Fratricidal politics

From CTV News on 2008.09.14

SANDIE RINALDO: Well in Newfoundland it's not just Conservatives going after the NDP but provincial Conservatives going after federal Conservatives. Is this going to hurt?

ROBERT FIFE (Reporter): It is going to hurt. The Liberals expect they can win, think they can possibly win all seven seats here. The Conservatives had held three, or currently hold three of those seats, and that's because Danny Williams is on the warpath. He's bound and determined to defeat all the Conservative candidates. In fact federal Conservatives are saying he's using intimidation tactics to scare Conservatives away from voting for federal Conservatives. Danny Williams says that isn't true.

The wisdom of Rex

From today's Globe and Mail 

Byline: REX MURPHY 

Danny boy has gone too far 

It's too bad Loyola Hearn, who was the Newfoundland minister in the Harper government, is not running again. After a long career in politics, he has decided to leave the game. 

Mr. Hearn is a very decent man, a product of the great coastal stretch outside St. John's we call the Southern Shore. He is an "outport" man, just as Danny Williams is a "townie." The health of Newfoundland has always, by some peculiar chemistry, depended on a dynamic equilibrium of its outport and townie components. 

Today, after the collapse of the cod fishery and with the near co-incidental explosion of offshore oil, the outport dimension of Newfoundland is almost in ruins, while St. John's and its suburbs are rich and active as never before. There are two Newfoundlands. 

The capital city and environs are in a fever of development, while vast stretches of coastal communities are inert and underpopulated, mere phantoms of what once they were. 

Mr. Hearn's retirement deprives Newfoundland politics of a necessary voice, one suited by temperament and background to speak on the overwhelming subject of the accelerating extinction of Newfoundland's quintessential outport heritage. 

This is not the only unhealthy imbalance in the province. There are 48 seats in the House of Assembly, and Mr. Williams owns 44 of them. The Liberals, with three, are the rump of a rump, and the NDP, with one, is a vapour. The numbers tell it: Mr. Williams is king of the Rock, the most powerful politician since Joey Smallwood. 

Newfoundland politics has shrunk to oil and Danny Williams. 

There are only two ways of doing politics now: Mr. Williams's way, or no way at all. Those who cross him, in what he sees as "Newfoundland's interests," are given short shrift, and none too subtly derided as working against Newfoundland. This was a Smallwood turn, and the least attractive aspect of his quite mixed political qualities. 

In his last and bitter days, he turned Newfoundland politics into a one-man show incarnate. 

That's why it was so very unfortunate that when Mr. Hearn - who, while he may not be as good a politician as Mr. Williams, is at least as honourable a Newfoundlander - said he was retiring, Mr. Williams issued this statement: "The one thing that my cabinet ministers have done throughout is stood up for their constituents, for the electorate and the people they were elected to represent and they have done that. 

And it's unfortunate in the last few years that Loyola hasn't done the same thing. "Oh, cut it out. This "standing up for Newfoundland" palaver is best administered in small doses, if at all. And it never fits the mouth of the person doing the "standing up." Furthermore, a difference of opinion, a clash of party interests, should never be categorized as a clash of patriotism. There is a jingoism of small places as well as of large. And Newfoundland is more susceptible to it than most. Newfoundlanders are ferociously fond of Newfoundland, but that very affection can play havoc with our judgment and our politics. 

The idea that Mr. Hearn, because he disagreed with Mr. Williams, acted with less than honourable intent toward Newfoundland is ludicrous. 

Mr. Williams, in fact, is a much better man than his own statement would have you believe. 

And now that the federal election is on, Mr. Williams has thrown himself with gale force into the campaign. He sent an e-mail to his entire caucus to determine whether they were on-side in his campaign against "Steve." And out of the 44, there was only one spine. It belongs to Elizabeth Marshall, who earlier - this is the distilled version - quit her cabinet job because she wasn't going to put up with the Premier running it for her. Only Ms. Marshall didn't respond with the ovine bleat, Yes, sir, yes sir, three bags full. The others signed on. 

It's not Mr. Williams's quarrel with Stephen Harper that's at question. It's hauling into that quarrel all the rhetoric of "disloyalty" to Newfoundland, stirring the jingoistic fevers, and characterizing those on the other side as unworthy. Newfoundlanders have been lucky in past decades that, when we had strong premiers, we had strong ministers in Ottawa. 

Danny Williams has reached such supremacy, however, that he has effectively become the only voice in Newfoundland politics. Mr. Hearn is gone. John Crosbie is in honorific heaven. And now there's only Danny. That's bad for us. It's bad for him, too, should he care to think about it. 

He should look over history's shoulder and take in what happened to Joey Smallwood, a great premier who subtracted from his own legacy by succumbing to the vanity of power, the great corrosive self-flattery of believing that being in charge is the same thing as always being right.

Poker face

The look of a real negotiator who gives nothing away.

Aluminium poisoning

Aluminium poisoning in the body manifests itself with progressive dementia, bad judgement and hypersensitivity.

Aluminium poisoning in governments manifests itself in the same way.

This starts when normally rational governments suddenly get the idea that running cheap electricity to aluminium smelters automatically presents great development opportunities.

Because the jobs are high paying and numerous, these are tempting plums to bring into hardpressed areas.  I'm sure that was in the Premier's mind when, announced today in the Telegram, Premier Williams said he is pitching for an aluminium smelter in Labrador.

And smelters do present great development opportunities.  Sometimes.   But many times they don't.  For smelters to work out for people and government (jobs, taxes), you need to have specific and clearly definable conditions in place.

And because these facilities are huge energy consumers, one of those conditions is a large and reliable source of energy.

Iceland is a great example.  It has energy that is surplus to their needs and cheap to produce (geothermal energy).

But more important than cheap is that it is stranded energy.  Stranded means what you think it might mean - it's pretty well stuck in one place because it's too expensive to move around because it's isolated from end-user markets.

So Iceland generates power for cheap and then feeds it into smelters.  And except for the fact that the country itself has taken on substantial debt to make it all happen, Iceland appears to have been reasonably successful with that.

Because they do appear to be so success, other jurisdictions with cheaply generated energy figure it's smart for them to do that too.  Like Quebec.

In Quebec they take cheap hydro power and feed it into smelters and are planning more soon.  Except in their case, the power they are using is not stranded power.  The power they use has lots of potential alternative markets nearby in the US and Ontario.

Because these markets will pay far more for the power than the smelter does, government ends up subsidizing the power to the smelters through forgoing the difference in the electricity rates they could get elsewhere.

So what, you might say.  Isn't that subsidy worth the jobs created?  Maybe.  It depends on how much you want to pay in subsidies.

Would it make sense to pay, say, $300,000 per year per job?  Most, I think, would consider that level of subsidy ridiculous.  After all, at that level, doesn't it make more sense sell the power elsewhere, pay off each potential jobholder $100,000 year and then government can pocket the other $200,000 year and use it for services for everybody else?

Yet in Quebec, the ridiculous is actually happening.

