Straining to restrain

Early on Thursday afternoon, Premier Paul Davis, and whoever the Finance Minister is, went before the legislative gallery to announce hiring and spending freezes:

#Newfoundland and #Labrador Premier Paul Davis announces spending freeze, hiring restrictions in response to falling oil prices. #NLpoli
— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) November 27, 2014

Within two hours, their own party was happily stomping all over the "restraint" message track, because nothing says restraint quite like tooting your own spending:

Right on red

Dear Leader tells the National Post, without any obvious sense that he’s pulling Adam McDowell’s innocent leg:

We have a Reform-based Conservative Party which is probably ideologically more right-wing. I’m very fiscally conservative. What I wanted to do in Newfoundland and Labrador was get our fiscal situation under control. We were headed to bankruptcy six years ago. Now we’re a have-province. That’s the fiscally conservative side.

On the other side, I’m very socially conscious. Our poverty reduction strategy has been nationally acclaimed. We’ve doubled our health-care budget. We’ve put a lot of money into education. I felt our transportation and communication infrastructure was very important. I’m trying to give us all the basics to succeed after a non-renewable oil [resource] moves on.

Let’s see… a province whose biggest employer is itself, where the minister once in charge of doling out large swathes of that “socially conscious” side described his own spending as “unsustainable”, where the notionally-arms-length state energy corporation intervenes ever more into the shell of what used to be the private-sector economy, and where the government modestly leads its own parade to celebrate a massive intergenerational transfer payment, that’s a “very fiscally conservative”, “Reform-based Conservative Party” that is “ideologically more right-wing”?

Idealogically more right-wing than what?

What “fiscally conservative” side does Danny Williams have, besides the impeccable timing to sweep into office on a wave of mania and demagoguery just as all those “giveaways” of the past are flushing the provincial treasury with cash?

Somewhere, poor old Liam O’Brien is rolling in his grave.

[Or, he would be, if he weren’t happily still alive. – ed.]

Or, he would be, if he weren’t happily still alive.

Not so fast

"We don't need Ottawa."

— Deputy Dan Kathy Blunderdale, speaking about the Lower Churchill on VOCM, September 4, 2009.

"Oh, yes we do," or words to that effect.

— Dan, speaking about the same thing, some time in December.

We Don't Know What We're Fighting For

The Ministry of Truth reports today:

Premier Ready to Square off with Quebec Hydro

The Premier is gearing up for another fight on the national stage.

Aha. Translation: the "fight" on the local stage isn't going so well. Oh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. go ahead:

Danny Williams says Hydro Quebec continues to try and block this province from developing the Lower Churchill, now refusing to sign onto a water management agreement for the Churchill River in Labrador. Speaking to a sold out crowd last evening at the PC Party's annual convention, Williams says the issue came to a head Friday and he's setting his sights on the mainland power utility as the issue moves to the Public Utility Board. In light of the profits pulled by the company on the Upper Churchill, The Premier describes the actions as 'the pure heights of greed.'

As opposed, of course, to the generosity of damming a river in Labrador, transmitting the resulting energy everywhere except Labrador, decrying as "irresponsible" the crazy idea that Labrador should benefit financially from the project, and warning the petulant locals not to get too ask-y. Oh, sorry, interrupted again:

The Quebec power company is also reported to be taking over New Brunswick Hydro, Williams says, to get a strangle-hold on route access. He says while there is nothing he can do about that possibility, he offers New Brunswick some words of caution. The short term gains could have long term consequences of giving up energy resources . He warns our experiences have not been good in dealings with the powerful Hydro Quebec.

Alrighty, then. Now, set aside that every premise in this story, just like every premise of the Dantrum which precipitated it, is demonstrably false, let's assume, arguendo, that "our experiences have not been good in dealings with the powerful Hydro Quebec".

Isn't this, then, about the point in the discourse where the reporters should jump in and ask the Premier, and his understudy: why on earth have they been begging and pleading with Hydro-Quebec, crown corporation of such a 'volatile' province, to take part in the imaginary Lower Churchill project?

As Kathy Blunderdale, ostensible Minister of something, told VOCM last month:

We know that if you come in here as an equity player that you have to have a good return on your investment. And we want you to have a good return on your investment. But it also has to be a good deal for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now we have been with that message back and forth [i.e. to Hydro-Quebec] for five years. No, sir. No, sir. There is no takeup on that proposal.

For five years.

Back and forth.

To Hydro-Quebec.

The same Hydro-Quebec, one presumes, that Our Dear Dealings have not been good with.

The same Hydro-Quebec, one presumes, that Autonomy Williams is now warning New Brunswick about, as he injects himself into the politics of another province.

The same Hydro-Quebec that Mr. Autonomy wants, desperately, to help underwrite his imaginary Lower Churchill project. As Minister Blunderdale told VOCM, Mr. Autonomy's government has been trying to rope Hydro-Quebec in since 2004: before, and while, professing Our Dear Go It Alone strategy.

Going It Alone — Together.

Yip. That Hydro-Quebec.

On punishment

The Word of Our Dan:

Do you think that I would punish the people of Port aux Basques or the people of Cartwright or the people of Bay Roberts or the people of Signal Hill Quidi Vidi because they don't you know buy into my tune or sing my tune or vote for my candidate? You know it's not the role of leaders whether they're Premiers or Prime Ministers to punish people...

[VOCM Open Line, August 26, 2008]

The short answer to His rhetorical question: yip.

The longer answer to His rhetorical question: Yippity-yip-yipper.

Monstrous hybrids

Danny Williams November 1, 2001, speech to the St. John's Board of Trade — this was back in the day when Mr. Accountability still published his speeches — reveals that he subscribes to the school of thought that a province should be run like a business:

I intend to bring a business approach to government that balances compassion with practical reality.

Then there are some, like Joan Forsey, who think that a province should not be run like a business:

This contains two highly questionable assumptions: that carrying on a business and delivering a public service are comparable; and that the cost of delivering a public service in remote rural areas is the same as in the province’s largest city.

And finally, there are those who think a business should be run like a province:

Talks Surrounding NLRC To Happen in Qatar Tomorrow
June 21, 2008

Meetings with potential investors in Qatar are planned for tomorrow and Monday in an effort to bail out Newfoundland and Labrador Refining Corporation.The Director of the Refining Corporation says he's remaining optimistic in light of the company's current situation. SNC Lavalin, one of it's contractors, served the company Thursday with action in Supreme Court asking the corporation be declared bankrupt. Brian Dalton says their first action will be to address the issue. Dalton says the company is seeking investors from outside the North American Market. Dalton says he is encouraged by their response and says yesterday they were working hard to inform them of the latest developments.

Premier Danny Williams and Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale are in Qatar where they hope to pitch the project to the investment community. Dunderdale says they still believe in the project.