The New SRBP

After a couple of years of irregular posting, SRBP has been back since the start of the year with at least one new post every Monday.

Some of you have likely noticed this already. 

What you may also have noticed is the appearance of  a longer form paper as well.  They are a return to the original idea for this space:  a series of detailed papers on major issues affecting the province.

From the production end of things, that's been the most significant development.  The longer papers allow for a bit more background and a bit more discussion of the conclusion.  That's important for people who want to better understand the issues involved and,  as in the paper on rate mitigation,  a better explanation of the proposed solution.

So far there has been one paper,  the one on rate mitigation.  There is another in the works on barriers to medical care, a subject the Atlantic region's governments have made a top priority.  This is one of those well-known problems that no one has come to grips with so far.  The SRBP paper will describe the scope of the problem and highlight some solutions to it.  The solutions are practical and workable.  They will only need a decision from those in authority since the problems - quite ridiculous once you see them laid out - are theirs to fix.

There's also one on reforming the provincial political system.  This is a bit different as the ways to achieve goals many people desire are not quite so easy to attain as some imagine.  All the same,  the paper should give anyone interested in the subject both a better understanding of how we got to the place we current find ourselves in and of the potential ways to get to the end goal.

There may be some other changes as the year progresses. 

Stay tuned to see what happens.

-srbp-

Jack Harris: Good Bye and Good Night #nlpoli

From 2006 to early 2010,  Simon Lono wrote Offal News, a commentary on local politics, debating, and whatever caught Simon's eye.  

When Jack Harris quit as leader of the provincial New Democratic Party,  Simon turned his sharp eye to Harris' legacy. Simon respected differences of opinion but he had no time for anyone who fell below the high standards that Simon set for himself.  

Harris jumped to federal politics not long after and represented St. John's East until he was defeated by Nick Whelan in 2015.  Since Harris announced last week that he wanted to be the NDP candidate again, here's a second look at Simon's obituary for Harris' provincial political career.  

Jack Harris:  Good Bye and Good Night

by Simon Lono (April, 2006)

Like many of us of a certain age, I had the period in my life where the ideas of democratic socialism had a certain appeal. And why wouldn't they? They expressed some of the highest ideals of human generosity, belief of control over our destiny and the sense that all people deserve basic fairness. And further, it seemed that all those things were within the grasp of government to deliver.

But then as Aristide Briand said, "The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head."

Jack Harris, I'm sorry to say, never found his head. Nor did he ever find his calling as the leader of a provincial political party. When you look as his record as a political leader and contributor to provincial public affairs, the best one can say is that he always demonstrated potential.

The problem was that he generally managed to perform way below his perceived potential. On occasion,  he surprised us all with occasional flashes of true political competence worthy of his inflated reputation. More often he just disappointed us all.

Let me give you just two examples:

More beige than beige #nlpoli

The Premier had a carefully rehearsed message when reporters asked him on Thursday why he had appointed everyone in cabinet back to their old portfolios despite an election that had reduced his party to a minority government.

A cabinet of "experience, consistency, and stability,"  Dwight Ball called them.

He used the word "experienced" a couple of times and emphasised the word "stable" as he finished the answer to one question.  You can find a bit of Ball's scrum with reporters at about the 42 minute mark of CBC's Here and Now broadcast. NTV's story got the "stability" message loud and clear.

The election result was a shock to many people.  People can debate what it meant that voters didn't endorse any one party to have a majority in the legislature.

Ball has a political problem even if he is in heavy denial about it but all the talk about experience and stability wasn't about dealing with a political problem.  Voters aren't panicked by the minority government.

Ball was dealing with a financial problem.  His plans depend heavily on the ability to borrow a couple of billions dollars to make his budget work.  Ball will have a much harder time borrowing money if the bond-rating agencies take a dim view of his government's ability to manage public finances in the wake of the election.

Deficit *is* higher than previously announced #nlpoli

The House of Assembly will have to deliver a budget that keeps access to new public debt for the foreseeable future. The politicians must satisfy the bond-rating agencies, not the voters. 

Parties don't matter.  Ideologies don't matter.  Voters don't matter.  

That is the essence of politics in Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 21st century.

Anyone who knows Dwight Ball knows that he does not make simple mistakes with numbers.

Yet, the official explanation is that he made a simple mistake with numbers on Sunday's Issues and Answers when he said the deficit for the current year is between $800 and $900 million dollars. SRBP pointed out his comments on Tuesday.