In recently announced projects, to create 740 jobs, the government is giving up $2.7 billion in revenues in exchange for a $2-billion investment by Alcan.

The total cost to the government of the subsidy to Alcan equals nearly $274,338 per job each year for 35 years.

But the government calculus is that a $2.7 billion subsidy stretching out into the the future is worth the political benefit of having jobs in place today (or very soon).

The government of Quebec has aluminium poisoning.

Now we have to watch for signs of aluminium poisoning here.

NL in Policy Options

If you have any interest in public policy (and I know readers of Offal are very keen on the subject) then the magazine Policy Options is part of your reading list. As the country's premier public policy magazine, it encourages informed debate on the important current and future public policy issues.

A frequent contributor is MUN political science professor Dr. Christopher Dunn. Anyone who has passed through that department in the last 10 years or so will have been educated by him in the intricacies of public policy formation. He was also a consultant to Justice Green for his report on the House of Assembly spending scandal.

His most recent published article is called The Williams effect: election 2007 in Newfoundland and Labrador. It's a fascinating perspective on the events of the fall and concludes with:

With such a majority, one would think that the future belongs to Williams. In fact, that is what he said: “The future is ours,” read the PC election material, sounding a bit like Germany in the 1930s (“the future belongs to us”). However, it is a vague future. The Premier was the centre of the advertising material, but all it promised of a concrete nature was strategic planning and “greater control of our resources.”

There are many implications of the Williams effect. Megaprojects, schools and roads are likely to preoccupy him for the next four years — the politics of concrete.

But the future should not be taken for granted. Williams is unlikely to pay attention to a significant challenge facing him: support for the regime. What he should do is to establish another review, one that focuses on the quality of democracy in the legislature and in society. Because there is no significant opposition, the public should be encouraged to play this role. A multipurpose legislative amendments committee open to public hearings on most legislation, a committee on federal-provincial relations, a stance on e-democracy and a review of the electoral system should also be considered. Newfoundland’s legislature is under-developed, and democracy has suffered as a result. It doesn’t have to be that way. Despite the imbalance, there is still hope that there can be meaningful reform.

Of interest is another of his recent articles in Policy Options from February 2005 called Why Williams walked, why Martin balked: the Atlantic Accord dispute in perspective. The precis says:

In a province where no premier ever lost votes by standing up to Ottawa, Danny Williams has become the latest in a long line of provincialist champions from Newfoundland and Labrador. When he walked out of a First Ministers’ Meeting last October, he had carefully chosen his fight with Paul Martin over the Atlantic Accord, which allows Newfoundland and Labrador to keep 100 percent of its offshore revenues. Yet 70 percent of those revenues are clawed back by Ottawa under the equalization formula.

In the election campaign, both Stephen Harper and Jack Layton promised to end the clawback. Martin made a similar campaign promise, but balked when federal finance officials turned stingy. From St. John’s, Christopher Dunn appraises the political landscape, and fallout, from the Atlantic Accord disaccord, and finds Martin between the Rock and a hard place.

Both of these articles are available online in PDF form, convenient for downloading, printing and weekend reading.

Shameful performances & distorted priorities

This morning Minister Shaw Skinner called to "clarify" his previous remarks made to the media yesterday. For the record, here's the remarks Skinner felt he had to clarify:

CBC TV, Jonathan Crowe: But I mean, your boss is saying "Anybody But Conservative" in the next election. That's gotta be difficult when you meet Minister Hearn out in the lobby and shake hands.

Hon. Shawn Skinner: Not for me, it isn't. My boss can vote for who he wishes. He can mark his 'X' where he wishes to mark it. From my perspective, I have a job to do. I'm elected by the people of St. John's Centre. I'm in cabinet representing the people of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and I have a job to do. And I'm going to do that to the best of my ability.

If and when there is a federal election, we all as individual citizens can make up our own minds what we want to do. I'm here today as a provincial minister and I'm carrying out my duties as a provincial minister.

Sounds abundantly clear to me. I'm not sure what really needed to be clarified. And not only that, these views reflect what other ministers, I hear, have said privately.

And in the end, what do these remarks really indicate other than what most people believe: that it's time for the two levels of government to get along and that the Premier's Ottawa jihad should not get in the way of normal federal-provincial cooperation on essential issues of importance to NLers.

When I heard Skinner's statements of yesterday, I was impressed. In a cabinet with a reputation of obsequious bowing and scraping to the boss, here was an honourable gentleman who had the courage of his convictions in speaking out.

I've crossed paths with Shawn Skinner on more than one occasion and always found him to be sharp, articulate, well-briefed and knowledgeable, combative when need arose (and sometimes even when there was no need) and never one to back off when he felt he was in the right.

So then Minister Skinner called Open Line this morning. Though the host, Randy Simms, wanted to talk about yesterday's announcement of the older workers' adjustment program, Skinner had another agenda.

His goal for the call was to perform a lightspeed backpedal from his statement of the previous day thought an abject bow and scrape on province-wide radio to make it clear that all the media reports of what he said were gross misinterpretations. He said there there was no light between he and the Premier and of course he totally and wholly supported the Premier on every position and in every way.

He even felt obligated to include the fact that he issued a private apology to the Premier for any confusion his remarks caused in the minds of others.

Wow. How can you describe this kind of public action of a minister of the crown of swallowing his dignity and performing this sort of public bow and scrape as anything other than shameful? On a personal level, it's uncomfortable to listen to and it really makes me wonder what kind of regime requires ministers of the crown to behave that way.

But beyond that, there is a more important public issue at hand. When Skinner called, he felt obligated, and considered it important, that this craven activity in trying to work himself back into the warm glow of the Premier's approval take precedence over what really should have been the most important matter for him to deal with today - the announcement of the older workers' adjustment program.

When an administration forces a minister of the crown to choose between deals with what is really a very minor political matter over addressing an important issue of public policy upon which hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the province are depending for their future livelihood, then we have a government with a truly distorted set of priorities.

What goes up must come down

The Telegram column today from Bill Rowe is worth reading. He makes the general argument from recent political history that political parties hit their lowest lows after reaching the highest highs.

For example, after the federal PCs knocking off the biggest majority in Canadian history, they were virtually wiped out just a couple of elections later. He points out the instructive case of the Smallwood Liberals too.

He writes:

There’s an unrestrained impulse among many involved in that all-consuming racket for overwhelming success. Success in moderation is not sufficient. It has to be absolute, over-the-top success even though such total triumph often carries with it the seeds of its own destruction ...

I’m not saying he will destroy his party as Mulroney did. But he could well push his party into the outer darkness for a couple of decades as Joey did. So, while he drives towards massive victory in October, Danny might well remember that leaders as lovable and powerful as he now is, incredible as that now seems, sowed the seeds of ruin by their overweening success.

Is that kind of political devastation a truism? Or is it the selective application of post-facto moral approbation?

Or is Rowe on to something?

