Big Dams and Empty Promises #nlpoli

Conservative leadership candidate Steve Kent may be running in third place in the race, but the guy makes bold promises.

His energy policy includes the pledge about Muskrat Falls that he will “bring this project in on time, and on budget.”

That’s a rather silly promise considering that the project – originally budgeted at $5.0 billion  - is already officially estimated to cost $7.0 billion and will more likely cost something well above $8.0 billion before everything is done. For those of you doing the math,  that puts the project officially at 40% more than when the project was approved in 2010 and more likely about 60% over budget.

Free Tampons #nlpoli

Jessica Valenti, a columnist at the Guardian newspaper argued in her column in early August, that women should get free feminine hygiene products.

Consider these points from Valenti’s column:

• “UNICEF estimates 10% of African girls don’t attend school during their periods”
• “One study showed that in Bangladesh, 73% of female factory workers miss an average of six days – and six days of pay – every month because of their periods.”
• “In the United States, access to tampons and pads for low-income women is a real problem, too: food stamps don’t cover feminine hygiene products, so some women resort to selling their food stamps in order to pay for “luxuries” like tampons.”

Valenti doesn’t make her argument on cost, but on basic health care policy.

Amanda Marcotte at slate.com took a more blunt approach: 

Valenti is asking audiences to really think about how the right to move about in public without bleeding all over yourself, a no-brainer for men, is a privilege for women that depends all too much on their ability to afford sanitary products.

It boils down to the same basic idea, though.

Take that idea. 

Kick it around in your own mind.

We’ll come back to it another day and work it through as a potential public policy issue.

-srbp-

Mystery Meat #nlpoli

The Telegram’s exceedingly generous headline said that Conservative leadership candidate Paul Davis put meat to the bones of his  campaign on Friday by announcing details of his policies. 

In reality,  Davis offered vague platitudes for the most part with very little substance to any of his plans.  There’s nothing surprising in that.  Pretty well all the provincial politicians and parties have kept their plans and ideas vague.

You can see the vagueness in Davis’ financial priorities.

Summer reading: Command and Control

From the blurb:

“Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years.  It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policymakers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust.  At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.”

-srbp-

Identity Crisis #nlpoli

Newfoundland is changing, Michael Crummey writes in the Newfoundland nationalists’ newspaper, the Globe and Mail.  House prices are climbing in St. John’s.  There are plenty of expensive restaurants around and people to eat the food and drink the wine sold there.

“But,”  says Crummey,  “while oil execs tuck into their gourmet fish, much of rural Newfoundland is falling deeper into a crisis that began with the cod moratorium in 1992.”

The whole province – Newfoundland and Labrador – is changing.  There is a difference between the changes around the provincial capital and the rest of the province.  Crummey says that a “generation from now,  what it means to be a Newfoundlander will be something altogether different” from what he calls the traditional Newfoundland of “isolated, tightly knit communities that relied on the fishery and each other for survival.”

All true stuff.  The place and its people are changing.  The problem with Crummey’s commentary is that he gets his timescales wrong and misidentifies the root of the change and its implications.

Information Underload #nlpoli

Poor Sandy Collins.

The Minister (of the Moment) of Public Engagement and a gaggle of senior public servants went to meet the access to information review committee on Tuesday.  Supposed to be half a day chatting about this whole letting people have access to government information thing .  Turned into a marathon grilling. 

Not pretty.

Conservative Misinformation and the Public Sector Debt Problem #nlpoli

There is no limit to how selectively provincial Conservatives will read a document in order to find some microscopic filament that might possibly confirm that they have really been running the most magnificent administration in the history of the galaxy.

They still insist, for example,  that they are the tops in leadership and accountability even though the most recent poll shows that 77% of the people in the province don’t think so.

Conservatives also insist they have done financial miracles.  No less a personage than the party’s vice president took to the Twitter on Monday to tell everyone that:

According to Fraser Institute, SK and NL are the only provinces that reduced their public debt since 2007.