As NTV's Michael Connors reported first via Twitter and later on the NTV Evening News,  Premier's Office and finance department officials claim that the Premier's comments "were actually looking ahead to 2020-21, which has a projected deficit of $796 million."  The deficit projection for 2019 remains at $577 million, according to officials.

Deficit $250 - $300 million higher than announced before election according to Premier #nlpoli

In the episode that aired on 26 May 2019, Premier Dwight Ball told NTV's Issues and Answers that the deficit for the current budget is between $800 - $900 million.

"Are you prepared to make any specific changes to the budget in order to get their support?" asked Mike Connors.

"I think this budget is the one we ran on... everyone understands this budget is between an 800 to 900 million dollar deficit..."

Minor problem.

When finance minister Tom Osborne delivered the budget on April 16,  he confirmed that the deficit in the budget the Liberals ran on was $575 million, once you took out the payments from the Hibernia Asset-Backed Dividend Agreement.  That's the figure finance officials gave during the budget lock-up to media and other groups.

Simon Lono , 1963-2019

Simon Lono  - husband, father, grandfather, advocate, orator, writer, mentor, friend  - died Friday, May 24, 2019.  

He was 56.  

When our friends are alive, we do not spend time thinking about the past.  We do not think about how we met them, about all the things we did with them, or why it is that we like them.

When they are alive, we do not need to remember because they are there, every day.

We only feel a need to remember, once they are not there any more.

Simon Lono’s family and friends spent Saturday as they are likely to spend a lot of days from now on.  They thought about him, remembered when they first met him, all the things they had done together, why they loved him.

Simon is dead.

And so, we remember.

We recall.

Frantically.

As if the memories will make the hard truth go away.

As if the memories will replace all of the things that could have been or would have been.

But that will never be.

Because there is a hard truth.

Simon is dead.

Killed by a rare disease.

In itself, entirely fitting.

The Lowest-Common Denominator Minority Legislature #nlpoli

An inherently unstable minority legislature where the parties have a history of finding political agreement through public spending is not exactly a recipe for tough decisions.

There is something seductively sweet about the idea that the minority government that resulted from last week’s general election has now solved all our problems Just get back to work, some people are saying.  And play nice, together.  No more of this bickering and name-calling.

Something seductively sweet but the sweetness reveals itself as bitter naïveté when one considers that we now have a fundamentally unstable legislature at the very time when both the government’s finances and the Muskrat Falls mess are coming together.

Make no mistake about it.  Minority legislatures are inherently unstable.  They tend not to last more than a couple of years. The one elected last week will get through six months or so without much chance of upheaval.  But once the opposition parties have sorted out their finances and, in all likelihood, the Tories have found a new leader, they will be ready to bring down the House.

Anyone who tells you that the public doesn’t want an election, either now or in the near future, simply has not been paying attention.  For the past three years, poll after poll gave the current administration very low marks.  Respondents consistently rated the Premier poorly.  The last poll before the lection and two during it all showed the same thing.

The 1908 Election all over again #nlpoli

You will hear a lot of spin about Thursday’s election result.  

Doesn’t matter where it is coming from. 

 It is all spin and all spin is bullshit.

Thursday night’s election result has been coming for three years.  The polls have pointed to the public mood and their views of parties and leaders.  Only the blind ignored it.  Robocalls and dirty tricks did not produce the result.  No Blue Waves were involved.

The Forecast

On Thursday morning, SRBP posted a projection based on polling and information coming from all three parties directly and indirectly.

Here’s how it played out compared to the result at about 10:00 PM Thursday.

	Lib	PC	NDP	Ind
Forecast	19	18	1	2
Range	+/- 2	+/- 3	+/- 1	- 1
Actual	20	15	3	2

The Liberal projection was almost bang on.  The Conservatives were within the range of the projection.  The Independent forecast was bang on.  Only the NDP exceeded expectations and that was by virtue of a good candidate who succeeded, in some respects, despite the deadweight of the Dipper crowd in town.

Poor Ed's Almanac - a hot summer is coming #nlpoli

The prospect of a minority government coupled with the need to pass a budget in the legislature after the election could produce a long, hot summer of political manoeuvring.

Mainstreet Research released its poll on the Newfoundland and Labrador election.  It basically shows what Abacus and Forum showed, which is a slightly Conservative lead in overall vote intention.

With that and the election due tomorrow, here's a guess at a possible seat count. This is based on the polls, observation of the campaign, and a bit of guesswork. There is no right answer and this version could be off by a seat or two for the Liberals.  You might add an extra New Democrat to the mix but no more.  There might be one fewer Independent.

