the provincial government scrapped the memorial but that they had done so because they could not find $500,000 in the budget to cover the cost. That is precisely what odds and sods minister Darin King told the House.

When is a cut not a cut? #nlpoli

A couple of years ago, the province’s auditor general noted that a Crown agency responsible for developing an integrated health information system was paying salaries to its employees that were way outside provincial government guidelines.

The Telegram reported last fall that the problem was still unresolved 18 months after the auditor general issued his report. This was no small matter. Salaries grew 354% between 2007 and 2012, according to the Telegram. In one case, the salary for a senior executive member jumped by 119%.

Last week, and in the wake of an updated report by the province’s auditor general, Canadian Press reported that health minister Steve Kent had cut salaries at NLCHI. They’d save $50, 000 in one case and altogether the salary cuts would save $330,000.

Small problem.

Ethnic identity economics #nlpoli

Wade Locke and Don Mills are two of the faces most associated with the current Conservative administration in Newfoundland and Labrador, aside from the politicians, that is.

Mills played a key role in Danny Williams administration.  Mills polling firm provided government with quarterly surveys.  Williams also tried to manipulate Mills’ survey results for questions on local politics that Mills used to market his research company.

The quarterly polling was key to Williams efforts to silence dissent and maximize his own freedom of political action.  The more popular Williams became, the less likely were any opposition politicians or news media to question his decisions. 

And for everyone else, the Conservative message was that any dissidents were out of step with the majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.  Mills’ polling purportedly showed that Williams and his party were popular to an unheard of degree.  “He’s right because he’s popular and he’s popular because he is right,”  was a common Conservative talking point.

That’s why it has been so interesting the past few months that Mills has been criticising the provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Trends: corpse kicking after a lost decade of delusion #nlpoli

Don Mills is the latest fan of the provincial Conservatives to turn on them savagely.

The St. John’s Board of Trade had Don back to deliver a luncheon speech this week.  According to CBC,  Mills said:

"The downside of Danny Williams, and I have a lot of respect for him, is that he doubled the provincial budget within that timeframe too," …  "He left the province with a structural budget problem that is going to be difficult to fix."

Mills also endorsed the private sector as the engine of economic growth, something Williams firmly opposed.

A decade ago, Mills couldn’t say enough about Williams the Wonderful.  Now,  Mills cannot distance himself enough from Old Twitchy and his legacy of what Mills calls “a structural budget problem.”

The Fourth Party #nlpoli

A Telegram editorial on Wednesday contained a curious comment.  

The subject was news that broke this week about the provincial government;s energy corporation.  Two senior corporate officials are refusing to testify in a court case in Quebec over contending interpretations of the 1969 power contract between Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation and Hydro-Quebec.

Nalcor is refusing to respond to the Quebec court’s order, insisting that the order must come from a court in this province.  Now the entire court case is extremely important because it is crucial to Nalcor’s entire scheme for Muskrat Falls.  The fact that Nalcor is thumbing its nose to a legal process that it is a party to, through its majority ownership of CFLCo is both troublesome and needlessly offensive.

But that’s not the curious point from the editorial.  Whoever wrote the commentary added this bit toward the end:

It’s possible they are simply mirroring the intransigence of their Quebec counterparts to co-operate with actions in this province — as, for example, Hydro-Québec did in refusing to participate in PUB hearings on the water management agreement.

The problem with the statement is that it simply is not true.

Austerity #nlpoli

All this talk of austerity, gutting the public service….

Then you look at the salary costs, from the provincial budget.

There’s something that just doesn’t add up.

-srbp-

The Red and the Black: budgets and politics #nlpoli

The annual budget is probably the most political document of any government in a Westminster style parliament like ours.

At its simplest and most obvious level the budget is the formal statement of a government’s priorities.  Once approved by 1the legislature, it gives government the legal authority to spend money.

The budget is, in that sense,  the most obvious display of what political scientist David Easton defined as politics:  the authoritative allocation of values.

There’s more politics to the budget than just that, however.