Well,  they said a lot more than that,  but evidently Mark Whiffen and didn’t need to read anything but that. Since the rest of us are not obliged or inclined to such delusions,  let’s see what the gang at the Fraser Institute actually said.

Politics for 200, Alex #nlpoli

Who was the first Newfoundlander elected to the Canadian House of Commons?

What party did he represent?

What year was he elected?

What riding did he represent?

-srbp-

Politicians and Cars #nlpoli

The Liberals are touting their latest campaign-style television spot featuring Dwight Ball talking about accountability and connecting with voters.  In the spot, he’s driving somewhere in the driving province and as he talks the thing cuts to shots of him talking to people.

Remember that the latest poll shows that the Liberals own the accountability and leadership issue (48% to the Conservatives’ 13%).  This tidy little spot reinforces the Liberal strength and highlights the Conservatives’ weakness.

When you are done watching that, flip over the the Mother Corps’ online archive and watch a 1971 current affairs documentary on the provincial election that year.  Your mind will bend about a lot of things, not the least of which is the comment from New Democratic Party leader Jim Walsh. 

Yes, friends,  that Jim Walsh.  He’s out west somewhere now, a long way removed in every way from that 1971 election.

But when your mind gets back on its even keel again,  notice the portion of the documentary where Frank Moores is driving along a stretch of newly paved highway talking about the problems of the faltering Smallwood administration.  While it’s highly unlikely the producers of the new spot remembered or knew about the old documentary,  some would say there is a fitting parallel in there.

Let that be your Freak Friday political thrill for the week.

-srbp-

Truth and Consequences #nlpoli

Wednesday morning started with an intriguing but hardly surprising story.

CBC’s David Cochrane tweeted that sources in the John Ottenheimer camp believed that Conservative leadership candidates Steve Kent and Paul Davis were working together to thwart Ottenheimer’s bid.  Kent quickly replied via Twitter,  writing that “I am not teamed up with any camp.”

NTV’s Mike Connors tweeted a couple of hours after Cochrane that former cabinet minister and Ottenheimer campaign co-chair Shawn Skinner told him that Kent and Davis had started “combining slates” of delegates at some delegate selection meetings. Connors also tweeted the Kent denial that he was teaming up with anyone.  Connors also added Skinner’s assessment that Ottenheimer was leading the delegate count or was tied with Davis while Kent was in third place.

Bu then Connors added some detail that made it clear Kent’s denial earlier just wasn’t true.

Perks #nlpoli

A story in last weekend’s Telegram documented all the perks that former Premiers get.

Aside from a severance package, a couple of extra months pay, and a government car allowance for three months,  they also get a free game license (big, small,  salmon) if they want one. Now truth be told,  those game licenses go with the job anyway.  From the day a Premier gets the job, he or she can lay claim to a license to hunt or fish whatever they want. 

Most of these date back to at least the 1970s around the time the first guy who served as Premier got booted out and the second guy replaced him.  The Telegram story covers all of that.

The Shared Delusion #nlpoli

Tom Marshall is a typical politician.  He got into politics to make things better.

And, as he reaches the end of his political career,  Tom feels a little frustrated or disappointed in how things turned out.  Marshall’s big hopes didn’t turn into equally big results.

So he blames others.

Oculus #nlpoli

Justin Simms makes films.

His latest project is a documentary about Danny Williams.  Funded by the National Film Board,  the movie, imaginatively titled “Danny”,  will premiere in Halifax next month at the Atlantic Film Festival.

“We had a window of time,”  Simms told The Overcast recently,  “where we kind of fought back and stood up to Canada in a way that we never have and possibly never will again.”  Simms was talking about the racket a decade ago over federal transfer payments, including Equalization. 

Simms said that it was very interesting for the team that made the documentary “to see us, the further we get away from that,  reassessing it.”

Williams may be gone from the political scene, but as The Overcast put it, “the rapid pace of change in the province continues.  ‘That might make the films and the art we make about the place,’ Simms said, 'all the more important.’”

