29 July 2014

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:

-srbp-

28 July 2014

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.


25 July 2014

2019 should be interesting #nlpoli

The cheque’s been cash. 

There’s no more cash flowing.

But the deal is not quite done, yet.

24 July 2014

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.

23 July 2014

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.

22 July 2014

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? 

21 July 2014

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. 

18 July 2014

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-

17 July 2014

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-

16 July 2014

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. 

15 July 2014

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.

14 July 2014

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.

092503pic1The 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.

11 July 2014

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-

10 July 2014

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.

09 July 2014

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.

08 July 2014

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.

image

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-

07 July 2014

The World According to Kent #nlpoli

kentkarIf 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.

04 July 2014

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-

03 July 2014

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-

02 July 2014

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.

01 July 2014

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-

30 June 2014

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.

27 June 2014

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…

26 June 2014

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.

25 June 2014

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-

24 June 2014

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.

23 June 2014

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.

21 June 2014

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.

20 June 2014

Nothing was further from the truth #nlpoli

A decade ago,  the offshore regulatory board reduced its estimate of the recoverable reserves in the Terra Nova field from 405 million barrels  to 354 million barrels.

Danny Williams was trying to squeeze additional transfer payments out of the federal government in the guise of getting provincial oil royalties that the federal government supposedly took back.

The whole thing was a fraud of the first magnitude but hundreds of thousands of people in Newfoundland and Labrador fell for it.

19 June 2014

Taking nothing out #nlpoli

Sometimes a comment is so profoundly revealing you just can’t let it slide by.

This one came from Milly Brown, the Premier’s communications director, in an exchange with Simon Lono on Twitter on Wednesday.  And just so everyone knows up front, this is not from Milly’s personal account, if she has one.  It’s a comment from Milly in her official capacity.

18 June 2014

Wednesday Quickies #nlpoli

As your humble e-scribbler spent time on Tuesday finishing off a presentation to the ATIPPA inquiry next week  (11 AM, 25 June),  here are a couple of quickies you might find interesting:

  1. In light of the chatter about polls in the Ontario election, here’s yet another commentary on the general uselessness of horse-race polls, despite the fact news media love them.Yet another argument against horse-race polls.  Via  Monkey Cage.
  2. How oil helps dictatorships survive” is another exploration of the connection between oil wealth and a decrease in competitive politics.

-srbp-

17 June 2014

Premier Mulligan #nlpoli

The news on Monday was not Frank Coleman’s announcement.

The news was in the reaction of provincial Conservatives to word that Coleman wouldn’t be Premier after all.

They skipped past the obligatory expressions of concern over Coleman’s unspecified family problem and quickly went on to talk up the chances the party now had to hold a “proper” leadership contest.
Conservatives were relieved that Frank was gone.  You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief.

16 June 2014

Understanding election polls #nlpoli

If you want to get a decent discussion of the Ontario election results and the way polling research tracked the campaign, take a look at a piece from The Star on Sunday.

The piece talks about different ways of conducting a poll – Internet panel,  live calls or automated calls – and compares the results of each technique with the election outcome and with different polls conducted during the last week of the campaign.

-srbp-

13 June 2014

Criticism #nlpoli

Take a gander at this letter to the editor of Overcast by someone using the name Samuel Wilkes.

It’s about a problem in the arts community with criticism.
We’re shit at giving it, we’re shit at getting it, respecting it, promoting it. Criticism in Newfoundland is bad.

12 June 2014

Sometimes a cigar … #nlpoli

“Fundamentally, the [Conservative Party leadership] process works,” former Conservative cabinet minister Shawn Skinner said on CBC’s  On Point last weekend.  “It’s been proven in the past.  The party would have been better served if there’d been more candidates, but it is what it is.”

It’s a variation on what Skinner said on the same program after he confirmed he wouldn’t run.

In itself, the statement is literally true: the process delivered a leader for the party. 

But that’s about all it seemed to do. 

11 June 2014

Pollyanna Peek-a-Boo and the Economic Unboom #nlpoli

Premier Peek-a-Boo took time out of his long, slow wander to the Premier’s Office this week to do an interview with the Grand Falls-Windsor Advertiser.

Check it out.

Frank Coleman thinks everything is fantastic in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

10 June 2014

“Out-sourcing” social programs and policy #nlpoli

The incredible story from Ireland about the remains of 800 babies and children found in a discarded septic tank caused your humble e-scribbler to think a bit about local history.

Then this post at the Monkey Cage put it in a bigger perspective.

09 June 2014

Air Canada to London: back again #nlpoli

How times change.

Last week, industry minister Susan Sullivan attended an announcement by Air Canada that they would be bringing back year-round direct flights between St. John’s and London.  Starting in the fall,  Air Canada will offer three direct flights a week to London.  Next summer, they’ll offer daily service. 

It’s great news for anyone who wants to travel to Europe for business or on holiday.  For that matter, if you want to get anywhere to the East,  having a flight to London is a bonus. It’s like having that daily shuttle to Newark if you want to go anywhere in the United States and further south.

At times like this, it seems like a million years ago that the same people who are running the province these days were engaged in a complete insane jihad against Air Canada for making a simple business decision. 

06 June 2014

A farewell to Tom Marshall #nlpoli

Tom Marshall spent his last few hours ever as a member of the House of Assembly on Thursday,  as the spring session drew to a close.  Tom’s already handed in his notice and will be out of the Premier’s Office and politics around this time next month.

Marshall is decent fellow who brought sincerity, integrity, and dignity to the House and to the cabinet responsibilities he bore. He took a lot of praise from colleagues on both sides of the House on Thursday and Tom deserved every word. Tom’s short tenure as Premier began with some of the smartest moves the Conservatives have ever made.