The pattern is more subtle than just a party going from great heights to great lows. I think the pattern is closely related to the leadership which took them to the great heights achieved. The difference between the phenomena Rowe talks about and the normal exchange of parties in government comes down to an important factor: the leader style.

There are some successful parties where the success is institutional and party-based. Their leaders are not central of the party's identity and function. The strings of Alberta and Ontario Progressive Conservative dynastic governments provide the answer.

In both cases, the parties were able to select leader after leader who could take over the party and continue an unbroken string of electoral and government success. The successful elements which led them to multiple election wins under multiple leaders were centered in the party. Those parties had the ability to successfully self-renew their leadership without the trauma of electoral loss to force the issue.

The parties remained effective under multiple leaders through continuity of their structures and activists.

Mind you most of those leaders seemed pretty conventional with some exceptions, but that's part of the pattern too. These fairly conventional leaders left the issue of electoral success devolved to the party mechanism without needing to take it into their own hands. That way, the tools were in place for the next leader when they came along.

You would think that's the norm but it's not. When Turner came to power in 1984, he found the federal Liberal Party had virtually hollowed out. The reelection structures had settled do firmly in the Office of the Prime Minister that when Trudeau left, no reelection machine existed.

Under Smallwood, Smallwood was the party in every meaningful sense. Maurice Duplessis comes to mind too.

Under Mulroney, the PC machinery was so closely tied to Mulroney that, just like the Trudeau Liberals, when he retired so did they. Did you see any significant Mulroney era fixers on the Kim Campbell campaign?

So when you have an overwhelming personality occupying the top post, they, well, overwhelm the top post and the party they lead. More and more the independent party structures are populated by persons more loyal to leader than the party. And they operate less and less independently from the leader's office.

You will see the reelection machinery and the leader's office become one and the same.

So when the leader leaves, the machinery collapse because the focus is gone. In some cases in might take a decade or more but it can just as easily take just a term or two.

Strong leaders tend to crowd out strong party mechanisms. In this province, with the popular emphasis on personality over party of ideology, the leaders matter even more than in most places and the parties matter less except as tools of the leader.

Do you think this current Premier doesn't thoroughly and completely dominate his party, caucus and government? Just ask Fabian Manning or Elizabeth Marshall.

It's too simplistic to say these structural reasons are the only ones why the strong personalities leave political devastation in their wake. Sometimes, after a few years of the electorate having to submit to the intensity and heat of "strong leadership", people just want a break. Look at Moores after Smallwood and Wells after Peckford. So there are other factors that come into play too.

But overall, I have to say that Bill Rowe has pretty well nailed it.

Danny Williams of NL - Atlantic Premier Profiles

I wrote profiles of the four Atlantic Premiers for publication for the May issue of Atlantic Business Magazine (ABM). One has already left office (Pat Binns of Prince Edward Island) but the other three are still in power: Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia, Shawn Graham of New Brunswick and of course Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the next couple of days I'll post all the profiles.

A companion piece to these profiles is an overview of all four Atlantic premiers previously published in ABM.

Today, Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador.

---------------------------------------

Danny Williams is one of the most complex and contradictory figures in Newfoundland and Labrador’s political history.

Lawyer, Rhodes scholar and communications magnate, this highly-successful son of a prominent St John’s family consistently defines himself as an outsider, battling oppressors of every kind. Long active in the political backrooms, he did not run for office until 2001, when almost 50.

A lifelong Conservative, since becoming premier in 2003 Williams has dramatically expanded the role of government in the province’s key industries, energy and communications. Fiercely proud and protective of Newfoundland and Labrador’s culture and history, he nonetheless feels that its people have not, until his administration took office, been able to control their own destiny.

Perhaps it is this sense of historic grievance that fuels his ambitious plans for Newfoundland and Labrador. Williams is dedicated to re-engineering his province’s rural regions on a sustainable hub-and-spoke model: “The goal,” says Williams, “is that each region will have its own cluster of industries, businesses, and health, education and government services. As a result, people living in outlying communities will have access to education, training, health care and employment within reasonable commuting times.”

His stepped economic initiatives - the near-term Regional Sectoral Diversification Program, medium-term Innovation Strategy and a Skills Task Force with a longer-term focus – are intended to create jobs and slow outmigration: “We know that we have a preferred lifestyle in Newfoundland and Labrador and given the opportunity, our young people will stay at home.”

Williams wants to create that opportunity by leveraging his province’s abundant natural resources – petroleum, hydropower, wind, minerals and fish – but is in no hurry, believing “it is better to wait for a good deal, than to take short terms gains to the detriment of long term benefits”.

Patience and planning are the hallmarks of Williams’ administration. He has even tried to bring order and accountability to Newfoundland and Labrador’s unruly political system. He imposed fixed term elections and returned the legislature to the oversight of the Auditor General – and while no-one expected the spending scandals that emerged, he says he has no regrets.

Despite his reputation as a scrapper, Premier Williams believes in regional and national cooperation. While hesitant to endorse the Atlantica concept, he acknowledges the common ground among the Atlantic premiers and communicates frequently with his counterparts. He values the Council of Atlantic Premiers and the Council of the Federation as forums to address common challenges, maintains issues unique to specific provinces “require an independent approach”.

Williams’ pugnacious independence is most evident in his relationship with Ottawa: while nodding toward cooperation, he vows “as leader of Newfoundland and Labrador I will always protect the interests of the people of the province.”

Reviewing his first term as premier of Canada’s most easterly province, Williams says the thing that surprised him most was “the immense satisfaction I feel when our government implements policies and programs that positively impact everyday life in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

NL in national news

Three pieces in the Globe and Mail today highlight different aspects of local events as long as the only local events which interest you are the oil industry and the Premier's snit of the day. It seems that if it were not for the NOIA annual conference, there would be little news at all because it has been generating a flood of news stories with national circulation, even days after the close.

Shawn McCarthy has two pieces. The first, When a boom goes quiet, re-covers the old ground of the local adjustments made made by local business in the wake of having no further oil developments in the works. It's become such a common theme that even the Premier felt obliged to address the issue in his opening NOIA address.

The Globe article opens with:

Greg Gulliver is one of Newfoundland's fortunate sons - making good wages as a project supervisor at the Orphan Industries Ltd. fabrication mill just a few kilometres from his St. John's home.

More often than not, though, the marine launch and recovery systems he works on are being fashioned for overseas markets - the Gulf of Mexico or offshore Angola - rather than for the oil and gas fields located a few hundred kilometres off the Newfoundland coast.

Mr. Gulliver, 40, joined Orphan's parent company, D.F. Barnes Ltd. six years ago, and has prospered along with the St. John's success story. From a 10-person operation just four years ago, D.F. Barnes has grown to 320 people today. Revenue has climbed to $1-million a week from $1-million a year.

But with the recent slowdown in offshore oil activity, the company has followed a well-trod path that so many take in this province - finding work in booming oil fields around the globe, including in Alberta, where a third of D.F. Barnes' work force is located.