The Stark Numbers #nlpoli

Anyone who wants to get insight into the political landscape in Newfoundland and Labrador need look no further than the Abacus poll commissioned by VOCM, the first bit of which was released on Thursday.

Provincial Conservatives may be running around consoling themselves with all sorts of notions but the reality of their position is starkly revealed by Abacus.  Don’t look at the party choice numbers.  Although that’s bad enough news for Conservatives and New Democrats,  that’s the simple stuff.  Look instead at all the data below that.

Cost Driver #nlpoli

Companies large and small in the province are under considerable stress as a result of Nalcor’s Muskrat Falls project.

The cause?  This CBC story from Labrador mentions “steep wages” as the major issue:

"Over across the river, the average paying job is up to $40 an hour, and that's before benefits and everything else, so it's very, very hard to compete with," said [Mike] Hickey [of Hickey’s Construction].

According to CBC,  Hickey’s been having a hard time keeping employees as a result.  He just can’t compete with those kinds of wages. 

August is polling month #nlpoli

The provincial government headquarters offices in St. John’s will be closed on Wednesday for the annual St. John’s regatta.

There won’t be any news releases most likely. 

But so far,  there have been three working days in August,  the same month when Corporate research Associates will be in the field,  and that’s been plenty of time for government’s publicity machine to get to work on its regular poll-goosing agenda

Paging Dr. Freud #nlpoli

Reluctant Premier Tom Marshall said some interesting things in what appears to be his retirement interview with the Western Star.

Like running for office in 2011 wasn’t what he planned. It was what happened after some unnamed person or people asked him to stay around a while longer.  He was set to go before the last election as SRBP told you back then.  He only stuck around as party of inside deal worked out by the Conservatives that including keeping Kathy Dunderdale as figurehead leader.

Just like sticking around these past few months wasn’t in his plans either.  In fact,  when Bill Barry packed it in,  Marshall was ready to go at that moment.  He hung around because that’s what Frank Coleman wanted, presumably just like Marshall later fired all his own staff in a miserable way one Friday afternoon because that’s what Frank and his people wanted.

And when it comes to leaving office this time,  Marshall won’t be going anywhere until the next leader of the party tells him what to do.  The always sharp labradore already pointed out that Tom is a little mixed up on how that works.  Marshall told the Western Star that he will resign “when the next premier chooses to call a byelection.” Of course,  there can’t be a by-election until Tom resigns so what Tom  said doesn’t make sense.

But just look at what he said.  He’ll resign when the next Premier calls a by-election. But…

If either Steve Kent or Paul Davis win the leadership,  then the Premier won’t need to call a by-election.  They already have seats in the legislature,  Tom can stay in his seat as a backbencher unless there’s some reason to get someone in Tom’s place in a hurry.

Maybe Tom was just saying that he’ll be going regardless of who wins and his successor will have to call a by-election to replace him as a member of the House of Assembly.

Or maybe Tom was having a slip of the Freudian kind.

In the context of the interview,  Tom was talking about when he’d hand over to the next Premier, not just when he’d leave as the member of Humber East.

Premier calling a by-election.

The only one of the three candidates who would need Tom’s seat would be John Ottenheimer.  Maybe Tom was giving us a clue to who he knows will win the leadership.  Freudian slips can be fun.  We’ll know in a few weeks if this was one.

-srbp-

The 2018-2019 Offshore Review #nlpoli

In 2003,  the new Conservative administration set as its first task to renegotiate the Atlantic Accord.

They hadn’t campaigned on that issue.  The campaign election platform included a pledged to change the Equalization system in order to address the supposed claw-back of oil revenues.

Still, they started out in office wanting to renegotiate the Atlantic Accord.  That idea sent a few people familiar with the Accord into the horrors.

Another tired dog and sway-backed pony show #nlpoli

Temporary premier Tom Marshall and natural resources minister Derrick Dalley released a 40-odd page document on Thursday.  It’s was supposed to be a report of a committee of senior public servants appointed to provide something called “oversight” of the project.