It’s unfortunate that the end of his tenure has been marred by a series of unfortunate events. But in another sense, those events are typical of the history of the current administration.

05 June 2014

There’s good news and there’s bad news #nlpoli

Corporate Research Associates and the provincial Conservatives played up the change in government satisfaction in the release of CRA’s quarterly advertising poll on Wednesday.

But CRA’s satisfaction numbers don’t mean anything, as regular readers of this corner recall from last month. CRA doesn’t explore “satisfaction”  to see what it means and, as you can see from the party choice numbers, voters don’t think it means much either.  The Conservatives get high government satisfaction numbers but they still indicate they’d vote for another party by a wide margin if there was an election tomorrow. 

Essentially the Conservatives today are in the same spot the Liberals were in before the 2003 election.  That is, the same spot, with one difference:  the Liberals were polling higher.  That should send a shiver up the spine of a few Conservatives.  Either that it would spur them to all sorts of imaginary crap like pretending that the Liberal vote is soft or that people are just waiting with bated breath for the real Coleman to emerge and unleash his “vision” on them.

Rather than fantasy,  let’s see what the CRA numbers might tell us if we try to keep both feet on the ground.

04 June 2014

And then things went horribly wronger… #nlpoli

John Crosbie, the elder statesmen of Conservatives in the province took a shot at Danny Williams for his continued interference in the internal affairs of the provincial Conservatives.

Danny blew a gasket and willingly gave interviews to every media outlet in town, thereby guaranteeing that the story that can only do even more damage to the provincial Conservatives would keep going for a day longer than the Conservatives needed.

Not to be outdone,  Tweet minister Steve Kent called a couple of the local media outlets and claimed that his unique status in the Conservative leadership-race-that-never-was entitled him to refute Crosbie. Thus the story will drag on for yet another news cycle longer than the Conservatives really needed.

03 June 2014

John, Danny, and voter apathy #nlpoli

Every now and again,  someone will talk about voter apathy. 

Last week,  Steve Kent was circulating the link to an article that claimed that youth engagement – getting young people more involved in the community and in politics – was a way of getting more people to vote at election time.

That’s what voter apathy is about, by the way:  low voter turn-out at the polls.  It’s a big issue in most of Europe and in North America.  we’ll get back to it in a minute.

Kent was so keen on this article because he is working hard to become the youth engagement guru of Newfoundland and Labrador.  He is especially proud of his first bill in the legislature – Bill 6 – that included a couple of clauses that say a town council can name people under the age of 18 years to positions called “youth representatives.” 

02 June 2014

No sense of irony at all #nlpoli

The smart guy they could have had – but frigged over twice -  told Canadian Press:

“The understanding of the [provincial political] climate isn’t as sophisticated as it should be for those who are working with Mr. Coleman on the strategic side.”

Without knowing what the smart guy said, one of the guys supporting Mr. Coleman said: 

“I don’t think anybody ever dreamed in a million years that Frank would take the heat that he has taken over the past few months since he decided to run…”.

30 May 2014

Playing with the Ferryman #nlpoli

The ferry service between Newfoundland and Cape Breton is economically important to the province as a whole, but it’s especially sensitive for Port aux Basques.

Marine Atlantic announced a change in the summer ferry schedule on Thursday.  The company will reduce the number of crossings daily and put one of its ferries on stand-by in the event they need it. 

This isn’t the schedule the company announced in February for its busiest season of the year but, as the company spokesperson put it in this media interviews, their original projections turned out to be high.  As a result, the company has reduced the number of schedules crossings while keeping the option of adding capacity if bookings pick up.

29 May 2014

Grimes on Frank, Tom, and the Kami project #nlpoli

Roger Grimes’ is through his heart surgery and nice vacation and that has left him with a new vigour.

He called VOCM’s BackTalk on Tuesday to talk about the Kami project,  the Friday Night Massacre, and Humber Valley Paving.

15 minutes.

Worth the time.  [Youtube link]


Hat tip to Dave Adey for posting the audio. 
-srbp-

28 May 2014

Coleman, Marshall, and the Broken Chain of Accountability #nlpoli

The Telegram’s James McLeod started a story that appeared on 26 May with the following sentence:

Premier-designate Frank Coleman says he wants to run a premier’s office with fewer people, and he’s starting that already — six weeks before he becomes premier.

What neither McLeod, nor his editors, nor anyone else in the province’s news media seemed to wonder is how Coleman did that.  They’ve all treated events last Friday evening as normal.  They’ve reported it as routine.

According to NTV’s Mike Connors Frank Coleman said that he and Tom Marshall agreed to Friday’s events.  That is, they both agreed to sack all but a couple of Tom’s staff members and replace them gradually with people of Coleman’s choosing.

For his part, Tom Marshall insists that he appointed Coleman’s people and that there is only one Premier in the province.  That’s all beside the point, though, as Marshall well knows.

27 May 2014

Contrasting Speeches #nlpoli

Liberal leader Dwight Ball and Conservative leader-designate Frank Coleman delivered speeches in St. John’s last week and you couldn’t have scripted more startling contrasts.

Ball delivered a speech at an event that reflected his party’s standing in the polls:  more than 500 people who paid $500 a head to attend.

Coleman spoke to a small meeting of the St. John’s Rotary Club where the audience paid a few dollars to the Club.

Thanks to the Telegram’s James McLeod,  you can compare the two speeches.  Since James posted the speeches and Coleman’s scrum to youtube,  we’ll also give you those links.

Take the time to listen to the speeches yourself, but here are some observations about the pair of them.

26 May 2014

McGrath comments “preposterous”: surety association #nlpoli

From the industry association representing companies that provide sureties and other bonds, released May 26, 2014:

News Release
For Immediate Release: May 26, 2014

Recent remarks by Nick McGrath, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure for Newfoundland and Labrador about the use of surety bonds on public projects are completely preposterous. So says Steve Ness, the President of the Surety Association of Canada.

