Municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien stood in the House of Assembly on Wednesday “to highlight the continued progress in implementing the Provincial Waste Management Strategy in our province.”
Wonderful stuff it could have been.
The only problem is Fairity really didn’t provide an update.
Liberal leader Kevin Aylward may have personally been waffling about Muskrat Falls a week or so ago, but his position has shifted:
An Aylward led government would immediately halt all spending on this project and establish a truly independent analysis to look at all options for meeting domestic energy demands. The review currently before the Public Utilities Board is not a true independent review. It is limited in scope and resources and is designed to provide government and Nalcor with a predetermined result.
That’s the last paragraph in a short, simple news release that Aylward issued Friday.
That leaves just Kathy Dunderdale and Lorraine Michael of the NDP struggling with their positions.
Michael is still talking about getting more information but her fundamental problem of privately supporting an unpopular deal remains.
In a news release Friday, Michael said:
NDP Leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi) said the government’s release of the Report of the Joint Review Panel into the Muskrat Falls project may be a step towards the transparency she has been asking for, but it raises more questions about the project.
She said the provincial government should stop “pouring money into the project” and that “[w]e need to have a broadbased [sic]independent analysis.” It appears, though, that Michael is still limiting herself to a discussion of developing Muskrat Falls, as the Conservatives and Nova Scotia new Democrats are proposing as opposed to looking primarily at options to meet domestic energy needs.
Meanwhile, Kathy Dunderdale and the Conservatives are ploughing ahead. Dunderdale seemed to be confused about the panel’s rejection of the premises on which she is pursuing the megadebt project. According to CBC,
"We're on the same path," Dunderdale told reporters in St. John's Thursday. "We're not misaligned. We absolutely agree."
“We” is apparently the provincial government and the panel.
Natural resources minister Shawn Skinner, left, told a radio call-in audience on Friday that the joint federal/provincial review panel report was just more wonderful and informative information in a decades long and ongoing process of study, review and information gathering in which no decisions have been taken or will be taken any time soon.
Of course, that just makes it all the more embarrassing that the provincial government’s energy corporation couldn’t supply the review panel with simple, straightforward explanations of the reasons why it wants to pursue the project and what the implications will be.
After two years of review and months of public hearing’s and after giving Nalcor a second chance to correct deficiencies in its presentation, the panel concluded:
Need, Purpose and Rationale
… the Panel concluded that Nalcor had not demonstrated the justification of the Project as a whole in energy and economic terms, and that there are outstanding questions related to both Muskrat Falls and Gull Island regarding their ability to deliver the projected long term financial benefits to the Province, even if other sanctioning requirements were met. The Panel therefore recommended that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador carry out separate formal financial reviews before sanctioning either Muskrat Falls or Gull Island to confirm whether the component being considered for sanction would in fact deliver the projected long-term financial benefits. [Page 3, Emphasis added]
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Premier Kathy Dunderdale doesn’t understand the criticism of the federal government’s recent announcement of a loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls megadebt project
Provincial NDP leader Lorraine Michael, for one, has been crapping on the announcement, saying that it isn’t a loan guarantee at all but “an agreement to agree”.
Check that link and you’ll also find new Liberal leader Kevin Aylward quoted by theindependent.ca saying:
This is not a legally binding offer and the Harper government can still back out of it,” Aylward said in a statement. “It’s no wonder Premier Kathy Dunderdale didn’t show up for the press conference.”
Kathy Dunderdale is right to wonder why Michael and Aylward are criticising the loan guarantee.
After all both Aylward and Michael support development of the Muskrat falls project as Dunderdale is proposing. All three want to saddle the provincial taxpayers with guaranteed high electricity rates and a huge increase in the public debt.
Plus, they all agree it is a good idea to send discount electricity into Nova Scotia and anywhere else people want it, all thanks to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
You can tell the two other party leaders back the deal if for no other reason than because they do not criticise it.
Nope.
Their comments on this federal announcement is a criticism of Dunderdale for not being farther along with the negotiations (Michael) and for not nailing Harper down on the guarantee. (Aylward)
Kathy didn’t hold Steve’s feet to the fire, or words to that effect.
Just to test this out, try this: if you get the chance to speak with Lorraine and/or Kevin ask them whether or not they will kill this deal.
Yes or no.
The more words they have to use to explain their position – without first saying yes or no – is a sign of how strongly they want to support this deal. The reason they can’t be open in the love for Muskrat is because they think their are votes to be had by appearing to oppose the deal.
Will you kill the deal?
Yes or no?
Try it.
You might be quite surprised at the replies.
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Remember that thing about hardly being able to slide a sheet of paper between the three political parties in the current general election?
Well, newly minted Liberal boss Kevin Aylward wants to put your tax dollars into running a coast guard co-ordination centre in place of the federal one Ottawa is moving to Halifax. He told CBC’s Fisheries Broadcast that one was going in the policy book on Monday.
And Kevin wants to keep shelling out the cash until the feds change their minds.
Which of course will be never, given that Kevin has agreed to force you and me to foot the bill for it out of our provincial tax dollars instead of making the guys in Ottawa do it.
Regular readers of these e-scribbles will recognise this idea.
Kathy Dunderdale announced it first.
Some may recall what your humble e-scribbler wrote back in June: thinking with her ass.
Well, the idea isn’t any smarter when it comes from Kevin Aylward’s ass instead of Kathy Dunderdale’s butt.
And before the New Democrats start thinking they are any brighter, let’s all remember that the whole fight started in the first place with the NDP sole shareholder – public sector unions – directing their political arm to take up the cudgels on this one.
Yvonne Jones got snookered into joining the NDP partisan protest over it, then got lambasted any time she tried anything with accusations she was trying to make the event partisan.
So here we are with three parties, two leaders of which have endorsed the same policy and that policy makes no sense at all.
What has changed?
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Craig Westcott confirmed Monday he’ll be leaving the opposition office and returning to run his newspapers.
Here’s the statement he released:
Yvonne and I have agreed that my position will conclude on August 31. I will return to my two newspapers The Business Post and the Irish Loop Post. It has been a great privilege to have worked with Yvonne Jones and the staff in the Office of the Official Opposition, which plays a key role in the proper functioning of our democratic form of government. I made some great friends there and wish every one in the office tremendous success. It was a very positive experience and I am grateful for the hard work and support and the many personal kindnesses that Yvonne, Kelvin, Roland, Marshall and the very talented people in the office provided me. It was great being a part of that team. As publicly stated when I accepted the position last year, my intention was always to return to the newspaper business and journalism. My commitment was to help Yvonne and her team through to the election. Now that the leadership situation has changed, Yvonne has kindly relieved me from that obligation effective the end of this month, which facilitates an earlier return to my papers for which I am extremely grateful. I am looking forward to returning to journalism much the better for the experience of the past year.
With that position vacant so close to the election, the office will need to staff it soon.
Speculation is likely to mount on who will get the job now that Westcott is leaving. Aylward has a number of former staffers who he might want close by him. Then again he might go with someone new.
There’s no doubt though that Craig Westcott sharpened the Opposition’s political game in a way only the truly miserable or completely ignorant would fail to acknowledge
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