Neither the report nor the committee actually reports on anything about the project.  This first report is actually about re[porting on the project.  More specifically it contains information about the oversight committee,  all the other sources of “oversight” for the project,  some boilerplate about project schedules and budgets,  and a report from Ernst and Young. 

That last document takes up about 12 pages of the total.  It is dated July 25 and describes what Ernst and Young suggest would be the best way for this “oversight” to work.

If you wanted to know how to say absolutely nothing useful in 40 pages,  this is the document to study.

STI rates in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

Saskatoon Health Region released a report on July 18 on the rates of sexually transmitted infections in the city in 2013. 

A CBC report earlier this week quoted the deputy regional health officer as saying that social media was having an impact on the rates of syphilis in the city. 

"We do know that meet-ups using social media has led to an increase in these types of infections, and even outbreaks of syphilis, in other parts of the country," Julie Kryzanowski, the region's deputy medical health officer, told CBC News Monday.

That’s actually a follow-on from a similar story in April in which Kryzanowski’s predecessor said that the regional health authority had interviewed some of the patients who reported they “were using certain social media sites to meet sex partners.”

So that got your humble e-scribbler wondering about STI rates in this province.

Mullet Policy #nlpoli

Government is like a lot of things in life:  it’s about finding solutions to problems.

Okay.

If that upsets your cynical sensibilities,  think about it as about finding answers to questions.

Better?

Good.

Now matter what way you want to look at it,  that’s basically what government is supposed to do.  There’s a problem.  Government comes up with the answer.  Ideally, they ponder the problem.  They look at it from a whole bunch of angles.  They figure out if it really is a problem first and then come up with a way to deal with it.  They might even come up with a bunch of ways of dealing with it

The Jewel in the Crown #nlpoli

If you are a Newfoundland politics junkie who hasn’t been reading Uncle Gnarley,  then you’ve been missing out.

You can fix that by reading the latest offering from Gnarley – a.k.a. Des Sullivan – about Nalcor and the idea of having bureaucrats play at being entrepreneurs.

While you’re at it,  you might also want to read a couple of SRBP posts to go with it:

• “The sound of silence” and
• “Newfoundland and Labrador Hydra”

-srbp-

Horse farts #nlpoli

If you do nothing else in the next few days,  take the time to read the decision issued Friday (via CBC) by a Quebec superior court judge in a case brought by the provincial government against Hydro-Quebec.

Judge Joel Silcoff does one thing supremely well:  he summarises about 40 years of dealings between Hydro-Quebec and the Government of Newfoundland – via first Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and lately Nalcor – to change, alter, adjust and otherwise frig around with the 1969 power contract originally signed by HQ with Brinco.

Silcoff actually adds a new details to the public knowledge of what has taken place between Hydro-Quebec and the Newfoundland government over the years.  Before now,  the best summary was one produced for Vic Young’s Blame Canada commission over a decade ago.

And when you are done reading the judge’s decision, you can count yourself among one of the few people in the province who have actually read it.  Never mind all the people talking about it or pontificating about what it means.  They likely have not read it, any more than they have read the decisions of the Regie d’energie or Moby Dick.

2019 should be interesting #nlpoli

The cheque’s been cash. 

There’s no more cash flowing.

But the deal is not quite done, yet.

Crime Severity Indices, St. John’s #nlpoli

This week, Statistics Canada released their latest compilation of crime statistics based on reports by police.

The figures in the release were year to year but if you hunt around a bit,  you can find the original tables of data.  from there, you can pluck out specific information.  In this post, we’ve pulled out the data for St. John’s from 2003 to 2013.

Slates #nlpoli

In any delegated political convention, you need to elect delegates in each of the districts who will vote for your candidate at the leadership convention.

CBC’s On Point featured three individuals last weekend who were touted as being key players in each of the camps.  David Brazil was from the Kent Krew.  Paul Oram was there as a Paul Davis supporter.  Shawn Skinner was John Ottenheimer’s man.

Uncommon Stupidity #nlpoli

There are times when a politician’s comments are so stunned they just take your breath away.