Ego, Brain Farts, and Electoral Reform #nlpoli

Public ignorance of our political system is a scourge. Tackling that is the first step to meaningful electoral reform in Newfoundland and Labrador.  The second priority is to make sure the players do not set the rules for everyone, as they have done repeatedly, and disastrously, since 2003. Most of all, we need to get on with reform, as soon as possible.

While there are many good reasons for electoral reform in Newfoundland and Labrador, most of the recent talk of changes to how elections run in the province is from people who want to give an advantage to a party they like.

Take the decision in 2015 to slash public representation in the House.  The Conservatives who were behind the notion, figured it would be easier to win a majority of 20 seats instead of 48. They knew they couldn’t get 24 but hoped they could cling to power with 20 or 21.  Depending on how the count goes on Thursday, they might be right.

The Liberals who backed the cuts, like Dwight Ball, were concerned only that the idea appeared popular.  They thought that by siding with a popular initiative they would gain favour with voters. 

Lots of popular things don’t drive votes and this was one of them.  If they thought about the electoral math – and there’s no sign they did – then they likely hit on the same self-serving reason the Conservatives did.  Depending on how the count goes on Thursday, they might be as right or as wrong as the Conservatives when they last held power.

Then there’s the business of fixed election dates.

The Abacus Poll for Election 2019 #nlpoli

The chart below looks like there has been a huge jump up and down in “no choice” and a corresponding big change in party choice but actually there is some consistency across the board.

Click to enlarge

As SRBP has been saying for a couple of months, the Conservatives and Liberals have basically been polling in the 20s for the past three years.  These results are within that 10-point spread, allowing with the odd leap above 30 or below 20.  The “no choice” option (green dotted line) has been consistently above 35 the whole time.  Abacus is an outlier in that sense but, there is an election campaign underway.

The Abacus poll – conducted between May 2 and May 5 – shows the Conservatives in the lead with the Liberals trailing.,  But here’s the thing,  the gap, even in the presentation of “decideds” or “committed” is really inside the bounds of possibilities covered by the margin of error.

Just to drive the point home.  Here is a sample of MQO and Abacus results over the past year or so.

	Liberal	Conservative	New Democrat	No Choice
Abacus Feb-18	22	18	12	48
Abacus May-18	22	24	13	41
MQO Apr-19	25	20	06	47
Abacus May-19	29	33	12	21

Election 2019 - First Poll #nlpoli

While the MQO poll shows the Liberals in the lead, a new poll from Abacus  - released with an hour of this appearing - will likely show that since the debate, the political landscape of the province has changed dramatically.

The latest poll from MQO showed that after a week and bit of campaigning, voters were almost precisely where they were at the end of March when MQO conducted a poll for NTV.

When asked which party they would vote for in an election, 47% made no choice compared to 56% in March.  More chose Liberals (25/21) than Conservatives (20/18) or New Democrats (6/4). One percent chose the NL Alliance and one percent chose the Green Party.  Neither registered support in March.

The gap between Liberals and Conservatives is within the margin of error.

Detailed poll data courtesy MQO Research
Click image to enlarge

The variation between March and April results is also within the margin of error for the poll (plus or minus four percentage points 19 times out of 20). The margin of error for the “decideds”-only sub-sample, widely reported by news media, would be higher since it based on only half the total sample.

NTV included a question in the MQO quarterly omnibus.  They asked which party people thought would win the election.  46% of respondents chose the Liberals, 21% the Conservatives and 30% made no choice. This is a useful question since research suggests the response to this question frequently closely matches the popular vote result in an election.

The Financial Reality of Election 2019 #nlpoli

The financial reality confronting any administration after May 16 is the same regardless of which party wins the election. 

The government is unlikely to balance the budget in 2022, regardless of who wins the 2019 election. 

In 2019, as in 2015, the last government budget before the election did not accurately describe the government’s current or likely future financial position.  All three parties did not make this an election issue in 2015 and have ignored the government’s financial situation in 2019. 

The governing Liberals are running on their current budget, which is included in the campaign platform. They apparently have no new spending plans beyond the current budget. The Conservatives cost their plan at $254 million.  These promises must be assessed against the financial realities of the provincial government.

The Financial Situation

We can accept the government forecasts of revenue for what they are although there are some issues, as noted below.  We must add the following expenditures to the government's projected spending in 2020 and beyond.  These additional expenses are why it is highly unlikely the government will balance the books in 2022.