The concept of local companies shifting to fabrication for clients out-of-province was also covered in a piece, Jobs out east, that I wrote some months ago for Atlantic Business Magazine.

McCarthy's second, Oil rises, Canada's take doesn't is an interview with Graham Kellas, Wood Mackenzie's vice-president for petroleum economics. I saw Kellas' presentation at the NOIA conference and it was pure gold. If I could have one petro-economic mind on my desk in a jar with a speaker attached for communicating, it would be his. He was complete and throughly informative.

After his presentation, I asked him why developing countries were able to charge such high royalties and why corporations were willing to pay the price. The answer was partially about those nations' utter dependency upon that resource for revenue and their inability to collect more generalised spin-off revenues.

In short, the situation was more complex than this provincial government's tendency to hold these nation's actions up as examples for us to follow would lead you to believe.

But this article focused on only one small part of the presentation, Canada's reduction in our take of oil revenues due to reduces corporate taxes. McCarthy writes:

In the past five years, Canada is the only significant oil and gas producing country to actually reduce its share of oil revenues, the British consulting firm Wood Mackenzie says in a new study.

Many other oil-rich jurisdictions, including Britain and Alaska, have significantly increased their share of the revenue pie generated by rapidly rising global crude prices. But as a result of cuts to federal corporate tax rates introduced by the former Liberal government, oil companies have seen their tax bite reduced, relative to their overall revenues.

“What you've seen in a number of countries is that they have introduced additional taxes for oil companies, to get more of a share of the recent price upside,” Graham Kellas, Wood Mackenzie's vice-president for petroleum economics, said in an interview Monday.

“But what's happened in Canada is that . . . the tax rates that the companies face today and into the future are lower than they were when prices started to rise.”

There was actually a whole lot of other things in that presentation and many of them were much more interesting and relevant to what is happening here. I'll see if I can post more on that.

Finally, at the usually sociable gathering of Eastern Canadian premiers and New England governors, things are not so pleasant. Shame.

Gary Lunn speaks (in abstentia)

Again, fresh from the NOIA site, the speaking notes of Minister Gary Lunn for the address never given.

Premier Williams was careful to pre-refute Lunn's leaked points but, as you can see here, while critical and testing, the speech was not as adversarial as it was billed.

--------------------------------------

Thank you Caron, (Caron Hawco, NOIA Vice-Chair) for that introduction and thank you for inviting me to be here with you today.

It is always a pleasure to be in Newfoundland. I was here last March speaking to NOIA, just weeks after I was appointed as the Minister of Natural Resources.

I was impressed I was with the level of enthusiasm surrounding the oil and gas industry at that time. I remember telling you that this province was on the cusp of a bright sustained energy future, and that our Government would work with you to ensure a vibrant oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

We discussed the collaborative work with the provincial government and industry to build a competitive economy and sustainable communities so that Canadians right across this great country would benefit from all your hard work.

Today I do not sense that level of optimism or promise that I witnessed last year in this province.

I say that with sincerity and concern. And I am going to be blunt in my remarks today to describe the current state of Newfoundland and Labrador’s oil and gas industry, and what I think needs to be done to carry us forward.

All levels of Government and you – our industry partners – have an important task at hand. To ensure that the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador remains strong, competitive, and above all, achieves its full potential for many, many years.

Our Prime Minister refers to Canada as an emerging “energy superpower”. The potential is real and it is on its way to being realized…along with the associated benefits…in many jurisdictions across this country.

Your industry is having a positive impact on the economy and, if managed properly, it should continue to grow.

The figures are truly staggering and I’d like to run over them briefly.

Over 28-hundred people are employed by the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose projects.

Another estimate says around 14-thousand people are working in the support industries and businesses.

In total they represent 8% of all the people employed in Newfoundland and Labrador and that number can only grow. In 2005 the industry accounted for a quarter of your provincial GDP.

Let’s just focus on oil.

With 179 billion barrels…Canada’s crude oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia. Based on current projections, we should climb from 8th to 4th place in terms of oil production by 2015…jumping ahead of Norway, Mexico, China and Iran.

Newfoundland and Labrador is a critical part of Canada’s energy strength. Current estimates peg recoverable reserves at 2.8 billion barrels of oil, not to mention 10.2 trillion cubic of natural gas. But let’s be honest. We know we have only scratched the surface…what we need is to attract exploration to unlock and prove our true potential.

That said, to achieve this potential in Newfoundland and Labrador, we need to see new projects.

Canada’s strength does not just rest in its impressive resource base. We are more than a simple warehouse of natural resources.

Canada’s energy advantage is rooted in its people, its ideas, and its innovative capacity. I believe governments should add to that advantage by providing stable and competitive fiscal and regulatory regimes which encourage investment and innovation.

When you look across the country, you see governments…both federal and provincial…providing stable and competitive fiscal and regulatory regimes…which have led to a rush of innovation and investment on the part of industry…and jobs, revenues, and other benefits for governments and citizens.

Canada’s energy advantage is real. We live in a world of increasing demand for energy, including fossil fuels. But that world is also marked by increasing instability…particularly in key energy producing regions. While it is expensive to find and develop oil and gas in Canada, our strengths are as a significant, stable and secure supplier.

When you look around the world at the behaviour of some of our competitors, attracting investment should be a cake walk. And, it has been for some provinces.

In 1997…Hibernia’s first year…capital investment by the oil and gas sector across Canada stood at $19 billion. In 2007, that figure will come in at $45 billion. How is Newfoundland and Labrador doing? Well, in 2006, Newfoundland and Labrador only attracted about $700 million, about 1.5% of the Canadian total.

What is most concerning is that while other oil and gas provinces…such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC…have seen investment and activity surge, Newfoundland and Labrador have seen it drop dramatically.

The boom across Western Canada has created opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians…but most have been forced to leave their homes, families and way of life. Those opportunities should have been here for them…but they weren’t.

In a province so rich in oil and gas potential, how can it be that 50% of working age people are not working? That is 10% below the national unemployment average.

These should be the best of times…and they are in the other provinces I have mentioned. Does it feel like the best of times here? As business people, do you feel more optimistic about your future than you did four or five years ago? These are tough questions. Why are so few people asking them?

Maybe it is because you can still see and feel the decisions, discoveries and deals of the past. People are working on the existing projects and in the supply and service industries which account for about one quarter of your GDP. Provincial coffers have benefited from your industry. The province has collected over $850 million in royalties alone over the last 2 years.

But today is the product of discoveries made a quarter-century ago and three developments that collectively will soon hit their peak. We are only years away from significant declines in production and revenues.

A recent report suggested that Newfoundland and Labrador is on the cusp of becoming a have-province. I believe it. I have seen the graphs showing surging oil revenues over the next few years. But I have also seen the other side of those graphs…a cliff and plunging revenues without new developments.

Brian Peckford, in a powerful address, once dreamt aloud…”one day the sun will shine and have-not will be no more”. Newfoundland and Labrador’s time in the sun need not last for a brief moment, but that is in fact where it is headed. Again…tough stuff. But it needs to be said.