The first few days of the Damn-fool Fishery this weekend were marred by a tragic and entirely preventable death off Bell Island.  A man drowned after being tossed from the boat in which he was riding.  None of the people in the boat were wearing life jackets.

The major of the largest community on Bell Island turned up on CBC Monday evening.  Gary Gosine explained that while some people might think the man would be alive today had been wearing a life jacket,  the real culprit in this tragedy was the federal government.  The feds restricted the “food fishery” to a few weeks of the year.  people have to go out in all kinds of weather while in other provinces they can fish a lot more often.

Where does one begin to explain the utter stupidity of Gosine’s comments? 

Traitors Everywhere #nlpoli

Tony Collins loves Muskrat Falls.

He loves it so much that every now and again he takes the valuable space from his column in the weekend Telegram and lets loose with a verbal assault on the people who don’t love the project as much as he does.

The last time Tony got in a lather about Muskrat Falls was 2012.  Back then,  he was “tired” of discussing Muskrat Falls.  Time to “get on with it”,  he said, just like all the other blue-bleeding Conservatives. 

The Blackbird Song

It’s summer.

We don't need to talk politics all the time.

Here’s a song from the past that some people will remember.  It only did well in this part of North America likely because we are the only ones who didn’t think these people had an accent.

-srbp-

La Romaine: on or off? #nlpoli

On Monday,  Quebec premier Philippe Couillard left the impression that the third and fourth dams on the La Romaine river were in doubt. 

Couillard told reporters as he headed to the meeting of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers that Hydro-Quebec would finish the first two dams, currently under construction, and then make a decision:

“We will evaluate them and we will see exactly what is needed. [translation of “On va les évaluer et on va voir justement quel est le besoin.”

According to La Presse, Couillard said that HQ would assess electricity needs for industrial use within Quebec as well as for export before determining whether to build the last two dams of a four dam project.

A report commissioned for the short-lived Parti Quebecois administration last year concluded that continued development of La Romaine would not be profitable,  given the large surplus of electricity currently available to Hydro-Quebec.

The entire cost of the the La Romaine development is pegged at $6.5 billion for approximately 1500 megawatts of electricity.  If HQ proceeds with the remaining dams, the current schedule will see the third on line by 2017 and the fourth producing electricity by 2020.

A statement issued by Couillard’s office on Tuesday changed the story.  The statement said that planning was already underway for the third and fourth dams.  It also repeated Couillard’s comment from Monday that the surplus generating capacity would be an asset for Hydro-Quebec in the marketplace.

-srbp-

Shapes and sizes #nlpoli

The Duke of Connaught,  Governor General of Canada and uncle of King George, visited St. John’s in the middle of July, 1914.  During his visit,  he officially opened a new park in St. John’s and inspected the paramilitary groups that formed the basis of Newfoundland’s defence plan in the event of war,  of just the sort that was on the horizon in July 1914.

As part of imperial defence preparations in the decade and a half before,  the Newfoundland government had participated like all the parts of the British empire. At the 1909 Imperial Conference,  Sir Edward Morris had committed officially to organize soldiers for local defence and potentially service in addition to the Royal Naval Reserve division created around the time of the Boer War at the turn of the century and maintained by the Newfoundland government at a cost of 3,000 pounds sterling annually ever since.

The Newfoundland force would draw its men from the paramilitary brigades like the Legion of Frontiersmen,  the Armed Lads’ Brigade in Twillingate, King Edward brigade in Harbour Grace, and the religious groups like the Church Lads’ Brigade, the Catholic Cadet Corps,  the Methodist Guards, and the Newfoundland Highlanders, representing the Presbyterian Church.

In the event, the British government signalled the imperial governments to adopted the precautionary stage of the country’s defence plan on July 29, 1914.  Newfoundland did so.  The Admiralty mobilized the Royal Navy the same day and on July 30,  the governor in St. John’s formally forwarded a telegram to the commanding officer of the naval reserve division in St. John’s to “hold in readiness” for a call-out.  That word came at 4:00 AM local time on August 2, in a message sent through official channels in the name of the secretary of state fro colonies (Harcourt) to the governors of colonies with naval reservists. 

