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Guest Post By PlanetNL PlanetNL6: Latest Bernander Report on North Spur Leads to Terrifying Conclusion If there is one topic in the whole of Muskrat that is truly clear as mud, it�s the North Spur. Equally murky is Nalcor�s plan to use this natural formation across the Churchill River as the largest dam holding back the reservoir.   PlanetNL�s agenda has deliberately left this challenging topic to others, choosing instead to concentrate primarily on the financial disaster that awaits the people of this Province upon Muskrat completion in 2021.   The others who have written on the North Spur are better researched on the subject and have written passionately about the North Spur on this blog and elsewhere.   PlanetNL would not write about the North Spur now except that a new report issued by Dr. Stig Bernander clearly implies that a different disaster appears imminent and will be realized before project completion.   It�s no longer necessary to guess if, when or how t...

�Another Way Forward� is a policy document recently released by the NL Employers� Council. It is a response by the province�s largest business organization to our desperate fiscal crisis. It purports to contain suggestions for a �better way forward� than the one released last year by the Ball Administration. High on the agenda of the Employers� Council is a reduction in taxation on both business and individuals, cuts to government programs and services, and a reduction in public sector employment by attrition.  The NLEC concludes that �government could remove more than a billion dollars in spending and we would still have: 1.        the largest spending per capita 2.       the highest paid public service and 3.       the highest spending on health and education of any province in Atlantic Canada.�   Giving further definition to those conclusions, the NLEC document cites statistics from the Confer...

From the Bard of Pynn's Brook LESTER, MHA Jim Lester leaves the family farm, The Mount Pearl seat, to keep it warm. Knows the turkey, and it�s charm; Manure that clings will not alarm. Let�s pray his time up on the hill Will more than just his pension fill: Perhaps he�ll work to change instil? - And lower future heating bill. - John Tuach November 22, 2017

Guest Post by Cabot Martin WHY WORDS REALLY MATTER � The need to amend the Muskrat Falls Inquiry Terms of Reference Way back in the 1980�s when I was hanging out in the Premier�s Office on the 8 th floor of the Confederation Building as Senior Policy Advisor to the Premier, I noted that there was one group that everyone respected � the Legislative Drafters. As politicians with policy to implement, the Cabinet (with the help of the Cabinet Secretariat) would draft, debate, amend and finalize what they thought the proposed new Act or Regulation should do and contain. As a next step, the measure was put into the hands of the Legislative Drafters, as specialized a group of legally trained professionals as you will find. Mr. Justice Richard LeBlanc They were to work out the precise wording that would express Cabinet�s wishes in terms required by any governing Acts including the all-embracing Interpretation Act. This latter Act set out basic rules that determine how the Courts would interpr...

I had never thought James McLeod to be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. In last Saturday�s Telegram, he telegraphed just that.  In mortal terror, he�s leaving the province. And I know I�m the one responsible. McLeod had interviewed Uncle Gnarley for a story in September that he called �Meet Uncle Gnarley: Muskrat Falls� prolific doomsayer blogs in turbulent times�.   I had no idea that, after just a few hours with him, McLeod would want to �cut and run� � hightail it � for the mainland! Already wearing his unemployment boots and heading for the Marine Atlantic Ferry, he left this advice: �Here�s the honest truth: It�s in the economic self-interest of every man, woman and child in this province to do the same thing I�m doing: pack up and move literally anywhere else. The province has a demographic problem and a geographic problem. There are too many old people� Telegram James McLeod And his rant continued for what seemed like hundreds of words; nearly a whole page, d...