It does not have to be this way. Companies want to invest in Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore area. But there is an atmosphere of confrontation and uncertainty that is preventing anything from moving forward.

Think back to the 1970s and early 80s when then relationship between the federal and provincial governments was marked by a divisive jurisdictional dispute, leading to two court references. Investment and development were held back by the uncertainty, to neither Canada’s or Newfoundland and Labrador’s advantage.

Two Conservative governments….that of Brian Peckford and that of Brian Mulroney…came together and negotiated the Atlantic Accord. Like any deal…the Accord required compromise and a spirit of good will. The benefits of that approach are obvious.

That spirit of good will and compromise have to be rediscovered if we are to move this industry forward. It is not too late…not by a long shot…and your federal government stands ready to pull its share of the weight.

Everyone here knows that Newfoundland and Labrador receives 100% of the offshore royalties – as they should. This year those revenues are expected to be over half a billion dollars.

There has been much talk about Equalization recently.

Newfoundland and Labrador has the option to accept the Atlantic Accord. Nothing has changed from what was signed in 2005. Nothing has been taken away from the provinces.

In Budget 2007, our Government brought in the new Equalization formula with the fiscal capacity cap. No province will be worse off because of this formula – in fact all provinces will receive more money as a result of our package.

But I want to emphasize here that the focus should not be on Equalization…it should be on increasing offshore revenues. Ensuring the economy continues to grow so that Newfoundland and Labrador will not have to rely on federal Equalization payments.

I understand Premier Williams announced to you this morning that discussions were back on with the partners for the Hebron project. This is good news – very good news. Although I have heard that discussions – not negotiations – have been on and off many times. But I do hope this is a sign of better things to come.

When many people talk about oil and gas, their minds immediately drift to the activities of the global exploration and development companies - what some call “big oil”.

But the reality is that it is your efforts to build and strengthen the local supply sector, and your capacity to compete – not just here but around the world – that are the real foundation of this industry.

In this regard, I am aware of the work that NOIA has been doing over the past few months to develop a strategic plan which will guide your future as an organization and an industry. I can assure you that our Government will be here – as we are now – to support your important efforts.

For us at least, there is nothing “annoying” about your work. You are the backbone of the oil and gas offshore industry.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians deserve a fair share from the development of their resources. Every study I have seen suggests that they are receiving that fair share, but the provincial government has every right to mix things up… to try something new…and raise the bar.

But, at some point the provincial government has to lay out what it wants or people will start to question whether they know what they want or where they are going.

The test will be whether it attracts investment…if we see exploration increase…if developments proceed…if your businesses grow and prosper…and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador stop leaving.

At the end of the day, we have to remember that decisions…no matter how popular or appealing, have consequences.

By way of a concrete example, the nixed Hibernia expansion project would have represented a $500 million investment in platform upgrades, up to $5 billion in direct revenues to the province, and would extend the life of the field significantly.

Furthermore, the arrested development of the Hebron field would have resulted in $90 million in expanded offshore payrolls, almost $10 billion in direct revenue to the province, $32 billon in GDP, and significant spending on R&D and training.

And of course, of critical importance to you, it would have meant millions and millions of dollars in employment benefits through local fabrication, construction, procurement, and engineering activities.

Together these two projects could have delivered an additional $14 billion in revenue to the province….More than enough to wipe out the provincial debt.

The people of this province will have to live with the consequences of missing those opportunities.

It will not be felt today or tomorrow, but when oil revenues begin to decline the hard questions will come fast and furious.

All I am saying is do not wait until it is too late to ask those questions. I know the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are blunt…it is a virtue. And I believe in being blunt especially if it means being constructive.

Your federal government, which includes Fabian Manning, Norm Doyle and Loyola Hearn are ready to work with you and the provincial government to put this sector back on track.

This Conference is about identifying what needs to be done, and it is a valuable contribution. I will listen to your ideas and I will learn from them.

That’s how we’ve worked in the past and that’s how we’ve been successful.

As partners, we will find ways to address challenges and create opportunities.

I want to leave you with a message:

You have the resource potential, you have the people, you have the innovative capacity and there’s a strong partnership between our governments on science and technology and regulatory effectiveness. We need to leverage these strengths and work together to get on with growing the offshore industry to reap the benefits for the province and for Canada.

I hope you have a enjoyable and productive conference and thank you again for inviting me to speak with you today.

Thank you.

All NL all the time

An embarrassment of riches today: four pieces in the Globe and Mail this morning on NL and the issues facing it. And who says we get no attention from the national media?

One comes out of the NOIA oil industry conference and covers his speech ('No compromise on Hebron: Williams Newfoundland Premier says he won't yield to pressure and sign 'a deal for the sake of a deal'). Related to that, the national media are responding to Ottawa's release the text of NRCAN Minister Gary Lunn's broadside(?) he was supposed to unleash on Premier Williams until Lunn's plane turned back because of fog.

The third outlines Premier MacDonald's and John Crosbie's appearance in front of the Senate and their opposition to the federal budget do to its Atlantic Accord provisions.

Finally, Jefferey Simpson's column on NL outmigration. It makes for sobering reading. Simpson will be speaking at NOIA today and tomorrow. Here's the text.

-----------------------------------------------

Buffeted by the winds of the great migration
JEFFREY SIMPSON, June 20, 2007

ST. JOHN'S -- Could anybody in Ontario imagine their province losing 1.5-million people in the past 15 years? Could anybody in British Columbia get their mind around their province shrinking by 500,000 people since 1991?

Yet a decline of commensurate size happened in Newfoundland. Since 1991, its population fell by 12 per cent, or about 70,000 people.

The very young and the very old didn't leave. Young and middle-aged adults did - the people who work, pay taxes, raise families, support others. The decline was greatest after the cod moratorium, but it persists today. And it will continue. Today's population is about 510,000. Under the best scenario, it will fall to 495,000 by 2020; under the worst, 460,000.

More difficult still, the population is aging, quickly. The entire Canadian population's demographic profile is getting older, but Newfoundland's is getting older faster. In a generation, Newfoundland has gone from having the country's youngest population profile to its oldest. In the 1970s, Newfoundland had the country's highest birth rate. It now has the lowest, courtesy of people of child-rearing age having left.

For decades, politicians of all stripes, and at both levels of government, have pledged to revive rural Newfoundland. These promises continue. There are pockets of modest revival, sometimes because people who went to Alberta or other places "away" came back with money. These are the exceptions, in fact, if not in rhetoric.

Agencies, task forces, royal commissions, studies, programs and billions of dollars have been thrown at the problem. The political culture of the province requires the suspension of belief, a culture no political figure dares challenge.

Meanwhile, here is what is happening - because people took rational decisions in their own self-interest - and what is projected to occur.

According to provincial statistics, of the province's 20 "economic zones," only two have kept steady populations: the Avalon peninsula that encompasses St. John's, and northern Labrador with its aboriginal peoples. Every other one has lost people in the past 15 years, with the decline ranging from 12 to 30 per cent.

