No more giveaways? No! More giveaways!

In a press release on Friday, quoted by the Globe and Mail, the Premier says:

Our goal has been to ensure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are the main benefactors with respect to our natural resources, and that the development of Hebron maximizes benefits for the people of the province.

Memo to the Premier, and to clueless MHAs and highly-paid comms professionals throughout provgov: the benefactor is the one who gives stuff away.

The word you are looking for is beneficiary.

Vocabulary-building

Word of the day: neopatrimonialism

He Knows What We're Asking For

At the conclusion of his VOCM appearance this morning with Randy Simms, Minister of Something Kevin O'Brien tells the radio host what it is We are apparently after:

We’re asking for fairity. We’re asking for fairity in this nation. That’s what we’re asking for. That’s all we’re asking for. We’re not asking for anything, y’know, over and above. We’re gonna pay for it.

A matter of perspective (IV)

From the annals of Hansard in the Bow-Wow Parliament, Dear Leader shows some more of his magical ability to see things from a multitude of perspectives:

Basically, just from an overview perspective

One of those options was that the act could be changed if it was from a public policy perspective.

What does the Premier think of these characterizations which have been used by other people, and also comments made - financial perspective, a business perspective

that is where we get our real mileage and our real leverage from a tourism perspective

There are not enough vessels out there to police, from a surveillance perspective

I must say, as each session goes on, I feel a lot more comfortable, from a personal perspective

We put a proposal forward that we feel, if it had gone to the membership, would have been accepted as a very, very fair, a very reasonable and an affordable proposal from government’s perspective.

Mr. Speaker, since the negotiations have started, from a concession perspective, we have taken sick leave for current employees off the table

I will continue to live up to that commitment because this is all about making it a better place, from a health care perspective, from an educational perspective and from a social perspective.

The other thing, from a business attraction perspective, the single, most important thing I did from the business side was to meet with these ambassadors to discuss business opportunities

The other thing, of course, is just from an economic perspective.

From a compassionate perspective, we are doing absolutely everything we can but it is a big Province, we have limited means… But, from your perspective - from a compassion perspective we are a very, very, very compassionate government and we are trying to do (inaudible).

We have made a decision to do what is in the best interest of rural Newfoundland and Labrador in order to spread this resource evenly around this Province from an adjacency perspective

From a perspective of face-to-face meetings

I can tell him though, that generally from an IT perspective in the Province, there are serious problems with information technology within government.

Just from our own personal perspective, as a government, the MHA knows that we put the $250,000 on the table originally for a business plan

From a personal perspective, I have to be consistent. I cannot stand in this House and be inconsistent from what I advocated on that side of the House.

We have come out and we have indicated exactly what we wanted from an equity perspective.

As well, from a federal-provincial perspective, the federal minister and the provincial minister have a joint ministers’ working committee which has been in place for a couple of months

That is probably more from a legal perspective

From a transaction perspective

From your perspective, Sir, I sincerely apologize.

As well, from an infrastructure perspective, we are probably spending about half of our infrastructure capital on hospitals and schools

I can tell you from this government’s perspective

The legal point was a moot point because, in fact, it was just a question of whether, from an ethical perspective and a practical perspective

I can tell you, though, that from my personal perspective, and from the perspective of the members of Cabinet, members of government, caucus members, this is a very serious matter to us.

from the perspective of what was transpiring at that time

The oil price is fixed from a Memorandum of Agreement perspective.

Now, from a debt-planning perspective, how can we be expected to plan when the price of oil varies dramatically?

From the Budget document perspective, since we have come into office the deficits have gone down.

The other thing, just from a general perspective -

I think this works for both sides at Question Period, from a question perspective and an answer perspective.

What we will do is, we will go back to Madam Justice Cameron and ask her to give us a detailed breakdown of where it is going from a chronological perspective

He is very good at what he does from a political perspective

From the oil perspective, we use the Pira forecast.

We budget on the basis that we try to nail it as best we can, with some conservativism in the event that things go awry or we run into the situation that we ran into this year from a global economic perspective.

The second piece of the Atlantic Gateway is we are trying to position ourselves as a North Atlantic Gateway, to open us up so that we can get up into the Northwest Passage, the arctic sovereignty issues, in order to service Greenland, Nunavut and Iqaluit, and also to position us from a Canadian perspective so that we are ideally positioned.

from my perspective and from our government’s perspective and from that minister’s perspective, who is an experienced Fisheries Minister, we are going to stand up and we are going to protect the fishery in this Province.