The Conservative race picks up speed #nlpoli

One of the great things about political campaigns is that the players have a chance to surprise observers. We saw that in the Liberal leadership as Cathy Bennett went from being a complete political novice to coming in third against two experienced competitors.

In the Conservative leadership race, we have three experienced politicians so there is none of the newbie growth potential. 

That doesn’t mean that we haven’t seen some shifts in perception in the first couple of weeks.

Gone, baby, gone #nlpoli

In September 2008,  four cabinet ministers went to Harbour Grace to announce that the provincial government was giving the company $8.0 million in public money,  interest free.

The provincial government communications people circulated a picture of the four at the time - from left, Jerome Kennedy,  Danny Williams, Paul Oram, and Trevor Taylor – as they tried on some of the boots made at the plant.  Every one is smiling.  The $8.0  million in taxpayers’ cash was supposed to help the company add another 50 full-time jobs on top of the 170 at the plant.

It’s an interesting picture because within 12 months of the announcement,  the two on the right – Taylor and Oram – would be gone from politics.  Williams left in 2010,  the year the provincial government started a “review” of the loan after the company cut the work force to 100.  They never did add any jobs. Kennedy hung on the longest of the lot,  but five years after his trip to the boot factory, Jerome was gone from politics as well.

Issues and Answers – on line #nlpoli

After a couple of false starts over the past year,  it looks like NTV has started posting episodes of Issues and Answers online. 

That’s good news for political junkies.  The half hour public affairs show airs Sundays at noon with a couple of rebroadcasts.  Unfortunately, if you missed it or forgot to program the PVR  - or before that the VCR – you were basically SOL. 

If NTV keeps posting them online, more people will get a chance to see them.

-srbp-

The Desolation of Smog #nlpoli

The Telegram’s Peter Jackson used the most recent JM paper on consumer electricity prices and Muskrat Falls as part of his Wednesday column.

Peter made some worthwhile observations, so head over and read the column if you haven’t already.  That includes pointing out that current forecasts have electricity prices in Ontario and British Columbia rising by 42% and 45% by 2018.

“All these numbers are maddening,”  writes Jackson,  “both in terms of scale and in terms of variability between Nalcor and critics.”

Absolutely true.

Convergence #nlpoli

A couple of years ago,  Liberal leader Dwight Ball said the Liberals would use earnings from Muskrat Falls to lower electricity prices for consumers in this province.

The Conservatives dismissed the idea at the time.

Then a couple of weeks ago, with news the cost of Muskrat Falls continues to climb, Premier Tom Marshall told the province that he and his colleagues had adopted the idea of using revenues from Muskrat Falls to lower consumer prices as their own policy.

That’s not all of it.  To understand the importance of Marshall’s comments fully you have to start at the beginning.

Electricity prices when Muskrat comes on line #nlpoli

Cost over-runs on Muskrat Falls as well as other costs not included in previous calculations by Nalcor will likely increase current electricity prices by almost double their rate in 2011,  according to a recent assessment.

JM,  a professional engineer who has worked extensively in the construction of large engineering projects,  totalled up revised project costs and other factors including:

• the most recent Muskrat Falls cost increases,
• the cost of a third line to the Avalon from Bay d’Espoir,
• a new line to western Labrador,
• lower-than-expected electricity demand,
• a win by Hydro-Quebec in its lawsuit, and,
• revenue from export sales of electricity.

JM estimates that any revenue from sales would only lower the price of Muskrat falls electricity by about three cents a kilowatt hour.

However, the reader should be reminded that the government of Newfoundland will be borrowing 1 Billion dollars to finance the equity contributions into the project. Assuming a 5% annual interest rate on the borrowed equity there would be an annual interest payment of 50 million dollars. What Nalcor put in one pocket, they take from the other.