“Mr. McGrath clearly doesn’t understand surety bonds; nor does he comprehend how they work to protect public construction buyers from serious losses.” said Ness. His comments were made in response to a statement made by Minister McGrath following the ministry’s decision to release Humber Valley Paving from its obligations to complete an unfinished project without making a claim on its performance surety bond. The government instead opted to see to the completion itself and has now retendered the uncompleted portion of the project. In explaining this controversial decision, McGrath stated: "If I had called in the bonds, I would not have got the job done on time and on budget," [sic (comma in original)]

The Friday Night Massacre #nlpoli

Frank Coleman recorded CBC’s On Point with Peter Cowan on Thursday or Friday afternoon.

During the show, Coleman acknowledged that he had a personal financial interest in a decision by transport minister Nick McGrath to let Humber Valley Paving out of a contract without calling the performances bonds associated with the project.  Coleman’s son –  connected to the company at the time - negotiated with department officials on behalf of the company.

Auditor General Terry Paddon is currently investigating the contract decision based on a request from Premier Tom Marshall.

Whether McGrath should have called the bonds is another question.  But Coleman told CBC that he had personally guaranteed the bonds.  As a result, he would have been personally on the hook for the bond despite the fact he had sold his interest in Humber Valley Paving three days before his son contacted the department about the contract. 

Whether McGrath would have called the bonds or should have is another matter.

Coleman recorded the show well before it aired.  But what happened on Friday evening caught everyone by surprise.

23 May 2014

Tom Marshall’s puppet government #nlpoli

Whatever is going on in the Premier’s Office these days, it isn’t an orderly and organized transition from one premier to another.

That’s certain.

Every transition from one premier to another since 1949 - whether it involved a change of party or not - has happened in a matter of a few days or at most a couple of weeks. Your humble e-scribbler was directly involved in two of them and is familiar with most of the rest.

News on Friday that Tom Marshall had fired all but two of his staff doesn’t look like any transition anyone has ever seen.

Politics and the Fishery #nlpoli

For those who missed it, here’s the podcast from the Fisheries Broadcast for May 22, complete with your humble e-scribbler talking about politics and the fishery.

fisheries

-srbp-

Another inside deal #nlpoli

If you want to get a sense of how the New Democratic Party convention actually ran last weekend, take a few minutes and listen to Tony Adey’s interview on CBC’s Corner Brook Morning Show.

Adey attended the convention but announced afterward that he was leaving the party.  Adey believes that the convention was stacked and that more New Democrats want to see major changes in the party than the convention vote suggested.

He noted that the chair of the meeting wouldn’t allow debate on the motion about whether or not hold a leadership convention.  For all that, they still had to spend 45 minutes answering questions as many of the delegates couldn’t tell if a yes vote would mean the party wouldn’t have a leadership review.  Adey also said there was a discrepancy between the number in the room for the vote and the tally of ballots.  More people voted, apparently, than were officially in the room.

The most forceful point Adey made in the speech is that Lorraine Michael believes she can be Premier while many people in the party believe that Lorraine has to go so that the party can attract new candidates and move forward.

-srbp-

22 May 2014

Nalcor and Conflict of Interest #nlpoli

Is anyone else having trouble trying to figure out what all the fuss is about Cathy Bennett, Nalcor, and conflict of interest?

Seriously.

Here’s the story in a nutshell.

21 May 2014

Kremlinology 47: If only saying it made it so #nlpoli

According to New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael, the party convention this past weekend was “a room of people who are saying, 'we're new, we're moving forward.'" [quote via CBC]

Would that merely saying the words made it so.

The reality is that the party isn’t new.  They aren’t moving forward either, except in the sense that time moves only in one direction and the province’s New Democrats are willing to watch the clock.  

20 May 2014

Always read the large print #nlpoli

The Conference Board of Canada released a report last week that assessed economic performance in each of the provinces in Canada.

“The resource-driven economies of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador can boast A+ grades for their economic performance,” read the first sentence of the news release accompanying the report, titled How Canada Performs: Economy.

Amazing stuff and more than a few people  - most likely provincial Conservatives – stuck their chest out in pride.  They should have read the big print in the report.  The first sentence is more than a wee bit misleading.

19 May 2014

The left-wing conservatives #nlpoli

In 2010,  the provincial Conservatives had a chance to reinvigorate their party in time for the 2011 general election.  They deliberately stuck with an interim leader in order to avoid what they considered a potentially divisive leadership contest.

After the 2011 election, the Conservatives kept Kathy Dunderdale, even though she’s made it clear when Danny Williams quit in 2010 that she was planning to retire and had no further political agenda or objectives of her own.

Kathy Dunderdale finally decided to retire in 2014.  The Conservatives had a second chance to reinvigorate their party.  They chose to pass on the chance, opting for a leader picked by some sort of back-room deal.

16 May 2014

The Fruits of a Poisonous Shrub #nlpoli

Senator Fabian Manning says that the 2008 Anything but Conservative campaign is stilling hurting the province in dealing with the federal government.

“There's no doubt in my mind that the ABC campaign,”  Manning told CBC’s Fisheries Broadcast,” [that] we pay a price for that, and people can shrug it off and say, 'That's just an excuse,' but I've been around this game too long now to not know that without a voice here at the table we are at a major disadvantage." [via CBC]

The disadvantage Manning referred to was the lack of a regional minister in the current cabinet who represents a riding in Newfoundland and Labrador. Some people might be tempted to dismiss Manning’s comments at sour grapes. After all, the ABC campaign cost Manning not only his seat in the House but also his chance for a seat in cabinet.