Fearful Symmetry #nlpoli

There are a couple of constables in an office over in the basement of the old Memorial College building at Fort Townshend, right next to where the USO building used to be.  They handle all the mysterious calls about weird goings on,  sort of like a local version of the X-Files.

So the scuttlebutt has it at the nearby Timmies,  the boys got a call Thursday afternoon about the time Ross Wiseman was reading his budget speech.  The workers over a Colonial Building said they saw two fellows come out of the old House of Assembly Chamber,  arm-in-arm. 

There was one older fellow, a bit on the round side,  who walked with a limp.  The other fellow walked very straight and had a really high collar on his shirt.  Sorta like Don Cherry would wear one of the workers said.

The two fellows went out the front door of the building, the workers inside said.  The only problem was they didn’t open the door.  They just walked through it.

Conservatives stay the debt-building course #nlpoli

Budget 2015 offered absolutely no surprises.

On major areas the Conservatives continued their policy of spending more than the provincial treasury can afford.  That’s been their trade-mark since 2003 and it became etched in stone in 2009.

As SRBP forecast a couple of weeks ago, the Conservatives raised a modest amount of money through a two percent hike in the provincial sales tax and a variety of small fees.  They added some new tax brackets at the upper end of the income scale.  The small twist in that one came from the actual release of the proposal by Memorial University’s economics department.  They recommend an improved rebate scheme to transfer the additional tax revenue to lower income residents.

Other than that, the Conservatives borrowed heavily. The deficit is a record for any government since Confederation. Your humble e-scribbler knew it would be bad.  It was worse than imagined.  That’s because – contrary to the forecast – they didn’t reduce capital works spending.

Lots of people are focused on the tax increases.  They amount to slightly more than than 10% of the total deficit. In the bigger scheme of things it is nothing.  It is just laughable for anyone to call this budget “tough”. 


Let’s look at some specific points.

The little things will get you #nlpoli

Maybe someone can point to this information somewhere please.  Maybe your humble e-scribbler missed it.

But  in the past couple of days, there’s been a simple number missing from the discussion of long-term care beds in Newfoundland and Labrador.

How many do we need?

Seems like a fairly obvious question.

Both Premier Paul Davis and health minister Steve Kent pointed to the current problem with chronic care patients taking up acute care beds.  That’s been happening for decades. They used a number of 237 as the number of beds being occupied in acute care facilities by patients needing long-term care.

But that isn’t all the demand.  That’s just the stuff that they actually have right at the moment.

So how many long-term beds do we need?

Yes. The government has big financial problems #nlpoli

Yet another academic paper emerged on Tuesday that pointed out that the provincial government has a big financial problem caused by following the flawed policy of spending all the money it takes in, plus more besides.

Don’t take that as a dismissal of the paper by University of Calgary professor  Ron Kneebone. To the contrary,  Kneebone’s paper adds yet more weight to the argument offered by a few people in this province since about 2006 or so. 

Taken together with the recent report by the Conference Board of Canada on the province’s economic competitiveness and you have a pretty strong indictment of the Conservative/Lockean policy the provincial government has been following since 2003.

Contending Political Strategies #nlpoli

Starting last Friday, the ironically-named Conservatives currently running the place started holding a series of “pre-budget” announcements.

They started with news that to deal with the massive financial crisis they would be dumping 77 and a half teaching positions in the provincial school system.  About twice that many would retire, so the school boards in the province would only hire enough teachers to fill half the empty slots.  To make that fit with the declining student enrolment,  the school boards would adjust the allowed class sizes by one student per teacher for grades 4 to 6 and by two students per teacher for grades 7 to 9.

Other than that, no change in staffing.

On Monday, the finance minister announced that the massive financial problem the government is facing led the government to cut the public service by zero real people.

Hysteriana #nlpoli

The response to the proposed boundaries for districts in the House of Assembly has been…what’s the word for it? … oh yes,  totally off-the-wall, batshit crazy.

On the Burin peninsula you have a bunch of people who claim that having two members represent Marystown instead of the current one member is an unprecedented tragedy of biblical proportions,  The town will be split in two, they claim.