Consumer electricity prices from Muskrat Falls

-srbp-

The World According to Kent #nlpoli

If you are one of the political savants who thinks that dominating Twitter makes for a modern, inspired, and successful political leadership campaign, then say hello to Premier Steve Kent, right.

The guy and his Twitter army, some of them undoubtedly utter fakes,  managed to spam the living hell out of twitter over the weekend.  They far surpassed Con O’Brien, the solo anti-Muskrat Falls army who previously held the record for relentless tweeting. 

Con is ahead of the other Con on substance though:  O’Brien usually makes his own comments;  the Kent Klub tend to send around anything anyone else said about their man-boy, as long as it is positive.

Friday Bits #nlpoli

To understand the real Steve Kent and not the manufactured front he presents to the world these days, take a look at this 2007 post by Simon Lono back when he wrote Offal News.

There’s a great quote in it from Kent when he was thinking about a run at federal politics for the Alliance/Reform crowd.  You’ll be struck by how familiar it is. 

When you get over the willies, skip over to Uncle Gnarley.  Des Sullivan notes that the “narrative” on Muskrat Falls is changing as the project goes along. 

That’s it for the week.  Enjoy the summer sunshine.

-srbp-

Political Fashionistas #nlpoli

Before the year is out, we will have yet another strategy from the provincial government.

We were supposed to have this one on July 1, however like pretty well everything associated with the current crowd running the place, it is a day late.  The minister responsible for the strategy – Fairity O’Brien – says we will now have it some unspecified time in the fall.  That will be after Fairity releases a document that tells us what the government heard during some sort of consultation process that they are almost as fond of as they are of strategy writing.

The thing will likely also be a dollar short, as well, if recent experience is any guide.  You see this “population growth strategy” is actually the second kick at the cat for the provincial government.  Their existing strategies aimed at dealing with some of the factors affecting population were all dismal failures.

Avoiding a cabinet shuffle #nlpoli

By the end of the week,  Premier Tom Marshall will be short at least two cabinet ministers.

Paul Davis quit as health minister on Wednesday and Steve Kent is expected to follow on Thursday as both vie for the party leadership.

On top of that he’s missing Joan Shea who quit last month.

Some think Tom will shuffle the cabinet.  He could do that, except that he doesn’t really have much to shuffle with.  On top of that, he’d also be stuffing people into cabinet who the new leader might not want to face as a cabinet minister in the middle of September.

Tom doesn’t have to shuffle his cabinet at all.  This is the slow time of the year as Trevor Taylor laughingly put it or, to be more accurate,  everything is on hold anyway while the party sorts out its leadership mess.

Therefore, Tom can rely on his table of alternate ministers,  established by order in council at the last major shuffle in May.  That’s the official list of substitutions to cover periods when the appointed minister of a department is out of town or incapacitated.

Paul Davis is gone.  Between Susan Sullivan as first alternate and Sandy Collins as second, the job of health minister will get done.   And if Susan goes, Sandy can get the job as stand in.

Over in municipal affairs, Fairity O’Brien will fill in.

And if Susan Sullivan jumps into the race – as she should given Paul Davis’ weak, amateurish  launch on Wednesday - there’s someone to replace her, using the same table.

Pas de sweat.

If Tom needs to have someone fill in on a temporary basis other than the alternates table,  he can do that using powers in the Executive Council Act and something called the Crown or Royal Prerogative.  It takes a cabinet order but surely the crowd running the place can manage to do that, as they did in 2013,  all without the show of a cabinet shuffle.  It’s really just paper work after all.

-srbp-

The Mulligan Race begins #nlpoli

By the end of the week, the provincial Conservatives will have the leadership race they deliberately avoided the last time out.  That’s the one that ended with the Coleman fiasco.

It will be different in at least two ways:  first, there will actually be a race, in the sense that there will be three competitors.  Second,  unless someone shows up who no one has even whispered about yet, the race will be comprised entirely of party insiders.

Last time out, if you can cast your mind back three or four months,  people like Steve Kent – who will launch his campaign on Thursday – insisted that the party needed a fresh face from outside the circle of people running the party from the inside.