On that point, though, Manning is right. The regional minister is a key player in Ottawa and the province has undoubtedly suffered to one degree another by not having such an influential voice at the federal cabinet table.

15 May 2014

The Bicycle Roads to Nowhere #nlpoli

Frecker Drive is a well-designed residential street in the west end of St. John’s.  The street is wide:  you can park cars on either side and still have space left for two cars to pass abreast easily along its entire length.

This is a residential street.  As you might imagine, it has its fair share of cars and trucks as well as the odd bicycle.  They’ve been able to live together safely on the street because it is wide and the traffic flow is relatively light.

When the city planners decided to bring bicycle lanes to the City of St. John’s a couple of years ago, they settled on Frecker Drive.  They banned parking from one side of the street.  And on both sides of the street they marked out two bi-directional bicycle lanes for the full length of the avenue.

14 May 2014

Getting On Point back from No Point #nlpoli

For years, the only public affairs show on television or radio in Newfoundland and Labrador was Issues and Answers.  NTV’s Sunday morning staple has long been ponderous and boring and it remains so. 

CBC’s On Point promised to add some life to the political world.  But while it was interesting early on and it’s had some big moments since then, the show quickly became yet another venue for government talking points or – even worse – the same tired talking heads.

The talking heads on any given panel seldom say anything insight or useful.  And, if you look at the people on the panel, they never seem to make sense.

13 May 2014

Promises, promises… 2003 contracts and tendering edition #nlpoli

In light of the controversy about Humber Valley Paving, here are some of the Conservative promises made in 2003 about contracts and public tendering, controls on political donations, special committees of the legislature, and disclosure of lobbying activities.

Each of them bears on the HVP tendering controversy in one way or another.  You humble e-scribbler has highlighted some of the sentences in bold because they contrast so starkly with that the Conservatives did once they got into office. 

Note the bit about revising the Public Tender Act.  The Conservatives promised it in 2003.  They gave notice that they planned to introduce a new public tendering law in the spring 2012 session of the legislature.  And then it disappeared.  They promised campaign finance reform and did nothing once in office.

Enjoy!

12 May 2014

A beautiful waste

Exploring the world underneath New York City,  via The Atlantic:

-srbp-

The market is closed, Ken. #nlpoli

Part of the problem the folks at Nalcor have had in trying to build support for on Muskrat Falls is that they never explain things completely, in plain English.

The result is that they look like they are hiding something .That is, they look like they are not being candid or sincere.  They often come across as if they are not telling you the whole story.

Take as a fine example, the war of words that is erupting between Nalcor board chair Ken Marshall on the one hand and David Vardy and Ron Penney on the other. Marshall had a lengthy op-ed piece one Saturday,  Vardy and Penney had a rebuttal on April 19 and now Marshall is back again.

09 May 2014

Keep the momentum going #nlpoli

Frank Coleman’s idea for change in Newfoundland and Labrador is to keep everything the way it is.

As CBC reported in March, “Coleman said one of his priorities if he assumed the role of premier would be to maintain the economic momentum created by the Tories.”

He might even want to roll back the clock a bit, too, on some things.

But on economic policy,  Coleman is firmly committed to the Conservative plan to use public money to subsidize private sector businesses. 

Weak Questions get Weak Answers #nlpoli

Nalcor’s effort to have local taxpayers subsidize electricity exports to Massachusetts came up in the House of Assembly on Thursday.

Well, sort of came up.

New Democratic Party leader Lorraine Michael asked a couple of lame questions and got – not surprisingly  - a few equally lame answers.

Here they are, in their entirety.

08 May 2014

And no birds sang #nlpoli

Farley Mowat passed away on May 7, 2014, aged 92. 

The prolific Canadian writer and environmentalist was just shy of his 93rd birthday on May 12.

Mowat was also a veteran of the Second World War. In Canada, we mark the end of the war on May 8. He served as an officer with the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment in Italy and northwest Europe. He led an infantry platoon in Italy.  Later, Mowat was an intelligence officer in Holland where, for a while,  he was part of the Canadian museum collection team  finding artefacts for the Canadian war museum.

Mowat wrote about his experiences in three books:  The regiment (1955),  And no birds sang (1979),  and My father’s son (1993).

-srbp-

Nalcor promising Boston cheap electricity courtesy of NL taxpayers #nlpoli

Muskrat Falls is over budget, big time. The latest estimate is $7.4 billion and climbing on a project that was forecast at $5.0 billion just four years ago.

The project will wind up behind schedule, most likely.

There’s a good chance Nalcor won’t have enough control over water flows on the Churchill River to meet its forecast firm generating capacity from the smaller dam let alone the theoretical project at Gull Island.

But that hasn’t stopped Nalcor from pitching Muskrat Falls and Gull Island to the good folks of Massachusetts with electricity at prices that would be – conservatively – about one third of what Nalcor’s owners will have to pay for electricity from Muskrat Falls.

07 May 2014

Power and Influence #nlpoli

If nothing else, the controversy over the sweet heart deal the provincial Conservatives cut with Frank Coleman’s son at Humber Valley Paving should dispel the fairy tale that Coleman and his family are political outsiders.

They are very much the quintessential political insiders.

Transportation minister Nick McGrath admitted to reporters on Tuesday that he’d never been involved in a negotiation before about road paving contracts like the one with Gene Coleman for Humber Valley Paving. 

That takes juice. In itself, that should give an idea as to why the deal stands out in people’s minds and why the Coleman influence is obviously so strong.  The Coleman influence is so strong, in fact, that it clouds people’s minds.