Presumably families will be separated, unable to speak to one another across the giant zone of barbed wire and land mines that the northern district will erect between the southern district.  Berlin.  North and South Korea.  Right here.

You know things are going badly when… #nlpoli

… you launch your election campaign at at huge fundraiser and your signature policy announcement gets slaughtered on Twitter within seconds of the words leaving your lips.

Yes, friends,  Paul Davis told the world he will create some kind of savings fund from oil royalties.

In 2021.

If, and only if,  they can manage to balance the books by then.

And of course, only if Paul and/or the humourously named Conservatives can get re-elected not once but twice between now and then.

A number of people pointed that out immediately on Twitter on Wednesday night.

Another little thing that stood out #nlpoli

From Tuesday’s throne speech, here’s another little passage buried away, that could prove to be one of the most significant parts of any throne speech in a long time:

Our government is developing Newfoundland and Labrador's first Open Government Action Plan, reflecting the best 'open government' practices in the world. The plan will nurture a culture of openness within the government by promoting access to information and data and enhanced dialogue and collaboration on initiatives. Under this plan, Newfoundland and Labrador will become, by 2020, one of the most open and accessible jurisdictions anywhere in the world.

-srbp-

The little things that stand out #nlpoli

Throne Speech 2015 was the kind of document you’d expect from a group of politicians who are out of new ideas.

People are making a big deal out of the review of the provincial curriculum for K-12 schools.  That’s what the folks in the education department do for a living.  It’s nothing new.

The promise that the review will produce a 21st century curriculum is such a cliche that it is laughable, given that we are in the second decade of the new century.

Not very impressive, is it?

Pre-emptive rebuttal #nlpoli

This excerpt from Tuesday’s federal budget speech seems aimed at province's like Newfoundland and Labrador where the government promised the same day that they’d be piling up more debt on top of their current record debt levels until at least 2021:

Maintaining Fiscal Balance in the Federation

There is no fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provinces. A fiscal imbalance could be created when federal transfers to provinces and territories are significantly cut and the federal tax burden is increased at the same time. The federal government has adopted the exact opposite approach. Since 2006, the Government has pursued a low-tax plan to support job creation and economic growth. As part of this plan, the Government has increased major transfers to provinces and territories, reduced taxes on individuals, families and businesses, and balanced the budget. Budgetary pressures faced by provinces and territories are due to their own spending plans.

Federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada each have access to all of the tools necessary to deliver the public services under their respective areas of responsibility and manage their public finances responsibly. Each level of government is accountable to their residents for taxing and spending decisions.

All levels of government must be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and control public spending to achieve balanced budgets. Provincial and territorial governments have access to virtually all of the same sources of revenue as the federal government. In addition, provincial and territorial governments have other significant revenue streams such as royalties from natural resources and profits from lotteries and gaming that, with limited exceptions, do not generally benefit the federal government.

-srbp-

The problem with no problem #nlpoli

Dwight Ball is the latest Liberal to emerge from the candidate protection program.  He popped up on NTV on Monday evening to tell us all two things:

First, he thinks there should be an inquiry into the Dunphy shooting.  He made up some nonsense about the need for an imaginary process that supposedly had to play out before he revealed the real Liberal position.  After telling us about Step One:  the Dunphy family grieving,  and then Step Two the two investigations that aren’t finished,  he could now announce Step Three, namely that he will appoint an inquiry when he is premier.

Not gonna call on the Conservatives to do it now. Nope. Gonna wait until he is on the 8th.  If that happens. And, allowing that he might not get to be Premier until October 2016, that could be a long wait for an inquiry that could begin soon and be finished by this fall.

Then, of course, you have to recall that on Friday,  the official Liberal position was that anyone calling for an inquiry now is just playing politics with this tragedy.

You can see a few pretty obvious problems with the latest Liberal position on the Dunphy inquiry. But at least  the Liberals are finally accepting the need for an inquiry.  They are going to be the butt of more than a few Conservative and New Democrat jokes but at least they are finally in the right spot.