Voter Turn-out and Popular Vote Shares of Parties, 1949 - 2019 #nlpoli

Election turn-out has been declining steadily for provincial elections since the mid-1990s.  The 2019 general election is on track to show a record low turn-out at 44% of eligible voters.

Party share of eligible vote had declined in the same period.  The Liberal victory in 2015 went against the pattern since Confederation of an increased turn-out in an election in which the government changes hands.

In the 70 years since Confederation, provincial voter turn-out has varied in each election.

Turnout tended to be highest when there was a well-contested election such as on three occasions when the government changed hands.  The exception to this rule was 2015 when turn-out dropped from the previous election.

Click to enlarge

In 1989, turn-out was higher than the previous election but, curiously enough, in the hotly contested election of 1993,  turn-out actually went up.  That was the third-highest turn-out since Confederation, falling only five percentage points behind the 1971 general election that effectively ended Joe Smallwood’s reign as Premier.

There was a slight uptick in turn-out in 2003, but what is unmistakable is the steady trend downward of turn-out since the peak in 1993 (the green arrow).  The 2019 projection – based on MQO’s last poll for NTV  - would put turn-out in the general election at 44%.  Turn-out might be higher than that, but the signs are pointing toward a record low turn-out even if it does not reach below 50% of eligible voters.

Where do elections come from? #nlpoli

From fixed election dates to the number of candidates that run in an election,  what Newfoundlanders and Labradorians believe about one of the basic institutions of their democracy is as much myth and rumour as reality. 

Here are some facts to help you navigate the world of post-Confederation elections in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Crown Prerogative, exercised with the advice of the Premier

Newfoundland and Labrador does not have a fixed election date.

The changes to the House of Assembly Act in 2004 that supposedly set the election date for a day in October every four years starts with a simple clause that supersedes the fixed date bit:

3. (1) Notwithstanding another provision of this section, the Lieutenant-Governor may, by proclamation in Her Majesty's name, prorogue or dissolve the House of Assembly when the Lieutenant-Governor sees fit.

To understand how that works, we need to recall some basic constitutional points first.  Except in some very rare – but important – instances, the Lieutenant-Governor may only act with the advice of the Executive Council.

Restoring Power - Mitigating the Impacts of Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

Left untended, the Muskrat Falls project threatens the financial well-being of the government and people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The threat cannot be removed merely by directing money from one pot or another to offset the impact the mismanaged project’s costs would have on electricity rates in the province.  

The threat from Muskrat Falls can only be removed by concerted action that addresses the project’s financial burden, restores integrity to the system of electricity regulation, and that breaks, once and for all time, the fundamentally corrupt relationship between the provincial hydro-electric corporation and the provincial government. This is the only way to restore power to the province’s people so that they may control their own future.

Budget 2019 - revised trends #nlpoli

Budget 2019 was an election budget in the sense it contained a lot of little goodies, but there was nothing to get overly excited about.

While everyone else is focused on the shot-term,  the long-term trending contains more interesting tidbits.  The following slides update the post from Monday.

Income versus Spending

Budget 2019 forecasts cash spending (capital and current) of about $8.0 billion, about $200 million above the 2018 actual spending.

A CHEAP Framework - the PC and Liberal Muskrat Falls plans #nlpoli

The Conservative and Liberal Muskrat Falls rate mitigation plans are the same.  Both include magical assumptions of revenue.  Both omit crucial details.

Note: Some people asked on Monday for comment or analysis of the two plans to mitigate Muskrat Falls' impact on provincial electricity rates.  

This is an abbreviated summary of the two plans and some issues flowing from it. A more substantive analysis will come on Monday 22 April 2019 with the publication here of the SRBP rate mitigation proposal  called "Restoring Power."

General

The Conservative and Liberal rate mitigation plans are the same idea. 

This is not surprising since the Conservatives copied the Liberal approach and used the same information from the Public Utilities Board review as the basis for the plan details.

The Liberal and Conservative plan uses the following approach:

1.  Pick a Number
2. Subtract other Numbers
3. Use Magic
4. Hit zero

Budget 2019 Context #nlpoli

Most of the commentary about Budget 2019 on Tuesday will be focused on the short-term.

Here are some slides that show longer-term trending.  We'll update them later on with the Budget 2019 figures.This is the sort of stuff that bears watching especially since the announcement of a new federal transfer payment came with the unexplained claim that it will magically reduce public debt and return the government to surplus over night.

The 2005 and 2019 Federal-Provincial Agreements #nlpoli

The Atlantic Accord functions in Newfoundland and Labrador politics in two ways.  There is the agreement between the Government of Canada and the provincial government that established the joint management framework for the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. At the same time, there is the political prop and the associated mythology that has, in largest measure, replaced the actual agreement in both the popular and political/bureaucratic understanding of it.