06 May 2014

HVP controversy deepens #nlpoli

[In a hole with a jack-hammer update  at bottom]

The controversy around Humber Valley Paving got worse for the provincial Conservatives on Monday as transportation minister Nick McGrath confirmed that he actually released $19 million in performance and goods bond’s supplied by the paving company despite the fact they failed to complete the tender as original awarded.

But that’s not all.

Put McGrath’s comments in the House on Monday together with media reports last week and you have a pretty clear picture of the pretty sweet deal McGrath cut with HVP.

05 May 2014

The House comes back… what’s on the menu? #nlpoli

Nice to be wrong update:  The Liberals started Question Period on Monday hammering the Conservatives over the Humber Valley Paving controversy.

This is a big story with huge implications.

Original post follows

________________________________

 

As far as when Frank Coleman might find the time to get around to taking over the Premier’s job, not much as it seems. 

It’s till vague, undefined, and potentially will happen quite some time from now.

He appeared on VOCM Open Line on Friday and still talked about wanting to take the job some unspecified time after July 5th.  As for when he will get a seat in the House, Coleman is still talking – hypothetically – about some unspecified time in “the fall.”

Some people might think the cabinet shuffle changed a lot.  The Telegram editorial board is hung up on the cost.

Meh.

02 May 2014

Cabinet Shuffle Bored #nlpoli

The provincial Conservative Party is in the midst of such an intense revival of interest only about a dozen people turned out on Wednesday night for the annual general meeting of the district association in Mount Pearl South.

They were there to elect delegates to the party convention in July.  Even though there’s no leadership contest, you’d expect that a party on the rebound might manage to attract more than 12 or so to a delegate selection meeting.

A few weeks ago all of 126 people turned out in Charlene Johnson’s district and that was when they actually still had a leadership race.  That’s 10 times the number that showed up in Mount Pearl.  It is still a far cry from what the Liberals – in about the same spot in 2001 as the Conservatives these days - managed to turn out in their leadership contest at the time.  It’s also a far cry from what Conservatives turned out in their past either.

Renewal and revival just aren’t what they used to be or what they seem or something.

01 May 2014

Muskrat costs at $7.4 billion … and climbing #nlpoli

After 13 days,  Nalcor boss Ed martin finally responded to a simple request from the Telegram’s James McLeod for an explanation of what impact a delay in construction might have on project interest costs.

Read McLeod’s original article from Wednesday Telly.  it’s a tidy summary of what Martin told him about that specific issue.

The problem for taxpayers is that Martin did his usual job of only talking about what he wanted to talk about. He didn’t try to explain the whole thing to McLeod in such a way that he could actually get the full impact of what was going on. 

Martin’s interview was highly political, in other words.  Unfortunately for Martin, McLeod posted back-up information consisting of the audio of the whole interview plus a couple of pages of background from Nalcor.  They reveal a lot more than the company has previously disclosed.

30 April 2014

White Knight #nlpoli

The Alberta Conservatives are looking for a new leader. The old one quit last month amid a caucus revolt and a loss of popularity in polls.

Former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice is interested in the job, as are a few provincial cabinet ministers.

A source close to the campaign told CBC that Prentice will make an announcement in a few weeks “at which time he will outline his vision for the province.”

According to the Calgary Herald, some of the likely contenders might drop out once Prentice confirms that he is in. According to the Herald:

Political analyst Duane Bratt from Mount Royal University said with Prentice now running to be the next premier, he expects the PC leadership contest will “not be competitive” as the former MP gains support from across the party.

Unlike other would-be candidates from within the Tory cabinet ranks, Prentice won’t carry any of the baggage of the unpopular decisions tied to the Redford government, he noted.

“He’s coming in as the white knight,” said Bratt.

-srbp-

29 April 2014

Decisive Leadership in Action #nlpoli

How hard can it be for someone to figure out when they want to start a job?

Seriously.

A job you want, mind you, not one you have been forced to take a gunpoint.

Apparently, Frank Coleman has finally figured out when he wants to start being Premier.

He has settled on July.

Sort of.

28 April 2014

Kremlinology 46: Premier Peek-a-Boo and the Dog Whistle #nlpoli

In a scrum with reporters after a public meeting about the Corner Brook hospital last Thursday,  Frank Coleman showed he has picked up the tendency of some politicians to talk about themselves in the plural.

The reporters asked about Coleman’s tendency to shun media interviews and to pop up here as if he were playing peek-a-boo. 

“We” had a strategy, Coleman told them,  of talking to the “family” first and “we” would get to everyone else after.  Coleman contrasted that with the opponent he wouldn’t name who spent a lot of time talking to “mainstream media” instead.

That’s a noticeable choice of words – “family” and “mainstream media” just like it is curious the way he referred to what will happen when he becomes “leader”.

25 April 2014

Cognitive Dissonance #nlpoli

People like things in life to fit together.

When things don’t fit together, people get upset.  They get fidgety.  They try to make things fit together.

It’s an idea regular readers know from other posts.  Take this bit from a post from 2012 as a good example of how some people react when faced with a situation where what is happening doesn’t fit with their pre-conceived notions. The context was a decision by then-Premier Kathy Dunderdale to refuse to meet with the parents of a boy who had  died tragically.

Prepared Statements and Unprepared Politicians #nlpoli

CBC Radio’s St. John’s Morning Show is so off-put by politicians who issue prepared statements that they’ve found a former journalist turned journalism professor to discuss the growing trend not only in this province, but elsewhere.  Interviews are important, said professor, because then journalists can ask questions and get more information.

If CBC really wanted to get into this issue, they wouldn’t ask a journalism prof.  They’d be asking someone from the public relations or communications side of the street.  That person could explain the value of using many approaches to send information, not just the prepared statement.

You see,  prepared statements themselves aren’t the problem. They aren’t necessarily part of some growing and troubling trend, either.