The Political Game of Stupidity #nlpoli

Last week,  the provincial Liberals came out of the candidate protection program to talk about the Dunphy shooting.  Liberal justice critic Andrew Parsons told Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that his party thought it was too soon to talk about any type of further inquiry into the tragic shooting death of Don Dunphy beyond what is going on at the moment.

And besides, as Parsons’ put it, “I think to just jump out and (call for an inquiry) right now is just playing politics.”

Liberal candidate Paul Antle echoed Parsons’ sentiments on Twitter.  “ For the love of God let's do what's right by the family and keep politics out of it, wrote Antle.  “Let the process and not politics determine the course and see where it leads.”

Too bad for the Liberals, then, that Erin Breen, the lawyer for the Dunphy family, made it plain last week that the family wants a public inquiry into Don Dunphy’s death.  They just want it after the preliminary investigations are out of the way.

The result was that the Liberal comments last week were monumentally stupid whether as politics or policy..

Has anyone seen the Liberals lately? #nlpoli

This editorial by Craig Westcott originally appeared in The Pearl newspaper and is re-produced here with permission.

Two of the most serious issues to hit Newfoundland and Labrador in some time occurred over the past two weeks and on neither one of them was the provincial Liberal Party prepared to perform its duty. Neither the leader, nor any MHA, was available to give guidance, offer comment, or suggest any indication of the government-in-waiting’s thinking.

The first, and more serious issue, was the tragic shooting of Don Dunphy, who was killed after the Premier’s Office referred one of his social media comments to Paul Davis’ bodyguard detail for investigation.

The tragedy raises fundamental questions about public safety, political management of the police and an individual’s basic freedom to comment on political issues and express dissent without fear of receiving a visit from the police or being blacklisted by the government. How the police visit led to Mr. Dunphy’s death is a mystery that has yet to be explained. That the tweet in question led to a police visit is disturbing. It contained no threat to the premier or anyone else. On that basis, the police visit to his home was a contravention of Mr. Dunphy’s human rights.

The circumstances connected to the killing of Mr. Dunphy question the integrity of our justice and political systems and threaten democracy itself. And yet neither Liberal Leader Dwight Ball nor any of his caucus members have stepped forward to offer their assessment and recommendations. They have scurried into hiding like bats at the approach of daylight. Up to the time of this writing, not a peep has escaped their lips since Mr. Dunphy was shot and killed by the premier’s body guard.

The other issue that has driven the Liberals into hiding is the so-called House of Assembly ‘reform.’ The commission charged with chopping eight districts and redrawing the electoral map unveiled its proposed scheme last week.

NDP Leader Earle McCurdy was out early and often pointing out the flaws in the ‘reform,’ especially when it comes to gutting representation in rural Newfoundland. The Liberals supported the PC government in its unexpected, rash and ill-considered proposal to reduce the legislature.

It was a desperate ploy by Premier Davis to delay the long overdue provincial election and the Liberals fell for it.

Perhaps that’s partly why most of them have lost the use of their voice boxes. The more likely reason, however, is that the proposed new boundaries sets up the Liberals for some internal dog fights over district nominations, even between the leader and a fellow MHA in the newly proposed district of Gros Morne. The only Liberal to step forward with a genuine  comment as of Tuesday was MHA Jim Bennett.

The Liberals’ poor performance when it comes to addressing key issues is not new. Their stand on the multibillion dollar boondoggle that is Muskrat Falls has been vacillating, confusing and, given their failure to oppose a giveaway of gigantic and historic proportions, irresponsible.

Similarly, they have failed to press Davis about his various tricks to delay the election – which according to the electoral law brought in by Danny Williams, called for the vote to have been held by this past January, due to the resignation in January 2013 of Premier Kathy Dunderdale. When Davis told the CBC recently that he was looking at delaying the election yet again, until after the federal vote on October 19, the Liberals maintained silence.

Their reticence is inexplicable. Paul Davis’ PCs have shown themselves to be incompetent, untrustworthy and in disarray. They are unworthy of government.

Surprisingly then for this late in the game, the question begs to be asked: If Dwight Ball’s Liberals are incapable or unwilling to do their job as the people’s loyal Opposition, how can they be trusted to take on government?

