Unplanned

An interesting report from Cheryl Gullage over at the Ministry of Truth about Thursday's double-shuffle:

The province has turned over a new leaf in health care as Premier Danny Williams switches a pair of cabinet postings. The cabinet shuffle comes the regional health authorities prepare to release final numbers on ER/PR testing....

The ellipsis is VOCM's. In the accompanying voiceover, Gullage elaborated on the elided point:

Today's ceremony trumped a planned release of updated ER/PR numbers from Eastern Health, but Premier Danny Williams says that wasn't planned.

Of course it wasn't.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as might say the guy who usually brags about how much effort he puts into planning stuff.

Cat got tongue?

On February 23rd, Hospitality Newfoundland and Newfoundland put out a press release (with a terrible headline) in which it categorically and unambiguously took sides in the Gros Morne powerline debate:

Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador supports Parks Canada position on no transmission lines through Gros Morne National Park

St. John’s, February 23, 2009 – The tourism industry association, Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador (HNL), is weighing in on the development plans for the Lower Churchill project. HNL supports Parks Canada in opposing the proposed route through Gros Morne National Park.

“As the tourism industry association of Newfoundland and Labrador, we fully support Parks Canada in opposing the proposal that will see towers and lines run through Gros Morne National Park,” said HNL Chair Bruce Sparkes.

The next day, HNN was quoted to the same effect in a CBC report:

"Running towers in front of dynamic and dramatic landscape is going to take away from the natural beauty of it," Sparkes said.

"From a photographic, awe-inspiring point of view, it's going to take away that. And who wouldn't say, 'Gee, too bad they put that pole line there?'"

And the day after that, the same spokesman for the same organization told the two daily newspapers:

"It's the crown jewel in our park system," says Sparkes.

"To run a major power line down through this crown jewel ... there must be a better way."

The End.





That was the last time Mr. Sparkes or HNN have commented on the issue in the media, and have, as of late, taken to declining comment altogether.

Cost-benefit

According to the Ceeb, Danny Williams is suddenly concerned about the costs of Our Dear Infeed:

Williams says he would prefer not to do have the line go through the park, but going around it could add more than $100 million to the cost of the project.

"We can't just start carving out those kinds of dollars … without even have a proper costing. It's wrong to oversimplify it, but if it meant putting it into health care as opposed to putting it into UNESCO, I would put it into health care, he said.

Funny. You might think the dichotomy would be putting some of that "it" into health care vs. putting "it" into a transmission line, especially considering that Danny Williams-Government doesn't actually put any "it" into UNESCO. But that's a digression.

No, the bigger question is: if $100-million is too much to add to the cost of Our Dear Infeed... then what about the costs of Our Dear Infeed in the first place, as opposed to the alternatives — either for transmitting Labrador power to a market, or supplying Newfoundland with electricity?

If we need all that "it" for health care, why would we spend hundreds of millions, if not billions, of "it" building a transmission line out of pure spite?

Did we mention the new L'anse au Loup school?

But to come in and, y'know, double- and triple-announce money that, that's given the appearance of being new money, that's just, that's misleading.

- The Word of Our Dan

May 9, 2001: This new allocation will provide for new schools at L’Anse au Loup, Lawn, Mud Lake and Postville and redevelopment of schools at Burnt Islands, St. Brides and Winterton.

August 13, 2001: Planning has begun for the construction of new schools in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Mud Lake, Postville, Lance-au-Loup, Burgeo and Lawn.

August 21, 2001: ...funding has been approved for a new K-6 facility at Lanse au Loup. Construction of that school is expected to start next spring

December 21, 2001: Education Minister Judy Foote today confirmed the Department of Education's commitment to construct a new state-of the-art K-6 school in L'Anse au Loup.

(Five years and an election cycle happen.)

September 15, 2006: Education Minister Joan Burke joined Wally Young, MHA for the District of St. Barbe, and Don Brown, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Western School Board, in Port Saunders today to announce the construction of two new K-12 schools in the Western School District, one for Port Saunders on the Northern Peninsula, and the other for L’Anse au Loup in southern Labrador.