At that point in time we had a discussion which was a reflection of previous discussions, whereby any negotiation or any discussion or any passing of a cheque over to Abitibi would have to look out for and safeguard the interests of the workers from a severance perspective

From a lockout perspective, there is no lockout.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to everything else that we have done for health care in the Province, whether it is from an information technology perspective

from a perspective of a change of attitude, I mean we have put $79 million on the table, a significant offer, a significant amount of money.

As well, we are dealing with a heavy crude oil out there, so from a fishing perspective, there is less likelihood that it would affect the fishery

From a perspective of monitoring this, we are monitoring it very, very closely.

SimEarth

In response to this of yesterday, Nottawa makes a visual gag. Ha! Funny!

Unfortunately for that internet traitor and this one alike, Our Dear Expropriation was, in fact, Our Dear Repatriation. As Himself said in announcing the measure in December 2008:

There are numerous charters and licensing agreements which allow Abitibi to operate in this province and those relevant to the natural resources of Newfoundland and Labrador will be repatriated to the province.

He repeated the language last May — perhaps around the same time as We discovered Our Dear Expensive But Innocent Error:

"As a government, we have been determined to ensure that workers impacted by the closure of this mill are protected to the greatest extent possible," said Premier Williams. "Many of these individuals have given a lifetime of service to AbitibiBowater and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in the face of this closure. Unfortunately, that has not been the case to-date by the company. Working in the best interests of the people of the province, in December of last year our government repatriated certain assets related to this mill as a result of the company having broken their contract to operate in this province. It is now only appropriate and fair that the workers are not left behind and disadvantaged by Abitibi’s decision to close this operation."

And, for the second Throne Speech debate in a row, Dear Leader has used the same language to describe Our Dear Actions:

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Our government has made unprecedented investments in that region from repatriating resource rights to funding severance for the workers, also unprecedented, and we are completely confident that just as Stephenville did, the central region will get through this with the strength and the dignity and the determination that we are known for as a people.

It is thus obviously clear that the expropriation was really a repatriation, and that Dear Leader wasn't just forcibly taking assets from AbitibiBowater, He was taking them from some other place outside the province altogether.

Thus, it is entirely conceivable that AbitibiBowater could have used the same technology that Williams Government did, to move the forests and the Exploits River from one place to another. Faced with this imminent threat, Williams Government was entirely justified in preventing the use of that terraforming technology by whatever legislative sledgehammer is available.

We regret the error.

A new verb

January 20, 2004: “pay a dollar”

"I do think there is a moral obligation on the federal government to transfer this over ... my perspective is I think we should pay a dollar for it and that would be enough," Williams said. [Quoted in the Telegram]

May 27, 2004: “purchase”

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Now, when it comes to the Hibernia interest, yes, we are trying to purchase it. I made a statement on that a long, long, time ago, as you know. I have mentioned it to the Prime Minister on several occasions. I have mentioned it to Mr. Harper, and I also discussed other things with Mr. Harper yesterday with regard to a guarantee on the Lower Churchill. Now, of course, that is something that the hon. gentleman opposite would not understand because he seems to think -

MR. SPEAKER: Order please! I ask the Premier to complete his answer.

July 1, 2004: “transfer”

In a letter to federal New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, Premier Danny Williams said the Government of Canada’s remaining 19 per cent share of Petro-Canada should be sold to invest in social programs for all Canadians; however, Canada’s 8.5 per cent ownership stake in the Hibernia project – an entirely different kind of public investment – should be transferred to Newfoundland and Labrador which currently has no ownership role at all in its principal offshore petroleum project.

November 28, 2005: “sell”

Does your party support the transfer or sale of the Federal Government's share in Hibernia to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador provided the Federal Government is kept whole on their expected return at the time of their initial investment?

September 12, 2007: “repatriate”

Williams said his next conquest will be the “repatriation” of the federal government’s 8.5 per cent equity stake in the Hibernia oil field.

January 20, 2009: “acquire”

I am requesting that our governments immediately commence a process that would see the government of Newfoundland and Labrador acquire the federal government's 8.5 per cent interest in the Hibernia project currently vested in the Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation [Kathy Blunderdale, as quoted in the Telegram of July 4, 2009]

July 11, 2009: “return”

"We feel it's time," Dunderdale told The Telegram this week. "Hibernia has been extremely generous to the federal government, and that's all fine, but now it should be returned to the province."