Neither the 2005 nor 2019 federal-provincial agreements commonly referred to as the Atlantic Accord or revised Atlantic Accord had anything to do with development and management of the oil and gas resources offshore Newfoundland and Labrador. Neither changed the 1985 agreement directly or indirectly.

The widely-held belief is completely different. The popular misconception comes from the fact that in both cases, the premiers faced with financial difficulties linked their demands for money from Ottawa to the Atlantic Accord. In both cases, the issues were about something else.  In 2005, the discussion was actually about Equalization. It 2019, the final agreement was about financial assistance for the provincial government about its own financial difficulties and to deal with the troubled Muskrat Falls project.   

The Atlantic Accord: background to the 1985 agreement #nlpoli

The Atlantic Accord functions in Newfoundland and Labrador politics in two ways.  There is the agreement between the Government of Canada and the provincial government that established the joint management framework for the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. At the same time, there is the political prop and the associated mythology that has, in largest measure, replaced the actual agreement in both the popular and political/bureaucratic understanding of it.

Provincial Concerns and Objectives

The Atlantic Accord ended a decade of often acrimonious dispute between the federal and provincial governments over offshore oil and gas resources.  The province had initially staked its claim to ownership of the resource in 1975, based on the premise that Newfoundland and Labrador brought the resources with them at the time of Confederation and had retained jurisdiction over them.

The Supreme Court of Canada ended the dispute in its decision on a reference from the Government of Canada.  The Court found that, for several reasons, the right to explore and exploit offshore resources and the legislative jurisdiction to do so lay with the federal government. The court decided that, in addition to other considerations, control of the offshore was a function of Canada’s international status.  Under the Terms of Union, this part of Newfoundland’s pre-Confederation legal status transferred to the federal government.

The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal addressed a reference from the provincial government that also concluded the federal government had jurisdiction over the offshore.

Gaslighting a society #nlpoli

Saturday morning and Facebook delivered a video clip of Peter Mansbridge accepting a lifetime achievement award.

After the obligatory thanks to everyone, Mansbridge delivers a scripted couple of minutes about journalism in the age of fake news and alternate facts.

"Journalism is under threat," Mansbridge warned, "in a way we haven't witnessed before."

"The very principle that we stand for is under attack."

"Truth is under attack."

Finding truth and presenting truth is important, according to Mansbridge.

Challenging power and those who wield it is important for "power unchallenged too often becomes power abused."

Everyone loses: new MQO poll for NTV #nlpoli

On the eve of an anticipated election call, voters in Newfoundland and Labrador turn up their noses at everyone currently on the field.

The latest MQO poll for NTV shows why no one should discard the people who don;t pick a party when asked who they would vote for.

When asked which party, they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow,  a majority - 56%  - said either that they would not vote,  refused to answer, or said they were undecided.

Liberal support dropped five points from the previous MQO poll, going from 26 to 21.  PC Support dropped from 25% to 18% and NDP support sank to four percent.  The party defectors all went into the bag of supposedly undecided voters.  It looks much more like they were opting for "none of the above."

Banning plastic bags and public policy in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

Effective public policy must be based on a clear understanding of the problem and its relation to other issues, as well as public needs and behaviour.

"...almost 50% of all wind borne litter escaping from landfills in Newfoundland and Labrador is plastic, much of it single-use plastic bags....

There's the problem, defined neatly.

The quote is from Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador's campaign against plastic shopping bags.

Put the quote in a search engine on the Internet and you will turn up all sorts of places, including news stories, that use that phrase or a slight variation on it in coverage of the popular campaign to ban plastic bags from the province.  Here's an example from The Telegram in 2017 and another a couple of days later that went province-wide.

One small question:  what's the source for the statistic?

Unformation #nlpoli

Changes in the news media,  changes in the audience, and changes in what information organizations provide to the pubic have created the Unformation Age.  Information  -  facts, figures, data - is less important than unsubstantiated opinion assembled to serve a temporary purpose and often lacking coherence over time. This is the abandonment of  a common means of assembling information coherently that affects all aspects of society.  

"Deep Dive" is the name that Saltwire gives to its new series that is supposed to give readers more information on specific topics that are of concern across the Atlantic Canada.  

The series gives Saltwire a way to produce unique content using all its resources in Atlantic Canada, thereby lowering the burden on any one newsroom.  Saltwire hopes the Deep Dives will generate new income for the chain. In future, Deep Dives will be accessible only to subscribers.  The rest of us will be blocked by a paywall.  