April 4, 2007: Over $80 million allocated for new school construction, repairs and maintenance since Budget 2004. This includes new schools for Torbay, Mobile, Baie Verte, Port Saunders, L’Anse au Loup and Placentia

April 20, 2007: In September 2006, the Provincial Government announced a new school for L’anse au Loup. Department officials are currently working with a consultant to develop estimates.

April 26, 2007: Ongoing projects which require capital investments this year include redevelopment of the former Herdman Collegiate in Corner Brook; new schools in Mobile, Port Saunders, L’Anse au Loup...

June 19, 2007: "Projects are happening all over the province – in Port Saunders and L’Anse au Loup...," said Minister Burke.

July 25, 2007: Projects in the Early Development Stage: L'Anse au Loup - new K-12 school ($800,000)

(Oh — 2007 was an election year.)

November 21, 2007: Projects in the Planning Stage: L'Anse au Loup - new K-12 school

April 29, 2008: Minister Burke noted that Budget 2008 allocates funding for nine new schools currently under development in L’Anse au Loup [...]

September 4, 2008: The budget this year for new schools and repair and maintenance is $88.8 million, an increase of $39.5 million over last year. This will help move forward nine new schools that have been announced for the communities of L’Anse au Loup [...]

March 18, 2009: In addition to the Torbay and Paradise schools, the Provincial Government has committed funding for new schools in Port Saunders, Placentia, Baie Verte, L’Anse au Loup [...]

March 26, 2009: Labrador investments in the stimulus package include: $19 million for a new francophone school in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and new K-12 schools in Port Hope Simpson and L’Anse au Loup [...]

April 29,2009: ... a new K-12 school in L’Anse au Loup, where tenders have closed and bids are being assessed

May 21, 2009: Tenders have been awarded for the construction of schools in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, L’anse au Loup [...]

June 3, 2009: Site development or the main construction phase will occur this year on new schools in L’Anse au Loup [...]

June 11, 2009: L'anse au Loup school...

June 24, 2009: In addition, work is moving forward at a rapid pace on the construction of several new schools, including two K-6 facilities in Paradise, as well as new buildings in L’Anse au Loup [...]

June 26, 2009: In addition, new schools are being built in Paradise, L’Anse au Loup [...]

July 2, 2009: Construction Underway on New School for L’Anse au Loup

Apparently, they're building it out of press releases.

Two independent thought alarms in one week?

And both from central Newfoundland. The centralists must be over-stimulated.

First, John Meaney at the Gander Beacon asks some impertinent questions:

It makes me wonder what Mr. Williams knew six or seven months ago about the Hibernia South deal, and how close the consortium was to signing the tentative package? When did Mr. Williams actually know a deal was going to be struck?

[...]

Mr. Williams is a lawyer, and I'm sure he's asked this question to clients and witnesses before. If you're not telling me everything about this matter, what are you not telling me about other items of public interest?

Meaney makes the following observation:

If Mr. Williams wants a free ride, perhaps private business is where he needs to return, he can find it there. Otherwise, you're the top dog, and there's no vacation in that position. It is the opposition and the right of the people to continue to ask its government what it is doing. If Mr. Williams expects less then I'm afraid he's forgotten what a democracy is.

And that's not even the most explosive thing he says.

Meanwhile, a short Winnebago ride away in Grand Falls-Windsor, known Tory Roger Pike also asks treasonous, anti-Newfoundland questions:

The time has come to get those elected officials (you know who they are) on the public record. The question to be asked is simple. What have you done to solicit the province to grant central Newfoundland the value of the hydro assets once used to make paper?

We need to know what our MHAs have been saying to this government to give us the value of those hydro assets. What is their position on this issue?

And he makes a dire prediction:

The Williams government needs to know this issue will not go away. Those seeking elected office in the upcoming municipal election need to know they will be pressed to have a game plan. Those MHAs who cannot explain their silence should also know they will be held accountable for their inaction. Their silence is not acceptable. Never was and never will be.

Wonder if these good denizens of such a hot-bed of questions, and conspicuous lack of fealty, can expect phone calls?