April 27, 2010: “attain”

The Premier will have several items on his agenda as he represents the people of Newfoundland and Labrador including the fishery, the province's request to attain the Federal Government's Hibernia interest, the Lower Churchill development, and land claims in Labrador among others.

Terminology

Russell Wangersky – he's not even one of the Newfoundland Wangerskies – has an English usage issue:

I hate to raise the topic, because it’s uncomfortable to be labelled a traitor yet again or a naysayer or whatever the latest term is for anyone who asks questions.

You're a jerk, Russell.

The latest term is "jerk".

Word of the Day: racket

“So, I'd be less than honest if I didn't say it was a sad moment. I think he’s the smart one, he's out of this racket. ... Anyway that's another comment.”

That was Danny Williams, waxing philosophical on the departure of Trevor Taylor on September 23rd.

People need to remember, the media needs to remember this - it's all right for you to tear the strip off a member “or minister, because we go into this racket realizing it's going to happen.”

And that was Paul Oram, yesterday, waxing philosophical on his own departure.

Which makes a body wonder…

Given the penchant for The Party and its more fervent adherents to adopt, in time, every hackneyed word and phrase of the DanSpeak lexicon — cf. “piece”, “due diligence”, and “on a go-forward basis”, among many others — just how long has ODP been calling his calling, the job he chose and campaigned for, a “racket”?

Word of the Day: Pfff

First in an occasional series. From a disappointingly unsigned news article which appeared on page A2 of the St. John's Telegram of September 3, 2009:

"My chief of staff informed Mr. Verge some time ago. He was informed, he did know," Williams told reporters Wednesday.

"I think now his explanation to us this morning is that he didn't understand that that's what it meant," said Williams, shrugging his shoulders and adding a "Pfff."

"Anyway, for what it's worth, he's entitled to his opinion."

A matter of perspective (II)

“From Rob Ghiz’s perspective…”

- ODP on CTV this evening, demonstrating yet again the broad range of perspectives he brings to the job.

A matter of perspective (II)

From His testimony yesterday before the Inquisition:

So there was a heavy onus on ministers because they had multiple duties, but, you know, there was what I would term an open relationship between us in the sense of, you know, if you need to come to us, come to us, and when we need to go to you, we'll go to you, from a big picture perspective.

I got to tell you from my own perspective, the detailed systems in the office is not something that I would get involved in, rightly or wrongly. That may be an abdication of responsibility, however, you know, from an office setup perspective, that's just not somewhere where I'd be involved deeply.

Now given the number of contacts, as I said, the hundred thousand plus contacts that come into the office, obviously people on the eighth floor are making decisions on a daily basis as to what moves forward and what doesn't move forward, and that's at every level, from our receptionist who gets inundated with calls, depending on what the issue of the day or the issue of the month is, that person alone receives a lot of frontline compliments and attack from both perspectives.

From a budgetary perspective, and a health care perspective particularly, you know, I remember sitting around the table and having to decide on teeth and glasses for people, some of the basic necessities of life so that people could see and eat, and having representation made to us by good people who are involved in the budget process that had to put everything before us and saying to us these are the kind of decisions that you have to make, Cabinet, and you have to prioritize them.

The Department works it out, and then it moves on and it's never seen or heard from again, from our perspective.

Based on that, that is a clear signal to our office that this matter is, for want of a better term, dormant right now in the sense from our perspective, we're not required to be involved and it is now in the hands of health officials, whether that happened to be the Department of Health or Eastern Health.

Well, you know, I guess, Mr. Coffey, if you look now as the result of the experience of what we've all gone through, you know, I can tell you right now that all senior officials are on red alert and that means from a perspective of, you know, major matters. Ministers have been now told categorically in a Cabinet meeting that if there's matters of important that, you know, need my attention and they need me involved and they affect the people in this province in a major way, whether that happens to be life safety or whatever else, then you need to come to me directly and you need to let me know directly.

From my own personal perspective, if there's something wrong, I'd like to know at the earliest available opportunity.

Certainly Mr. Forsey and his family, other MHAs, possible some Cabinet Ministers and I'm not doing that from memory, I'm just saying the type of nature, Lieutenant Governor and staff would have probably been — from a media perspective, it would have been Ms. Matthews and then possibly from a staff perspective, either Mr. Dinn or Mr. Noel who was with us at the time, if I remember correctly, yes.

The issue was minimized which is the term that was used, not in that context, but the term was used, so therefore, it may not be something that any members of my staff may have considered, you know, an issue to put before me at that particular point in time and, you know, again, that's from the perspective of the patients.