24 April 2014

Plan 9 from Columbus Drive #nlpoli

Some enterprising political science graduate student will be able to write a brilliant doctoral dissertation a few years from now on the parallel ideas in provincial politics and popular situation comedy.

She will find fertile ground in the Big Bang Theory, especially the episode the in which Sheldon explains a complex idea in physics theory using the analogy of a cat in a box that may be either alive or dead based on a random earlier event.

Nalcor, for example, is like a giant box filled with Erwin Schrodinger’s cats.

23 April 2014

Strategically Unwise and other political own-goals #nlpoli

Depending on which interview you listened to on Tuesday,  Tom Marshall would be hanging around as Premier until the end of the summer.

At least.

That’s the VOCM story.

Marshall will run the place for two full months after the Conservative convention in early July while Coleman runs around the province attending all sorts of summer festivals.

Meanwhile, on CBC,  Peter Cowan said in his report on Tuesday evening that Marshall expects to hand over the Premier’s job shortly after the Conservative party meeting in early July.

Which is it?

That’s a good question, but there’s no clear answer.

22 April 2014

Four days late and a few dollars short #nlpoli

Premier-in-waiting Frank Coleman did speak to the Telegram on Monday evening about the controversy that has been raging all weekend over his views on abortion and what that might mean for public policy in the province.

Coleman chose to issue a statement on Friday that didn’t address the central issues.  He was silent all weekend and unavailable to other media all day Monday.

That only made Coleman’s problem  of a big lack of legitimacy and credibility  all that much worse, of course.

Late on Monday, Coleman has tried to put the controversy behind him, but he will have a fair bit of work to do.

Crazy Train Wreck #nlpoli

Premier-in-waiting Frank Coleman was off in Toronto on Monday – reputedly undergoing intensive media training -  and so he wasn’t willing to talk to reporters about anything, least of all the controversy about his views on abortion.

When Bill Barry dropped out of the Conservative leadership on Thursday, Coleman became the leader by default.  The only thing left is for the party insiders figured out when they wanted him in the job.  That’s not a joke.  That’s pretty much what Coleman said last week after Barry bailed.

Other than that, Coleman issued yet another official statement rather than talk to people.  And when controversy erupted about his support of the province’s Right to Life group, Coleman issued another statement.

Memorial University political scientist Stephen Tomblin offered CBC some scathing comments on Monday about Coleman’s performance thus far.

21 April 2014

Budget basics: Dealing with the Debt #nlpoli

Public sector pensions in Newfoundland and Labrador are underfunded.  There’s not enough money in the fund account to cover all the likely money they’d have to pay out to people when they retire.

But make no mistake, the province’s public sector pensioners are not in any real danger of losing their pensions as a result.  That’s because the Pension Fund Act guarantees that the provincial government will make up any difference between the money owed to pensioners annually and the money available from the fund.  Unless some provincial government in the years ahead changes the law governing the pensions, people will get the money and benefits they’ve been promised.

The provincial government isn’t going to default on pensions any more than they are likely to take the completely irresponsible advice some might give them to change all the plans immediately - unilaterally if necessary - to make them defined contribution plans instead of defined benefit plans.

It’s important that people remember that because there is a concerted effort going on at the moment to mislead people about public sector spending generally, and pensions in particular.

19 April 2014

Legitimacy and Credibility #nlpoli

In the crude, modern way of putting things, shit got real for Premier-in-waiting Frank Coleman on Friday.

The Telegram’s James McLeod tweeted Coleman’s response to a question about whether Coleman planned to do this year what he normally does on Good Friday and participate in the anti-abortion march in Corner Brook.

Here’s what McLeod tweeted:

Media preview

And then Twitter exploded.

18 April 2014

The Further Adventures of Premier Peek-a-boo #nlpoli

Frank Coleman didn’t speak to reporters about the Conservative Party by-election loss in Virginia Waters.

Someone wrote up a prepared statement and sent it to reporters later on.

The Western Star caught up with Frank Coleman on Thursday after Bill Barry bailed on the rigged Conservative leadership election.  Barry said the process was “disingenuous”.

Coleman begged off any detailed comments
“So, I’m just trying to figure this out myself,” said Coleman, who noted he’d barely had time to discuss it with his team.
Coleman said his communications co-ordinator would be issuing a media release later in today.
Coleman doesn’t have something substantive ready to say.

Instead, someone writes up some comments for Coleman.

Is this a pattern yet?

-srbp-
Man of the People update:
A paraphrase of Coleman's comments, offered by an e-mail wag:  "When asked about the withdrawal of his only competitor, his friend, and neighbour, Frank Coleman told his local newspaper that he'd have his communications director send them a prepared statement."

The Fix Was In #nlpoli

Bill Barry, in the Western Star, on the Conservative leadership show he quit on Thursday:

“I just chose to recognize that the leader has been selected by the party insiders.”

“But if they’re going to do that, why have a convention?” he asked. “If the determination is going be made before the debate happens, and before an event happens and people are going to all head in one particular direction, why go through the process? It seems disingenuous to me.

Read the rest of Barry’s comments in the Western Star exclusive.

-srbp-

Experience still counts #nlpoli

Now that Frank Coleman is the de facto leader of the provincial Conservative party, there’s no reason why Coleman can’t be in the Premier’s Office with his new cabinet in place when the House of Assembly resumes its current sitting in early May.

Absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Coleman can appoint Tom Marshall as the deputy Premier or leave whomever Coleman appoints as Government House leader to stand in for him until Coleman can get a seat in the legislature.

It’s really simple.

And when the budget is done,  Coleman can head down to Government House and ask the Lieutenant Governor to issue a writ for a provincial general election to be held by the end of June.

There is no reason for Coleman to delay going to the voters to ask them for a mandate of his own to govern the province as Premier.