The reporting of the raw numbers of decline doesn't tell the whole story because it misses who is left behind.

Take the southwest corner, Stephenville and Port aux Basques. In 1986, it had 15,200 people aged 1 to 19, but only 3,100 people over 65. The ratio then was five young people to every senior. Today the ratio is 3 to 2, and by 2020 it will be about 1 to 2, or about 4,000 young people for almost 8,000 seniors.

Another example: the Burin peninsula on the south coast. In 1986, it had 11,600 people under 19 and 2,500 seniors, for a ratio of about 4.5 to 1. By 2020 it will be about 3 to 4, with 2,800 young people and 4,300 seniors.

Today's median age is 41. By 2020, it will be about 49, but much higher in the rural areas. In 2006, for the first time, Newfoundland recorded more deaths than births, the only province where that occurred. Said the province's finance department, "there appears to be no relief in the foreseeable future for demographic issues stemming from declining births and rising deaths."

The depopulation of rural Newfoundland, in the face of every policy to arrest it, leaves the province with big delivery and spending problems.

A rapidly aging population means higher health-care costs. Outports, even shrunken ones, still need roads plowed, children educated, police on call, but the economy of scale of providing those services grows worse.

Facing these facts, and they are facts, is politically very hard. It is easier to speak of hope, revival, return, and to offer another plan. It is a completely nefarious myth that Newfoundlanders do not wish to work. Newfoundlanders would not have left, and be leaving, in such great numbers if they were shifters.

The work, however, is not there in large swaths of the province. People know it. But governments cannot admit it, and so maintain policies designed to blow against, rather than with, the winds of the great migration.

Criticism from away . . . Or calling it like it is

VOCM has already framed this story through their headline National Paper Aims at Premier and their lede that a mainland paper has "taken another swipe at Danny Williams." But numbers like employment rate are hard, cold and indisputable although their interpretation might be called into question.

Still, not all numbers are politics; some are just numbers whether you like them or not.

Judge for yourself.

And if you want to see the raw numbers on which this article is based, check StatsCan here and scroll down to the tables.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Danny Chavez makes life harder on the Rock
Derek DeCloet
Globe and Mail, June 9, 2007

Nothing can stop Canada's sizzling job market, and it's not just an Alberta story any more. In every province but two, unemployment is lower today than in 2000, and in absolute terms, no province has enjoyed a bigger decline in the jobless rate than Newfoundland and Labrador.

Yes, this week's employment data prove it: As Premier of the Rock, Danny Williams is an economic disaster. No, really. He is. The drop in Newfoundland's unemployment rate to 12.9 per cent sounds good - it was nearly 17 per cent at the start of the decade - but the statistic hides as much as it tells. It flatters Mr. Williams.

A more meaningful figure is the employment rate, which tells you what percentage of the labour pool is actually working (as opposed to the number who are looking for work but can't find it). The hard facts are these: barely half - 51.5 per cent - of working-age Newfoundlanders have a job, trailing everywhere else by a country mile. Forget Alberta. If only Newfoundland had the same employment rate as tiny Prince Edward Island (61 per cent), it would have 40,000 more inhabitants drawing a paycheque.

How can this be, in a province blessed with abundant oil reserves, during the greatest energy boom in a generation? I doubt that Newfoundlanders are that much lazier than other Canadians. It's about opportunity, or lack of it. Newfoundland's jobs boom is a mirage: Roughly the same number of jobs exist there today as in October, 2003, when Mr. Williams was elected. It's the size of the labour force that has shrunk, because residents are moving to Fort McMurray and other points west.

"If [companies] want to deal with South American dictators, they can go to South America," says Charles Cirtwill, acting president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax. He's referring, of course, to Mr. Williams' latest gambit - to demand a 5-per-cent stake in all future oil and gas projects, at no cost to the province. A similar demand has put the brakes on Hebron, a massive offshore oil development led by Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

If that smells vaguely like expropriation, or perhaps extortion, we assure you that it's merely Mr. Williams trying to get a "fair share," to use the phrase that often accompanies Newfoundlanders' grievances. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder, though. Wade Locke, an economist at Memorial University, found that government's take of offshore oil projects is 51 to 55 per cent of pretax cash flow - "similar to the shares found in Alaska, Alberta and Australia." The province gets a larger piece than Ottawa.

So lush are the royalties from energy that they could turn Newfoundland into a "have" province by about 2012, ending decades of equalization payments from the feds, Mr. Locke writes. Inconveniently, that would also bring an end to Mr. Williams' popular stunts to protest that multibillion-dollar gifts of equalization are not enough. Politically, that's magic. Mr. Williams' Conservatives enjoy more than 70 per cent approval in recent polls.

But if extreme confrontation works for squeezing more dough out of Ottawa, it doesn't work for business. When it comes to the Premier's tiresome Danny Chavez routine, oil companies don't know where the demands will stop. In Hebron, the government first demanded a 4.9-per-cent stake. Mr. Williams' Natural Resources Minister is already warning that it will ask for more, once negotiations resume. "If you're an investor, you're not interested in finding a resource that may be nationalized four or five years from now," says Mr. Cirtwill of AIMS.

Don't laugh. That's essentially what happened to Fishery Products International. The province didn't reclaim ownership of FPI, but successive Liberal and Tory governments neutered the company. Twice since 2001, the province amended the FPI Act, obstructing a merger attempt and meddling in restructuring plans. John Risley, who was part of the investor group that took control of the company in 2001, remembers getting a phone call from FPI's lead banker. "He said, 'You guys don't run this business any more. The government does.' "

FPI is being sold now in pieces - only after the province imposed conditions that will force the buyers to prop up rural towns in Newfoundland. Mr. Risley says breaking up the company was the only way to get it out from under the government's thumb. The quickest way to fix the poisoned business environment would be for voters to kick Mr. Williams out this fall, but Mr. Cirtwill just laughs at the idea. "The only real question is, is he going to win every seat?"

Premier Williams tackles the big questions

It's not often these day that Premier Williams calls talk radio so when he does, you can count on something interesting, if not significant.

Today, his contribution to the public conversation of democracy was neither interesting nor significant.

Look at the context: the province is up in arms over a second radiologist suspension, Hydro has a brand new structure through a new government-owned holding company, the budget has just passed and there's a judicial inquiry in the wings looking at how our health system kept vital health information to itself instead of notifying patients.

All or some of these things, one would think, would be worthy of comment from the highest politician and most senior public sector executive in the land. After all, these are all items of vital public interest.

But you would be wrong.

Instead, he took his time on the public airwaves whinging and moaning about a topic important to him about which nobody outside the House cares a whit: Irish limousines.

And the host, standing in for the interests of the people of the province and in his role in promoting debate on the vital issues facing this province, let him do so without challenge.

The lesson of the day is why talk about the hard stuff when you can distract with the easy stuff. Never forget: Talk radio is entertainment.