It's a business model that has worked successfully at major newspapers, which have either halted declining revenue from subscriptions using paywalls or seen revenue growth to offset the losses from the old cash-cow advertising.

It might work.  The real question is whether Saltwire will produce the content that will make readers dig into their pockets.

So that makes you wonder how deep is the deep dive?

Seven Days of Books in One #nlpoli

The seven books from my part of the book challenge, with each described by the respective publisher's blurb:

1.  The myth of the strong leader by Archie Brown.

Archie Brown challenges the widespread belief that 'strong leaders', dominant individual wielders of power, are the most successful and admirable.

Within authoritarian regimes, a collective leadership is a lesser evil compared with a personal dictatorship. Within democracies, although ‘strong leaders’ are seldom as strong or independent as they purport to be, the idea that just one person is entitled to take the big decisions is harmful and should be resisted.

Examining Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair amongst many others, this landmark study pinpoints different types and qualities of leadership. Overturning the popular notion of the strong leader, it makes us rethink preconceptions about what it means to lead."

The Politics of Beige #nlpoli

The trend is impossible to miss.

Utterly undeniable.

Since early 2016,  through poll after poll,  voters in Newfoundland and Labrador have chosen "None of the Above"  when asked what party they would vote for in an upcoming election.

Click to enlarge

Support for the New Democrats has been shrinking steadily like an orange left in the sun.

And the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, the only parties actually capable of presenting an alternative government to voters in an election have been ranging consistently between 20 and 30 percent.

There's no sign of that trend changing.

Napalm sticks... #nlpoli

The latest poll from MQO is being reported as a statistical tie by NTV , while CBC says it shows a "neck and neck" race between the PCs and Liberals.

That's not really the story of the polls, though and what they might mean.

Here's the pretty chart showing every party choice poll result since 2015 (except for Mainstreet*).

Click to enlarge

Now here's what it shows.

The Turmoil and Topsy Turvy #nlpoli

With so much changing in any office,  what has "always" been done really only goes back to the time of the last person who came in the door.

In Newfoundland and Labrador,  the provincial government has been censoring laws since 2012.

That's sounds absolutely insane to anyone in the province and outside, but that is undeniably the case.

Orders-in-Council are a type of law.  They are the decisions of the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council under powers granted by specific laws or from something called the Royal prerogative.  They are public documents and in every Westminster-style government they are published regularly, without any form of redaction or censoring.

Except in Newfoundland Labrador.

Even in Newfoundland and Labrador, the idea of secret laws in a democracy would be downright sinister if it wasn't for the comical way the whole nonsense started and the reason it carries on.

Election year a time for serious issues #nlpoli

This originally appeared in The Telegram, 30 Jan 2019.

Budget consultations are not the place for serious discussions of government finances at the best of times but in an election year, the usual charade becomes something else again. 

This year, people lined up asking a government that is the better part of a billion dollars short on its budget this year to spend even more money that it doesn’t have next year.  There are the usual cries from the usual special interests to hire more of their members but even groups that two years ago were calling for drastic action to curb spending are now sticking their hands out toward the government election-year goodie bag in hopes a few treats.

For its part, the government is playing along.  There will likely be a tax cut this year and a few other bits of retail politics. But what you won’t hear about is that the government probably won’t hit its target of delivering a surplus budget in 2022.  That is a major problem. There are three reasons for it.

Turmoil, unusual #nlpoli

A petro-state with political instability is a pretty weird idea 

but then again we *are* talking Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Government in Newfoundland and Labrador brings in money revenue per person living in the province than any other government in Canada except Alberta.  It's been like that since 2009.

In fact, for a couple of years before 2009, the provincial government posted record cash surpluses based solely on the world price for oil.

At the same time,  though, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have seen an unprecedented period of change in the most senior positions in their provincial government.  Political and public service jobs have changed hands at an unprecedented rate.

The Spring Election - when and why #nlpoli

There's likely going to be an election before Victoria Day.

If - by some miracle - the Liberals manage to win the Topsail-Paradise by-election next week you could be at the polls before the beer turns green for a day.

If you haven't heard that,  don't say now that you haven't been warned.

Mitigating Muskrat Falls: Ron, Harry, and Hermione are still baffled #nlpoli

Mitigating the impacts Muskrat Falls will have on taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador remains the single biggest unanswered question in the province nine years after the project started and the politicians first started talking about how they might do it.