Given their timidity, the Liberals are not so much a government in waiting as they are a party in hiding.

-srbp-

Goldilocks and the three mayors #nlpoli

Almost a week after we all got a peek at the new provincial electoral boundaries,  things have settled down in some areas and the insanity has exploded in others.

Over on the political side,  things have largely settled down.  The Liberals, for example have a raft of nominations to re-run but there’s no sign of any significant problems.  Sure, there are pissed off people, but in the long run things should work out. 

On the west coast, every incumbent or nominated candidate should be able to find a home. Your humble e-scribbler made a mistake on Monday:  there are actually enough seats in the new configuration for Gerry Byrne,  Stelman Flynn, and Ed Joyce to find a spot.

Jim Bennett is doing the smart thing and looking for a seat without a Liberal incumbent where there’s a good chance he could win. He’s looking at Terra Nova, according to media reports, and the current Conservative incumbent - Sandy Collins - is eyeing Gander.  Ditto Jeff Marshall, who has decided to run in Ferryland district now that the old Kilbride district is gone. 

Minority Report #nlpoli

One of the police officers responsible for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary’s Twitter presence did an interview with CBC’s Anthony Germain last Friday.

The online CBC story that came out of the interview had an interesting set of comments in it. Constable Geoffrey Higdon said:

“People think Facebook or Twitter is different in how we traditionally police. It's actually very much the same. In a sense, it's no different than someone writing a threat to someone, or to an organization, on a wall in a bathroom or a public place. And we would investigate that and treat that seriously, until we determine that there is no threat."

Writing something on Twitter is like writing something on a bathroom wall.

Got that?

Politics, the police, and tragedy #nlpoli

Last October,  Premier Paul Davis appointed Lynn Moore to his new advisory council on crime.  Moore is in private practice these days but, as the little profile Davis’ office appended to their announcement of her appointment shows,  Moore spent five years as the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary’s in-house lawyer.

She’s also been known to write the odd letter or two to the editor of the local papers.

Last October, for example, Moore felt compelled to write to the editor of theindependent.ca to explain why she thought that the province wouldn’t turn into a police state now that a former police constable was the Premier.  Such thinking was the result of bias and elitism,  according to Moore.

Last weekend, Moore sent another letter to the gang at the Indy.  This time,  she tried to tie the death of Don Dunphy to what Moore called “boneheaded” decisions like the Liberal one 20 years ago that put one cop in a car instead of two.

Political Boundary Issues #nlpoli

Some people thought that the electoral boundaries commission wouldn’t get its job done within 120 days.

On Friday, those people found out that was a pretty silly hope on their part.  That’s the day the commission released its preliminary maps of the new 36 districts on the island.  The district maps appeared on the Internet around 11:00 AM and by noon the truly hard-core political nerds had looked at the maps and sized them up.

Here are some quick observations on the boundaries and initial reactions to them.

The week from hell #nlpoli

You gotta feel for police chief Bill Janes and the rest of the men and women of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

All this happened between Sunday, April 5, 2015 and Thursday April 9, 2015:

• An RNC officer investigating a complaint by the Premier’s Office about an online comment shoots and kills the interview subject during a confrontation.
• A former civilian employee convicted of tipping off the subject of a drug investigation about the police operation appeals her nine month sentence for obstruction of justice.
• A Provincial Court judge in Corner Brook sentenced a constable to four months for making indecent telephone calls and 10 months for misleading police during their investigation of the indecent telephone calls.
• The Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing an RNC internal investigation of a senior non-commissioned officer for his actions in the indecent telephone call investigation.  The internal investigation found no no grounds to lay charges against the NCO.
• A constable who has been unpaid leave for two and a half years was arrested on Thursday and charged with two counts of uttering threats to kill or harm a woman and two counts of uttering threats to cause damage to property and of damaging the property.  Janes has ordered an internal investigation into the incident. 

-srbp-

The irresponsible rush to judgment #nlpoli

For those not involved but deeply concerned about the events in Mitchell’s Brook on Easter Sunday, one of the more disturbing aspects of the Dunphy shooting has been the ease with which a relatively small number of people have taken up sides on the shooting without much in the way of evidence.