Commemoration Day, 2014 #nlpoli

Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow!
Let your soul go down upon its knees
And with bowed head, and heart abased strive hard
To grasp the future gain in the sore loss!
For not one foot of this dank sod but drank
Its surfeit of the blood of gallant men.
Who for their faith their hope – for life and liberty
Here made the sacrifice – here gave their lives
And gave right willingly – for you and me.

-srbp-

Paying everyone but ourselves #nlpoli

Nalcor boss Ed Martin told everyone in the province last week that his pet project has increased in price by almost another billion dollars.  It’s now more than $8.0 billion, when the 2010 price was $5.0 billion.

That wasn’t news.  Martin and the provincial government knew that last December, as SRBP pointed out last December.  We’ve known it since last year.  Martin and the provincial government just refused to tell the people paying for the project about it when the people building it knew the costs.

Martin insists it is still cheapest.  We know that isn’t true because Nalcor plans to buy cheaper electricity from elsewhere and import it here over the Maritime Link while charging local consumers for electricity that is far more expensive but that they aren’t getting. 

Martin also said something to the effect that we are just paying ourselves for this project and the electricity anyway.  That’s not true either.

We are paying everyone but ourselves.

Muskrat Falls costs break $8.0 billion #nlpoli

$6.99 billion is the new cost estimate for the Muskrat Falls dam and the link to the island.

With that much money and with such a record of inaccurate forecasts,  giving a cost estimate to two decimal places could only be a terribly cynical attempt at humour by the highly paid people running Nalcor. 

Seriously. 

Did Ed Martin, Gil Bennett and Dawn Dalley really think that people wouldn’t recognise the oldest and most transparent bit of retail psychology on the planet and think this project wouldn’t cost $7.0 billion?

No.

It’s almost $7.0 billion.

Anyway…

The ATIPPA Review Round-Up #nlpoli

Tuesday’s video is available at parcnl.ca.

Your humble e-scribbler is Number 2 on June 25. 

At the front end of the Number 1 video is Vaughn Hammond of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.  he made some really solid comments about a problem some of his members have been running into since Bill 29.  They used to rely on access to information in order to get information to bid on tenders.  In a competitive industry, such as some of the suppliers Hammond represents,  disclosing information helps get a better price for taxpayers.

parcnl.ca #nlpoli

If you want your SRBP fix this Wednesday morning check out the Privacy and Access Review Committee hearings at 11:00 AM.

They are streaming it live at parcnl.ca.

-srbp-

Summer Political Reading List #nlpoli

If you are looking for some political reading over the summer, here are a few books worth checking out.

Tragedy in the Commons by Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan. Here’s the whole Random House blurb: 

In Tragedy in the Commons, Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan, founders of the non-partisan think tank Samara, draw on an astonishing eighty exit interviews with former Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to unearth surprising observations about the practice of politics in Canada.

Though Canada is at the top of international rankings of democracies, Canadians themselves increasingly don’t see politics as a way to solve society’s problems. Small wonder. In the news, they see grandstanding in the House of Commons and MPs pursuing agendas that don’t always make sense to the people who elected them.

Grassroots #nlpoli

You’ll likely hear a lot of talk from Conservatives over the next few weeks about their “grassroots.” 

Trevor Taylor, for one mentioned them twice last week when talking about the aftermath of the Coleman fiasco.  The Conservatives need a contest that will “mobilize” the grassroots,  according to Taylor.  They need a leader who can “connect with the grassroots.”

The only problem for Trevor is that the party doesn’t have any grassroots.

Welcome Back, Cochrane #nlpoli

If you are needing a political fix this weekend you can get two of the better variety online.

David Cochrane is back from an extended absence and to celebrate, he’s clacked out a synopsis of recent going’s on in the Conservative leadership fiasco.  He’s got all the details of stuff that’s been flying around town, right down to the story about how the victims of the Friday Night Massacre found their security passes to the building cut off while they were trying to move out that fateful Friday.