To mark the 14th anniversary of The Sir Robert Bond Papers,  here's the tale from 2010 to now.

Most people in Newfoundland and Labrador finally noticed the impact Muskrat Falls would have on electricity prices when Nalcor chief executive Stan Marshall confirmed that Muskrat Falls would double electricity prices in the province once it was finished in 2021. 

That was the middle of 2017.

The word “mitigates” - to make less severe or painful - became popular overnight.  Since Marshall’s comments, just about all that anyone in Newfoundland and Labrador has fretted about is how the government will make electricity prices not double because of Muskrat Falls.

But here’s the thing:  Muskrat Falls was always supposed to double your electricity prices. Right from the start – November 2010 – the provincial government talked about electricity prices of between 14 and 16 cents wholesale, which would have made the retail cost in this province about double what it was at the time.  No worries, people like Kathy Dunderdale said.  Oil prices will be so high and electricity prices will be so high by 2017, anyway, that you will never notice Muskrat Falls except that it will stop prices from climbing higher.

The ins and outs of Equalization #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Each year,  Canadian media conduct year-end interviews with politicians and every year the interviews are nothing but space fillers.

This year's version with Premier Dwight Ball  - for NTV (broadcast but not posted yet)  and the Telegram, thus far - are no exception. They asked the same questions,  got the same replies, and anyone that actually watched or read them got the political-turkey sleepies.

The only spark of life came on NTV when Lynn Burry uncharacteristically lost her composure over Equalization and the amount of money Quebec gets.  Burry got so riled up that she actually interrupted Ball just as he started to wander through an answer.

Burry is like a lot of people, especially in the provincial petro-states across Canada,  who decided to get angry at "Quebec" for something that happens every year:  the Quebec provincial government collects the lion's share of federal Equalization transfers.  Provincial governments in Alberta,  Saskatchewan , and Newfoundland and Labrador are all in financial trouble and some of the locals, especially politicians in power, complain about what is happening in another province.

The problem with Burry's question - as with the entire Equalization outrage is that it just nonsense.  So let's just apply a little insight into the whole business and sort things out.

A spring election now seems more likely #nlpoli

Here's the local poll tracker, now that the final party choice poll of the year is in.  (CRA Q4 Omnibus)

It's every party choice poll by any firm (less a couple of outliers)  all converted, where necessary, to show the results as a share of all choice.

Undecideds are a valid option in the SRBP world.

You can see that the Liberals are still roughly where they were in the middle of the year:  hovering just under 30%.  In this latest poll they are about seven points ahead of the Progressive Conservatives, which is to say they are really not in a very comfortable spot.   They are a minor swing away from being in a bad spot.

The PCs, meanwhile, have been on a slide since the first of the year and they just rebounded slightly.  But given that the rebound is less than the margin of error for all these polls,  they really haven't to any amount worth speaking of.
The NDP are a dismal, distant, and decidedly irrelevant third.

The MQO poll and Party Choice #nlpoli

MQO's quarterly omnibus poll shows some curious changes in public opinion about provincial political parties.  The province-wide numbers are not curious:  the changes in a couple of the regions are.

Let's take a look first at the provincial numbers.  As usual, SRBP presents the results as a share of all responses, including the refused/undecided/no answer folks.  That's why the numbers here are different from the ones used by MQO in its own release and reported by local news media.  Go to the end of the post for a brief discussion about the way the data is presented.

MQO kindly provided the data tables for this analysis free of charge.  The data collection methodology is theirs.  Interpretation of the data here is solely SRBP.  There is no business or other relationship between SRBP  and MQO to create a conflict of interest.

Contrary to media reports, support overall in the province for the governing Liberals didn't change in the last two quarters of 2018.  The Liberals had the support of 29 percent of respondents in Q3 and 28 percent in Q4.  Support for the Progressive Conservatives declined by four points - 25 to 21 - while support for the NDP went from 11 percent to nine percent.  The number of respondent who refused to answer,  were undecided, or planned not to vote grew by five points (from 36 to 41 percent of responses).

The Windsor Lake By-Election and polling #nlpoli

Market research firm MQO released a poll on September 10 about the Windsor Lake by-election.

They'd surveyed 300 people about how they would likely vote and about who they thought would make the best Premier from among the provincial party leaders.

On their choice among the candidates, MQO reported that 41% of decided and leaning voters favoured Paul Antle,  37% favoured Ches Crosbie, and 22% favoured Kerri Claire Neil.

The result on September 20 saw Crosbie win with 43% of votes cast.  Antle got 38% and Neil garnered 19% of votes.