The (almost) last word on NS highways

In keeping with this corner's fascination with rank-size graphs, here is yet another way of graphically representing the Nova Scotia highways-project data first exposed to sunlight by Parker Contrarian-Donham.

First, the rank-size representation of the list of work put forward by the Rodney government, following the traditional party colour scheme according to the party which won the seat in 2006. Multiple projects (or parts of projects) in a given district are represented by proportionately-sized stacked blocks of various shades of the party colour:

And here are the overall total values of roadwork as signed off by the federal government, by provincial (not federal) electoral district:

Harrumph.

These guys are patronage pikers compared to the Tories next door...

But (XV)

OK, so technically this one is a "while". Close enough, from a conjunction perspective:

Brian from Nl writes: While I'm still a mild supporter of Premier Williams, all his government's misteps of the past year is making it harder and harder for me to give him the benefit of doubt. If he insists on a transmission line through Gros Morne or don't soon make a public statement against it, I think Mr. Willimas will have met his match and the days of the teflon premier will be numbered.
Posted 04/07/2009 at 11:28 AM

Certainty

From The Telegram by way of the Gander Beacon:

Jones told The Beacon the province can only produce a limited amount of wind energy because it can cause water to spill from hydro dams if excessive amounts are produced. This roadblock will be eliminated with the introduction of a transmission link in 2016 for the Lower Churchill hydro project.

Will?

That's an awfully definitive statement, both in verb choice and timeline. More definitive than the language used by the proponents these days: remember, "project sanction" is supposed to happen in 2009.

That's this year, the one half-over, if you weren't keeping track.

Floodgates

The good folks of Grand Falls-Windsor want recognition of the “adjacency principle” when it comes to the benefit of the Grand Falls power plant:

"When we look at adjacency, none of the oil comes to Newfoundland and Labrador, yet we deserved a portion of it. We deserved to generate some income to the province because of our adjacency to that oil in our offshore," [Sean Cooper] said. "The premier gets $2 billion because of adjacency. Now we are here in the Exploits region next to a power generation that drove the economy of central Newfoundland for 100 years."

The Danny Provincial Williams Government won’t hear it:

"Some people in the region have been calling for the creation of a community trust fund, but government will not and cannot approach economic development in the province in this fashion," said Minister Skinner. "While we continue to work with the Community Development Committee – a dedicated 15-person team consisting of local community, business, and union leaders – to revitalize the central region, we are equally committed to the economic and social development of all areas and regions of the province. Our policies must balance regional requirements."

Adjacency is the shibboleth that divides the hero from traitor when it comes to mining, fisheries, fisheries (again), NALCO, and fish processing. Indeed, as Our Dear Premier (May His Preternaturally Thick Hair Always Be Perfectly Parted) has said:

We should be concerned about the fact that most of our processing in the fishery is done outside our Province. We need to be concerned about adjacency.

The Word of Our Dan.

So why the hard line against adjacency when it comes to hydro benefits?

Go ahead. Take a wild guess.

QED (II)

Contrarian is, well, contrary. Good for him! Quoth he:

Unfortunately, there are methodological problems with this analysis. Prior to the last election, most rural ridings were in Tory hands, and that’s where provincial highways are located. MacLean [sic] acknowledges this, but then miscounts the rural ridings by accepting a Wikipedia definition that excludes such urban ridings as Cape Breton North (Tory), South (Liberal), and Nova (NDP), as well as Glace Bay (Liberal). There are few provincial highways*, and only one paving project, in any of these ridings.

Alrighty then. In addition to striking out the Wikipedia Halifax inset, let’s also strike the industrial Cape Breton one, which eliminates five more seats from consideration. The total for our “rural” seats held by the three parties, after the 2006 election, is now 21 Tories, 8 Dippers, and 6 Grits.

In doing this, we are also striking the (ultimately rejected) Keltic Drive proposal from consideration, which was in a Liberal-held district. Tory districts still end up being disproportionately favoured in the proposal put forward by the late Rodney government, viz.:

   A  B  C

 PC 60% 74% 74%
 Lib 17% 11% 11%
 NDP 23% 14% 14%

Where (A) is the percentage of rural seats held by each party, (B) is the percentage share of the number of projects put forward by the Rodney government, and (C) is the percentage share of the total dollar value of those projects.