17 April 2014

Pearl Necklace #nlpoli

Mount Pearl is alive with rumours this week that Steve Kent is trying to cross the floor (back) to the Liberals.

Kent’s open dispute with the education minister Clyde Jackman over school re-organization in the bedroom city seems to have been the catalyst for the flurry of rumours.

Now it could all be nothing, except for the fact that Kent’s fellow Mount Pearlers…Pearlites…Pearlies…whatever … know that the former child mayor has a reputation for changing his political affiliations when it suits.

16 April 2014

How not to bolster public confidence: the umpteenth Nalcor edition #nlpoli

The folks at Nalcor held a media briefing at 11:00 AM on Tuesday.  it was supposed to be about the release of the independent engineer’s review of Muskrat Falls done as part of the federal loan guarantee.

You may recall this was part of some great confusion a few months ago when the provincial energy department answered an access to information request by saying they didn’t have a copy of the report only to have it emerge that Nalcor had had the report since the previous November and briefed at least a couple of cabinet ministers on it in the meantime.

That led to a bizarro series of telephone conversations between energy minister Derek Dalley and the Telegram’s James McLeod that just added to the sense that Dalley  - among others – had no idea what was going on in the world. Later on the provincial government announced they were creating yet another form of Nalcor oversight regime all built around informing the public. That turned out to be a whole lot of nothing at all and, to cap it off, Nalcor missed its commitment to issue a financial update at the end of the last fiscal year. (March 31)

Not a very good way to bolster public confidence in a company after the Nalcor-induced blackouts in January.

15 April 2014

The Virginia Waters Come-Back Myth #nlpoli

Danny Williams said it.

Tom Marshall said it.

In the Virginia Waters by-election the Conservatives were trailing by 15 percentage points and managed to come back and tie it up in the matter of a couple of weeks.

Marshall embellished the story in his most recent interview with David Cochrane.  Supposedly the Conservatives were trailing from the start and some unknown people expected the Conservatives to lose the Virginia Waters by-election.

The Conservatives claim they came from behind to tie it up but there is no objective evidence that the claim is true.

14 April 2014

Budget Basics: Unfunded Pension and Benefits Liabilities #nlpoli

While the provincial budget for 2014 was all about spending government money, the budget speech did raise one issue that the provincial government appears intent on cutting dramatically.

A key component of the province’s net debt relates to unfunded pension and other post-retirement liabilities. Despite an investment of more than $3.6 billion, the liabilities have continued to grow. As of March 31, 2013, they accounted for 67 per cent of net debt. By 2016-17, they will account for 85 per cent of net debt – almost $9 billion.

The provincial government has been talking about the unfunded pension and benefits liabilities for a couple of years now.  It’s a hot issue among business groups like the employers’ council or the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. 

As regular readers know, the board of trade is keen to deal with the unfunded liability, too, even if the president or whoever wrote her column in last week’s Saturday Telegram don’t appear to understand what it is all about.

For whatever reason, business groups get quite agitated about public sector workers and their pensions.  Other public debt doesn’t get them quite as worked up and, as the board of trade demonstrated quite clearly, there’s a fair bit of misinformation about the unfunded pension liability.

In this second post in the Budget Basic series, let’s take a look at public sector pensions and put them in a wider context.  Misinformation never leads to good public policy but right now, pretty well all the anti-pension commentary is based on some amount of misinformation.

11 April 2014

Premier Peek-a-boo #nlpoli

Pretty well every Conservative who is anyone in the province turned up on Wednesday night at Danny Breen’s by-election headquarters.

Every Conservative, that is, except the fellow who is the heir-apparent to the leadership.  Frank Coleman wasn’t anywhere to be seen according to reporters at the headquarters after the polls closed.

It turned out that Coleman had shown up at around 7:00 PM, an hour before the polls closed, looked around for a bit and then left.  Apparently, he had better things to do.  He didn’t speak to reporters about the by-election loss. 

Instead, Coleman sent out a written statement.  If he gets to be Premier, someone wrote on Coleman’s behalf,  Coleman would welcome Breen as a candidate in the next election. 

In ordinary circumstances,  people would likely consider Coleman’s actions to be quite bizarre.  But then again, these are not ordinary circumstances. 

10 April 2014

Ripples #nlpoli

The provincial Conservatives lost a crucial by-election in Virginia Waters on Wednesday, but not for lack of effort.  The could not possible have pulled out any more stops to try and win the seat in the last two weeks of the campaign.

Even on polling day the Conservatives mounted a prodigious effort and the last couple of days before the final vote, the Conservatives had every cabinet minister, caucus member, and political staffer doing whatever it took to find every possible vote.

They came close, but the Conservatives lost

And that simple fact will have enormous implications.

09 April 2014

Major Muskrat Costs Missing #nlpoli

As of April 4, Nalcor was “still in the process of negotiating and letting some large contracts for the [Muskrat Falls] project.”

That’s the reply the Telegram got from Nalcor about missing the Muskrat financial update the company was supposed to issue at the end of March.

Haven’t got the information yet.

Okay.

Well, that’s a bit troubling in itself, given that Nalcor is supposed to be reporting monthly to the provincial government on project costs.  So if Nalcor is telling the provincial government that sort of information they can tell the people who are paying the bills – the local taxpayers – the same information, without any deletions or omissions.

And if the provincial government had any stones, they would insist that the Nalcor board not deliver any bonuses to the president and the corporation vice presidents until the company sorts out its financial reporting.  Ed, Gil, and Dawn would be spitting out real numbers  pretty damn fast if someone actually held them accountable.

No one should hold their breath waiting for that, of course.  At least, not any time soon.