The rush to judgment has been equally easy both for those unduly keen to declare the shooting was “by the book” as for those who see the shooting as a political assassination,  murder of an injured worker, or a sign of what will come  under the federal government’s controversial anti-terror legislation. 

At the same time,  official sources have decided to say very little.  They shouldn’t discuss the subject of the investigation itself.  That would be inappropriate and both the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have shut down any extraneous information.  The only official comment is coming from the detachment handling the investigation.

The official vacuum extends much winder than it should though.  There’s a complete absence of factual information about the type of investigation, its scope,  or the actors involved in this incident.  Basic information would kill off most of the commentary out there coming from all sides. 

The result is that the public is misinformed.   They aren’t getting a full picture.

For the Quebec lovers #nlpoli

We’ve got two recent pieces on events in Quebec.

Don Macpherson explains why the student “strikes” aren’t really strikes at all.

And for all those people still cheering about the great student resistance to austerity in Quebec,  Paul Wells explains what austerity in Quebec means.

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The Dunphy Shooting: serious questions #nlpoli

Question Number 1:  Who has been trying to spin the story by feeding both David Cochrane and Fred Hutton with confidential information?

The standard police position is to withhold all information about officer-involved shootings as part of the investigation.

That’s the position Royal Newfoundland Constabulary chief Bill Janes took at his news conference on Monday morning about the death of Donny Dunphy.

Yet, both VOCM and CBC reported information on Sunday evening and early Monday morning about the fatal police shooting in a rural community that could have only come from either very highly placed political sources or police officers very close to the incident and the investigation.

Here’s the first line from Cochrane’s first story:

CBC News has learned that an officer of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, who was at the scene of the fatal shooting on Sunday in Mitchells Brook, NL, was there to investigate an alleged threat against Premier Paul Davis.

Other reports indicated that the officer shot Dunphy after Dunphy produced a “long gun” on the lone police officer there.

All those details could only have come from the officer who shot Dunphy, someone else who was on the scene at the time of the shooting, one of the investigating officers, or a senior political staffer who had been briefed on the incident by police.

Who has been leaking information?

Soothsayer #nlpoli

Wade Locke has had a profound impact on public policy in this province like no academic since Parzival Copes.

Locke has been intimately involved with Conservative policy since 2003.  He has provided advice to both the oil industry and to the provincial government and its energy company Nalcor.  He’s also acted as a public commentator on economic issues, often simultaneously and without having the conflict of interest inherent in such a position identified for the audience.

If you aren't on holiday somewhere,  take a look at this interview  Wade Locke did with Roger Bill of BellAliant’s community channel.  Wade’s comments will tie into a couple of posts coming later this week.

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The New Chainsaw Earle #nlpoli

Carol Furlong had the good fortune to be the head of the province’s largest public sector union at a time when the provincial government had more cash than it knew what to do with and was prepared to buy support from anyone, anywhere, at any price.

Now that the bills for the Conservatives’ profligacy are coming due,  the people who profited from it are rightly nervous that they will be asked to pay up.

The fellow they elected to replace Furlong – Jerry Earle – has promised to be more aggressive in dealing with government.  He appears to be a reactionary union boss of the old fashioned kind.  In his first scrum with reporters,  Earle promised to make himself the official opposition to government.

While everyone in the province ought to take notice of the NAPE presidential election two politicians in particular need to pay particular attention.

Rumpole and the Judge’s Wage #nlpoli

How hard can it be to figure out what Provincial Court Judges should get paid to do their work dispensing justice all around the province?

Apparently, it can be quite difficult.

There’s a teeny amendment bill in the House that sets a new date for a report from a commission that has to be set up to figure out the judges’ pay and benefits:

(1.2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the next report required under subsection (1) after September 30, 2010 shall be presented to the minister not later than December 31, 2015.

Once the thing gets through the House,  this “Act is considered to have come into force on September 29, 2014.”

That’s six months ago.

What the heck has been going on all this time?