No quotas, no chance, no way

It's not the first time this provincial government has tried to get through the back door what they failed to get at the front door. But this time the lives and livelihoods of a huge number of vulnerable plantworkers and harvesters from all across the province are being held hostage.

Let's review: FPI has made arrangements to sell chunks of itself to a host of interests both inside and outside the province. These sales are governed by the FPI Act such that the government of NL must provide approval for these asset transfers.

So what is Minister Rideout's position? Does he want to expedite the sale of these interests in order to get people back to work as soon as possible?

No. Instead this government has decided to strike with sudden power grab. The Government of Canada, insists Minister Rideout, must turn over control of groundfish quotas that FPI now holds to the Newfoundland and Labrador government. He says the provincial government is making its unusual request so that Newfoundland and Labrador communities remain the primary beneficiaries of quotas that FPI currently holds.

This looks like nothing more than an expedient attempt to politically blackmail a federal minister on the ropes.

Remember that there is no doubt anywhere that, legally and constitutionally, the federal government is the sole authority over harvesting in the oceans. So what Rideout is asking for is for a unilateral transfer of federal authority and constitutional jurisdiction.

Oddly, federal Minister Hearn is not quite so enthused to do that when exactly the the same provincial benefits can be achieved through simply setting conditions on where groundfish can be landed. It's done all the time. But now, today, in this case, that's not good enough for Rideout and company and so war with the feds on yet another front must be waged.

Premier Danny Williams said he was not surprised by the federal Conservatives' stand, particularly in the midst of an ongoing battle over equalization.

He is wrong; equalization has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of this issue and he has to know that. The fact is that there is no way under any circumstances that the feds are about to formally transfer any authority to the province when a simple administrative process would do the job.

FFAW president Earle McCurdy said his members are worried about a political struggle overshadowing their need to get back to work.

They should be worried.

For the same reasons this fishing restructuring process has stalled under new demands by Premier Williams in the 11th hour, thousands of oil sector jobs across the province have already evaporated. The experienced and trained oil workers are mobile and their skills are in high demand in other jurisdictions - they are out of sight and out of mind.

But these idle plantworkers and harvesters are more likely to stay where they are and become a festering problem.

This government's ability to handle issues of major provincial economic public policy is hampered by it's hamfisted inability to play with others. Let's hope government is more sensible over fish than oil.

Public policy, partisan and personal

Premier Williams' latest foray onto the national stage provides some insight into the mind of the Premier and some light on his strategy in dealing with the rest of Canada.

You could read the full text of his speech to the Economic Club of Toronto but it's more interesting to check this link to about 7 minutes of the presentation.

Before you listen, ensure you are in a good mood to start and with ready access immediately afterwards to sunny children, cute furry pets, a loving spouse or a fine sweet chocolate dessert.

With the exception of one brief and bizarre moment, this clip is unrelentingly grim, dark, venomous, depressing, negative and spitefully sarcastic.

The one single moment of any levity is a weak-hearted joke about ending his life with a bullet. It's hard to tell whether he means a shot by a detractor or by his own gun but with his stratospheric approval ratings, it's hard to believe that there are any substantial detractors left to take the shot.

In the dull, flat and affectless tone of his voice, you hear the same kind of driving will to live that you hear in men who have come home after being fired just to find out that their wife has cleared out the bank accounts and have run away with your best friend in your carefully restored antique auto.

While he claims a message of hope, his tone has a bleakness that belies his words.

And just as unnerving as his tone is the content: it is extreme and simplistic. He trots out a series of unconnected and unrepresentative examples to prove his "case" that everything anyone has ever said about him or his government is wrong.

For example, he uses a kind and face-saving quote from Husky president John Lau to shield himself from the charge that he is unreasonable in oil negotiations.

But the best example is his "proof" that the latest provincial budget was the best ever because long-time provincial bureaucrats said so. But the irony never occurs to him that it's that kind of political frankness that has ensured they are long-serving bureaucrats.

It's hard to escape the impression of a well-developed kind of political paranoia combined with a persecution complex. To refer to Canada's attitude towards this province with a term as strident as "xenophobic" is, frankly, a gross misinterpretation of reality usually associated with the ingestion of small mushrooms after a spring rain.

Stranger still is his confusion of provincial respect with provincial self-respect. While he argues that we as a province deserve respect from the nation, he can't help but trip over the term "self-respect" instead.

While respect comes from others, self-respect has to come from within.

It's not unusual for governments in this country to have policy differences with each other. In fact, it would be remarkable if provinces didn't have policy difference with each other or with the federal government. It is the tension of these differences that has led to creative ties between and among levels of governments.

It's not unusual to see political or partisan differences between first ministers. But these kinds of differences are left to the backrooms, rarely leaking out. The goal among professional politicians is to put their personal and political differences aside in order to promote the common good.

So even when politicians go on national speaking tours to slag one another, it is cloaked in policy differences with the personal antagonisms relegated to the back burner. Not this time. This time the personal and political antagonisms are front and center.

Before, it was personal between Premier Williams and Liberal Prime Minister Martin. It was personal between Premier Williams and then-regional minister John Efford who was called a sell-out, a traitor and a quisling by this government.

And this time it's personal between Premier Williams and Conservative Prime Minister Harper. It's so personal that Williams will go out of his way to disrespect and denigrate the nation's First Minister just because he can.

Clearly the needs of the personal trumps the partisan and the public policy. This is amateur politics.

There's an old saying that when elephants fight, grass gets trampled. While these fights go on, the blades of grass are hightailing it westward in search of more fertile ground to take root.

Nationalism and moral autonomy

According to today's pre-election Speech from the Throne delivered by the Honourable Ed Roberts, this government plans to "achieve self-reliance by becoming masters of our own house."

The speech outlines lots of rhetorical flourishes that flirts with separatist sentiment but the most ambitious of any government plan anywhere is outlined in the part where this government:

"Will harness the desire among Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to cultivate greater cultural, financial and moral autonomy vis-à-vis Ottawa."

Moral autonomy? Who knew the people of this province was yearning for a system of morality that was distinct and unique to this province? And I thought Quebec was a distinct society but here, is seems, we have a morality all our own!

And government approved to boot!

Instead of the Ten Commandments, we will have the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Official Moral Guidelines as developed by the Department of Morals and Ethics (Hon. John Hickey, Minister).

The process will start with a moral due diligence piece and drill-down through a cross-jurisdictional survey examining best moral practices across Canada.

Then there will be the Public Consultation on Provincial Moral Autonomy. I'm looking forward to that so I have have my input on what morals I'd like to see included (or excluded, for that matter).

I'm sure moral enforcement will be a controversial issue but I bet the RNC is up to the job.

At the end of the process there will be the obligatory Morals glossy brochure sent to every household in the province.

You'll know it's official by the little triffid logo on the cover; official, government-developed, government-branded, provincially distinct morals autonomous from those moral imperialists in Ottawa.

Who would have thought.

"Thy shalt have no other Gods before me" indeed.