Anyway, if Nalcor won’t report its costs accurately and on time, here’s a little tidbit to hold you over.

astaldi muskratAstaldi is the company that won the tender last year to build the Muskrat Falls dam itself. The company and Nalcor valued the contract last fall at CDN$1.0 billion.

You can see that in the screen capture from Astaldi’s 2013 year-end financial report, released at the end of March.

The company reported the CDN$1.0 billion figure as well in its third quarter report released last November. There’s also a mention of payments on Muskrat Falls that would come before the end of Astaldi’s fiscal year:

Payments expected from Italy (Rome Subway Line C, Milan Subway Line 5) and Canada (Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Project) are forecast to decrease net debt levels by year end to approx. €800mn [from 896 million]

Lovely stuff.

But hang on.

What’s the exchange rate on the Euro these days? 

Well, friends, if you plug that 822 million Euro valuation Astaldi gave the project into a currency converter you find out that it works out to CDN$1.24 billion, or 24% more than the project’s face value at the time Nalcor announced the tender award last October.

That’s a hefty cost increase in a very short space of time. Now Nalcor has something else to explain besides just why they are tardy – yet again – with their project reporting.

-srbp-

Related:

08 April 2014

Budget basics: debt #nlpoli

Board of trade president Sharon Horan wrote in her Telegram column last weekend that the unfunded pension liability will make up 85% of the provincial government’s debt not to long into the future.  That will be up from the 75% of the public debt it makes today.

There you have proof that even the president of the largest business organization in the province does not understand the first thing about the state of the provincial government’s finances.

Public debt is a really basic idea that you have to know if you want to understand public finance.  And you need to understand public finance if you want to have a useful say in how the government is running things.  That’s what the folks at the board of trade want to do, one would expect.

And yet Horan got it wrong. 

Not a mere technicality.

But dead wrong.

So if the board of trade can bugger up public debt, let’s see if we can walk everyone through the notion in a way that we can all understand.

07 April 2014

Electricity “review” a waste of time, money #nlpoli

Now we know why it took the provincial government so long to release the “review” of the provincial electrical system that former Premier Kathy Dunderdale made up off the top of her head when people were trying to take her head off over Nalcor’s giant blackout in January.

The “review” is going to involve nothing more than a description of the existing electrical system and other systems across Canada.

There’s nothing in the request for proposals – not a commission of inquiry (!!!) – that people in the provincial government either don’t know already or should know.

And since this will be just another consultant’s report, the consultant has no legal ability to obtain detailed information the way the public utilities board or a public inquiry could.

There also doesn’t appear to be any provision for a discussion of the regressive, monopoly system the provincial government created in 2012 because Muskrat Falls isn’t the cheapest way to provide electricity for provincial demand.

What’s the point of examining the province’s electricity policy if you don;t actually look critically at the policy and propose alternatives?

Yes, folks, it is a waste of time.  And you know it’s a waste of time because they released word of the request for proposals after normal working hours on Monday.  It’s a new version of “take out the trash”.

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Repealing Bill 29 #nlpoli

The Liberals proposed a motion during last week’s private member’s day that the government repeal Bill 29.

Meanwhile, at the Telegram, legislative reporter James McLeod has been waging a one-man crusade to get everyone to stop trying to repeal Bill 29.  Bill 29 actually fixed a few nasty things,  according to McLeod.  For example, rather than force reporters to chase after ministerial briefing notes,  Bill 29 banned release of them outright:

When Bill 29 came along, it created a specific exception to end this game. Now, the government could withhold any document which was “a record created solely for the purpose of briefing a member of the Executive Council with respect to assuming responsibility for a department, secretariat or agency.”

Then there is the matter of requests for information that the bureaucrats think are “frivolous and vexatious.”  The example McLeod uses to endorse that part of the bill is odd.  He filed a request for documents about the cod moratorium.  The Telly dropped the request when they discovered that a couple of days after getting their pile, the government proposed to release the whole pile on the Internet.  That wasn’t a frivolous request, incidentally, but McLeod holds it out as a justification for that bit of Bill 29. 

04 April 2014

Horsefeathers #nlpoli

While people have been agitated about comments on Twitter,  the Premier has been dazzling the politicians in the House with his explanation of the marvellous financial position of the provincial government under the Conservative Party.

On Monday, the former finance minister buggered up the amount of dividend that Nalcor will provide thanks to Muskrat Falls.

On Tuesday, he corrected himself and noted he meant all of Nalcor instead of just Muskrat Falls. That just made matters worse, though.  You see,  the Premier’s comments didn’t exactly jive with information one of his colleagues talked about in the House a year or so ago.  That’s not including the fact that much of the money the Premier attributed to Nalcor was actually coming from oil that the people of the province gifted Nalcor with for nothing.

On Wednesday, the Premier went for the hat-trick with a discussion of debt.

03 April 2014

Enormous dividends #nlpoli

Back when he was in another cabinet job, Premier Tom Marshall made some comments about dividends from Muskrat Falls.

Let’s take a look at them.

02 April 2014

Premier Confusing #nlpoli

Premier Tom Marshall has been in cabinet since 2003.  He’s held pretty well all the big portfolios connected to Muskrat Falls, including natural resources and finance.

He should know details about Muskrat Falls backwards.

That’s why his comments in the House of Assembly on Monday caused such a stir:

01 April 2014

Political Parties and Ideology in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

If you haven’t read it already, flip on over to Drew Brown’s blog coaker’s ghost and check out his post called “much ado about nothing.”

Drew discusses some recent events in local politics and makes two major points:

  • There isn’t much of an ideological difference between the Liberal and Conservative parties in Newfoundland and Labrador.
  • Maybe this explains why the activists for the parties tend to fight among themselves so aggressively.

There’s more there  - and Drew is always worth your time - but those are the two points to take up here.