The big thing for us from a public perspective would be that the matter is under control, that the patients are fully informed, that they are being notified, that the damage has been controlled, and that they're basically trying to get to the bottom of it and come up with the answers for people.

Now at this particular point in time, I don't know if the ads were going out or when they went out, but there was a reassurance given to us then that this was very much under control, and people who needed to know, knew, and people who needed to be involved from an expert perspective were being very much involved.

I think from our own perspective, our own Ministers and officials were saying to Eastern Health, "let us know what you need from a resource perspective to resource up to get answers" and I think that was done, certainly told it was done and I assumed it was being done.

With regard to something like Herceptin, you know, when that drug or a suggestion is made from a pharmaceutical perspective as to what drugs are appropriate, that comes on recommendation, I think, if I remember correctly, from a panel of doctors or specialists who say to us, you know, this has been accepted by the appropriate agencies across the country or North America.

This kind of information though, you know, from the patient's perspective and people affected and, you know, this is important information on the way through that should be passed on to people who have an ability to probably do something about it.

Reading that, you would assume that the reviews are still ongoing, retesting is still going on at Mount Sinai, this is taking longer than it was expected to take, however, for me I wouldn't question that because if the process is taking longer, the last thing, I suppose, from a legal — from a medical perspective that people should do is fast track that process.

So it wouldn't have been my issue, put it that way, in that perspective.

Be from a co-ordination perspective, so that if this came out of left field in the House, so that I wouldn't just be hit between the two eyes and say, okay, there's an issue here that I'm not aware of, and I would be able to say in my own mind that I've looked to the Minister of Health and Tom would get up and handle that question.

And I just basically said yes and, so you know, from a disclosure perspective, Madam Commissioner, I don't know where procedurally we could ever go with this. In the criminal side there's disclosure requirements, but on the civil side, certainly from a public body perspective, you know, we wonder whether there should be more open disclosure because it's difficult to get it, but I do have to speak from a position where, like I can do it because, you know, I then have to answer to my Cabinet, but I know my Cabinet feels that, you know, information that's important in the public domain should be disclosed and that's an openness.

Now before you leave that though, if there was an area where I think we dropped the ball from a government perspective, it's there and the reason being is that the Department Health should have and/or knew the figures, the minister was briefed prior to that. I believe the minister was briefed in November.

So I suppose from a patient perspective, at least people who had their treatments changed, that was disclosed.

Yeah, and I mean, you know, from the minister's perspective, and I go back to the August briefing note, in fairness to Minister Osborne, he did not have that briefing note.

Well, it would be concern, I mean, just basically that he is concerned about what is going on over at Eastern Health from the perspective of, you know, information being provided, and again in his role as minister, he is responsible for that public confidence side.

No, just, you know, really a more just gearing up and trying to put information together as best we can and pulling together whatever records would be available from a briefing note perspective, what information I have, what information others have.

Talked about communications issues, and then there was a discussion on quality assurance, but what we did do was go through a chronology as to what happened from the start, what we had from a briefing note perspective, you know, what ministers knew and what ministers didn't know, and that was an issue, and everybody was brought up to speed.

First of all, from an adverse health perspective, on this event, also on a go - forward basis on major adverse health events, and also as probably the best person in government to be able to liaise with this Inquiry in order to produce and provide accurate information, and that's been a tough process, not because he hasn't been doing it right, it's because it's been difficult trying to get all the information due to database management issues and pitfalls and poor record keeping, and these are — you know, these are after the fact situations.

It's, you know, the problem, how it happened, when it happened and then when we move into damage control mode, and there are two completely different scenarios that are probably pretty clearly delineated from a time perspective, you know, and a lot of emphasis has been put on who did what after the fact.

A matter of perspective

From the Ministry of Truth:

Premier Doesn't Expect Nurses to Strike
October 20, 2008

Premier Danny Williams says he would be very surprised if nurses went on strike. Government and the union are caught in a contract dispute, with the nurses set to decide their next action during their convention in Corner Brook this week. They are already refusing to perform some of what they consider non-nursing tasks in health care facilities. Meantime, government has launched an ad campaign, reiterating its position.

Premier Williams suggests not only nurses, but NAPE as well, take the 21.5 percent compounded increase over four years now, because uncertain times could be on the horizon. The premier says government is now facing a situation where the price of oil has dropped in half. He says from a union perspective they should be delighted and grab this offer now and be secure.

Ah, for the simpler times when it was, y'know, up to a union to determine what is, or is not, a "union perspective".