But there’s another way of looking at these numbers that should eliminate any worries about defining what’s “rural” or “urban” on the electoral map. Again, let’s just consider the seats outside industrial Cape Breton, and where Metrobuses don’t run, or at least don’t run frequently. And let’s do it with a cleverly colour-coded map:

The colours follow the traditional partisan colour scheme, with the darker, saturated tone indicating districts in which Rodney put forward highways projects, and pale tones, districts where he did not.

Turning this map back into numbers, the Rodney government proposed work in two** out of six rural Liberal districts (33%); three** out of eight rural NDP districts (38%)… and 13 out of 21 rural PC districts.

That’s 62% of them.

What you have here is the Galilean telescope of pork-barrel pavement, in which the list of “priorities” is focused through not one, but two electoral lenses; the federal one was the subject of Contrarian’s original, also cartographic, posting. In short, this all looks like a reduced-scale model of the Peckford-Crosbie Roads for Rails plan, twenty years later and one province over.

QED. Again.

* College Road in Truro, parallel to and one block south of Rte 4… is that a provincial highway?

** Or three and four, counting line-straddling projects which are mostly located in what were neighbouring PC districts.

Sycophant of the Month: June 2009

Total number of ProvGov press releases issued in June: 174 (-6 from May)

Total number with the phrase "Williams Government": 14 (no change from May)

Sycophancy index: 8.0% (+0.2 % from May)

June looked a lot like a re-match of May, and not just in terms of the final score.

It got off to a great start, with defending champ Trevor Taylor first out of the gate. Darin King and Susan Sullivan answered him later the same day, but before the day was even half over, Trevor, assisted by John Hickey, responded with another.

It would be a week before he'd take a slight lead, ending a seven-day drought on the 8th, assisted, for the second time, by Hickey. And no, this wasn't a case of re-announcing the same money over and over again, because that would be, that's just misleading. Tom Hedderson got on the board on the 11th, but Trevor, again with the help of Hickey and also Jerome Kennedy, answered that one nicely. Yet again, this was just letting The People know after; wouldn't want to mislead The People or anything.

But Tom Hedderson is made of stronger stuff than he's often given credit for. He was celebrating on the 16th, and willing on the 17th; his third for the month, putting him back in the game just one back of Trevor.

Doc King added to his single on the 18th, and Patty Pottle went on the big board on the 19th, making it an exciting four consecutive days. But some of the oxygen may have been sucked out of the room, as there was again a week-long gap in the scoring. Trevor roared back ito the game to end the lull on the 26th, followed in short order by Shawn Skinner with his first of the month, which was entirely substantial and not at all puffery. Upstart Hedderson ended the month on a high note, and like Skinner was full of substance; pages and pages of substance.

Hedderson came within one point of tying Trevor Taylor, but when the buzzer came down on the scoring, at a quarter to five (please do not shoot anyone), it was all academic: your June Sycophant of the Month, now a three-peater, is Trevor Taylor. Congratulations Trevor, and to all on an exciting month!

Supplemental, Mr. Speaker

Geoff Meeker has done a superb public service with his two-part (so far) posting on Premier Thick-Skin's very thin skin. Part one dealt with some of his thin-skinned run-ins with members of the media. Part two, more disturbingly, described a run-in with an ordinary resident from Stephenville.

Bernard Rumbolt's story is interesting for a bunch of reasons... but this passage is especially eye-catching:

“You can’t talk to him when he gets upset,” Rumbolt said. “He’s very childish. I called Bill Rowe over the matter too. Other people called to say I was only trying to (fabricate) something, that the premier would never, ever call me. But he did. He does that.”

Other people?

If anyone out there in the intertubes has the capsules of the follow-up calls, identifying the callers (at least insofar as they were identified on-air by VOCM) who essentially called Rumbolt a liar... well, you know what to do.