Pretty much the opposite of what MQO said.

So MQO got it wrong,  some will say.

Others will think that Antle's campaign collapsed and Crosbie surged ahead based on whatever factors they might like to pick.

Well, there are a few problems with either of those scenarios.

The PUB, Exemptions, and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Here’s some background on the issue of Muskrat Falls and Public Utilities Board exemptions. 

At the end you should know what an exemption is all about, how the exemptions – there are more than one – came about – and what that means for now and in the future as far as electricity rates go.  We’ll deal with mitigation in another brief post next week.

The information here is based on material in the public record plus additional research and information accumulated over 30 years working on public policy issues in the province. That includes the 15 years of SRBP, much of which wound up being about the Lower Churchill project.

Let’s start with what an exemption is.

Bay du Nord and Equity #nlpoli

In a staged political event Thursday that was woefully short of basic details,  the provincial government and Equinor announced they will proceed with development of the Bay du Nord field in the Orphan Basin.  The news release for the event referred to a framework agreement only.

Bay du Nord is located approximately 500 kilometres east of St. John's,  in between 1.0 and 1.2 kilometres of water.  Equinor and its partner Husky Canada believe the field contains at least 300 million barrels of light crude.

The project will cost $6.8 billion to bring into production using a floating production storage and offloading vessel similar in concept to the FPSOs used for Terra Nova (1996)  and White Rose (2002).  The provincial government acquired 10% equity in the project in addition to royalties under the Offshore Oil  Royalty Regulations (2017).  The provincial government will therefore pay $90 million initially as well as $680 million during the construction phase.

Project sanction is expected in 2020 with first oil in 2025.

The following table shows a comparison of Terra Nova,  White Rose, and Bay du Nord, with all dollar amounts in 2018 dollars.

Electricity prices, risk, and what the editors didn't say #nlpoli

Okay.

What Muskrat Falls will do to electricity prices is not funny.

Never was.

But what *is* extremely funny are columns like Russell Wangersky's latest hand-wringer about the most recent round of electricity rates hikes.

Remember when we were told that Muskrat Falls was needed to stabilise electricity rates? 

Now, it’s pretty clear that it is destabilising them —- in a frightening fashion.

Let's review some information that has been in the public domain since the beginning of the project.  Russell has clearly either forgotten or chosen not to remember details because none of this stuff is new.

SRBP. "Fear and loathing on the energy campaign trail" from November 2010.

Note the date.

Rumpole and the Bleak House #nlpoli #cdnpoli

A scan of the docket for the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, General Division reveals that the Provincial Court Judges are having another whack at the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador over their ongoing and unresolved pay dispute.

Those who suffered through the tale of tardy judges will note that this is a new application.  The judge who heard the other application in the same dispute has yet to deliver a decision some 18 months later.

The Provincial Court Judges are serious about this.  They have retained an army of lawyers all named Susan Dawes.

Most likely to appear for the Crown will be Rolf "Change the regs" Pritchard.  He's the ace Crown attorney who first came to public attention during the Cameron Inquiry and who was most recently seen arguing with Bern Coffey  - who appeared behalf of a Corner Brook ophthalmologist - about whether people should get cataract surgery in a private clinic and have the taxpayers cover the bill through MCP.

The government's solution to the cataract dispute was to change the hospital insurance regulations.  Undoubtedly,  officials in the health department cracked open the spare bottle of sodastream water in the health department last Friday to celebrate the loophole they'd closed that allowed a doctor to think they could do that one procedure in their office while everything had to be done in a hospital.

They celebrated too soon.  The wording of the new regulations allows doctors to do everything MCP covers outside a hospital, paid for by the Crown,  *except* for cataracts.

D'oh.

Don't be surprised if ophthalmologists do everything but cataracts in their clinics and bill MCP for it.

And stand by for the cardiologists and all the other cutters to see what they can do in their private clinics as John Haggie foots the bill for the whole lot.

Meanwhile,  the judges in Provincial Court will just have to wait for yet another decision on yet another application in their ongoing dispute.  Perhaps they'd have a faster result by praying that someone from Health gets a job as assistant deputy minister in Justice. That might be the only way they will get their problems resolved quickly.  The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly in Newfoundland and Labrador.

-srbp-

Rumpole and the Ticking Clock #nlpoli #cdnpoli

There are rules about how long a judge may take to issue a decision.

Now, now.

The lawyers among you are already spitting their morning coffee across the breakfast table at their long-suffering spouses but it is true.

There are rules.