-----------------------------------

Maîtres chez nous! (Masters of our own house!) was the rallying cry of Quebec Premier Jean Lesage and his ruling Liberal party in 1962 when he called for the nationalization of all 11 privately owned electric power companies in Quebec. Does that foreshadow planks of the provincial energy plan? Time will tell.

Premiers spurn Premier

How does a premier garner national attention and support for their issue?

They make it a national issue and build support amongst colleagues using any national platform they can to push their agenda forward.

So it's more than just a little significant when the Council of the Federation* issues their agenda for their next meeting and Premier Williams' current topic de guerre is conspicuously absent.

On May 1, the Premiers meet in Toronto to talk about climate change and energy plans so they can meet in Moncton in August to talk about climate change and energy plans.

Oddly, equalization seems to have dropped off the national agenda. And that's not a problem unless you still have unresolved equalization issues.

-----------------------------------

Council of the Federation is the current formal name for the Premiers' regular opportunity to complain about how the feds aren't giving them enough money fast enough.

He's right this time

It's no secret I've had little patience with the way federal-provincial relations have been conducted by this provincial government over the last few years.

I've never subscribed to the school of thought that says that the ideal NL politician has to come from the mould of the fighting Newfoundlander (and/or Labradorian).

You know the kind. We've had Smallwood and two Brians and now we have Premier Williams. Their defining characteristic is their willingness to drop their gloves at the slightest provocation and to fight fight fight for the people of the province.

They have been the enforcers of the province's rights and privileges in that great national hockey game of federal-provincial relations; political goons with the sharp elbows and the high stick.

But rarely are they able to do what this province really needs - score more goals and win more games.

And that applies to Premier Williams more than most past premiers. We thought we were electing a great negotiator. Instead we elected a showboating scrapper who has politically isolated himself and this province across the country while goosing local polls to stratospheric levels.

I always held the opinion that the best background and education for a NL premier would be a stint at the United Nations. I suspect that a successful diplomat with the negotiating skills to build bridges to other provinces, grease the way with the federal government and pave the way with industry to produce economic developments could accomplish great things.

A diplomat understands that your friend yesterday might be your enemy tomorrow and your ally next week. A negotiator recognizes that a great deal is one where everybody gives some, everybody gains some and everybody goes home happy.

But that just isn't possible with this premier. His enemy yesterday is his enemy today and his enemy next week and forever. And you don't need to take my word for it. I'm sure if you took aside Fabian Manning or Elizabeth Marshall or John Crosbie or any other of a number of good, faithful (Progressive) Conservatives of great integrity and skill, they might tell you the same.

And unless you can accept the idea that any set of negotiations must inevitably result in his win and your total and humiliating loss, then you had best take your business elsewhere. Again, my word for this doesn't count nearly as much as the word from any of the Hebron partners, for example.

In politics, friends come and go but enemies accumulate.

This is a long way to noting that in Premier Williams' latest salvo over the NL-fed equalisation dispute yesterday, Premier Williams called upon federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to resign.

It's worthwhile noting also that so far, in addition to calling on Flaherty's resignation, he's also called for the resignation of regional minister Loyola Hearn. While he hasn't yet called on the other local Conservative MP's , Fabian Manning and Norm Doyle, to resign immediately he has called on them to hang their heads in shame.

Just as well Norm Doyle is declining to run again. As for Manning, since Premier Williams has already promised a goose egg of federal Conservative MPs in the next election, Williams' threat to Manning could be considered a call for deferred involuntary resignation.

As for the federal government itself in toto, he has said that he can't wait until this government falls and another takes it's place.

So Premier Williams has called for the immediate or delayed resignation, or otherwise removal from office, of just about everyone in sight.

What's left for Premier Williams to do to get his point across?

Well, he does have the option of a cross-country speaking campaign. But he's already done that.

He could take out newspaper ads to slag the federal government and put forward the province's point of view. But he's already done that too. And of course there's always an alliance with another province in a similar spot to tag-team the feds into submission.

I think I've heard that he's already tried something like that too.

But here's the real question: after calling down the lightning, thunder and rain onto the heads of the terrible enemies of this province (that evil federal government) over and over again for political disputes of all kinds, will anybody pay attention anymore?

And, is this dispute with the federal government different in kind from the Williams-Ottawa disputes that have gone before?

I believe this dispute is different from the ones that have gone before. Previous fights with Ottawa were about money. And there will always be disputes with Ottawa about money. But this one is different because it now affects fundamental pieces of enabling legislation.

The federal government wants to unilaterally amend the 1985 Atlantic Accord.

The 1985 Atlantic Accord is not like other pieces of federal legislation. This Act was negotiated between the province and the federal government over many years to effectively transfer portions of federal jurisdiction to this province. Once agreement was reached, both levels of governments passed enabling legislation.

We forget that we don't own the oil offshore - we never did, we don't now and we never will. Ownership is in the hands of the federal government and that has been definitively confirmed by the highest provincial and federal courts.

But under this Act we are given the right to control development, to tax and otherwise manage the resource as if it were on land.

In effect, because of the nature and scope of the Atlantic Accord, it has a status above other normal pieces of legislation and falls just below the level of the constitution itself. It has the effect of a bilateral constitutional agreement.

To unilaterally amend this Act, without even informing this province, is unacceptable.

If the federal government can move forward on actions like this then it could unilaterally overturn any previously negotiated federal-provincial agreement at will and shred the fabric of prior negotiated settlements that has knitted this country together.

This is not right and Premier Williams is within his rights to make as much noise and generate as much pressure as he can to overturn this decision.

It's just too bad that Williams has no more diplomatic tools at his disposal when he, and this province, has so much need for them.

Premier Williams - Not just all about equalization

Snagged from this weekend's Globe and Mail (my apologies)

Hebron: The word from the ground

The Placentia Charter, another of the NL weekly Transcontinental papers, last week published an interesting story on the loss of Hebron called "To produce or not to produce – that is the question" .

The Placentia area would be ground-zero for much of the fabrication work that would have to be done to make Hebron a reality and so a major source of employment for local residents. It's little wonder that the local paper has a point of view on the way government has handled this matter.

It reads in part:

To not keep the door open would be catastrophic to the economy and some say that Premier Williams, though indirectly, did just that.

Several months ago Mr. Williams felt that not continuing with the ongoing oil and gas related discussions may be in the best interest of the province. Williams felt Newfoundland and Labrador could not get its fare share due to the tax structure and the royalty regime while dealing with companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Petro-Canada and Norsk Hydro.

These are not low-ball players like Mr. Williams may take them for. They will not stick around to play hard ball while other developments are taking place in the world that need their immediate attention.

The development of Hibernia South is considered to contain 220 million barrels of oil and would considerably add to the life of Hibernia for approximately 10 –12 years.

Why travel to Alberta and say ‘we are the best in the East for development’ while the premier is not even talking to the big players.

Much of the article takes a different point of view from many and compares and contrasts the situation in Norway with the situation here. This is a fine piece and is a good example of what these weeklies can produce.