DenyAsk

On Saturday the Tories elected a new Party leader. That�s nice. But will he lead? There has been no effective Opposition for at least a decade. Nor has leadership come from the Government benches over the same period, either. When the economy is going well, business is booming and employment rates are high, leadership of all kinds � especially political leadership � is a commodity taken for granted. Governments play an important role in this economy, even if far too often it is with a negative effect.  Perhaps it is in the nature of societies to think that things happen for no particular reason.  Truth is, that�s rarely the case.  The inability to lead, to be proactive, to have a nose for crisis, and to be willing to undergo the stress of intervention, is at the heart of the Liberal Government�s latest crisis, too. The Eddie Joyce affair is simply another manifestation of a Dwight Ball Government in perennial crisis.  Joyce is gone. Dale Kirby should be gone. The Pr...

Life might be so much simpler if, like innocents on Christmas Eve, we would only believe.   Stan Marshall, Danny Williams, Siobhan Coady � each one has a narrative that doesn�t fit with the facts, that can�t stand up to the scrutiny even of youngsters. Interestingly, the truth could easily favour Marshall and Coady, but they are unable to resist �spin�; other versions, supposedly, are more worthy of gratitude and acclamation.  For Marshall, it�s this comment to reporters following Nalcor�s AGM: �Any megaproject in the world would be happy to be where we are.� Presumably, the CEO is referring to the progress made on Muskrat in 2017 which he, ostensibly, influenced. Problem is, he omits that productivity for its major contractor is still only around 22% (that's an average 2.2 hours of work on a 10-hour shift) and that much of this performance is related to poor management by Nalcor. Should we await another multi-million dollar claim by Astaldi? Marshall certainly isn�t worried a...

Crown corporations are established for a multitude of political and public policy reasons. Most, ostensibly, fill market gaps in services and activities �ignored by for-profit private organizations� and therefore deemed the responsibility of government.   A Paper by Philippe Bergevin on the website of the C.D. Howe Institute (from which the quote above was drawn) examines risks posed by the Crown Corporation model. It suggests that whether Crown corporations are �relevant� or if they serve only to �complement or displace private activity�, their policies should be limited in ways �to more clearly align them with the institutions� core mandates and the defensible features of their economic rationales�. This means, essentially, that a Crown corporation�s mandate should serve clear public interest objectives and not engage in overlap either within or outside the institutions of Government.  This Post is not intended to argue the larger issue of Crown corporations' suitability or...

The Hearing Room, on the first day of the Muskrat Falls Inquiry, might have served as metaphor for the author Joan Clark, and her story of madness and altered perception in �An Audience of Chairs�. She would find plenty of sub-plots here, except that the madness to be assessed will likely have only a tangential association with delusion. Even that assumption � as with all those that gave the project its silver lining � may seem excessive. Madness? Delusion? On this first day, at this Inquiry, at $12.7 billion and counting, we might wonder: who is asking? That�s because the audience was mostly chairs. The place was virtually empty, except for the usual bevy of blue suits and a few others. Judge Richard LeBlanc The lawyers were seeking Standing for their clients: the right to participate in the Inquiry. A few individuals, not yet lawyered up, waited for the Commissioner to arrive. This minority included the Grand River Keepers, the Labrador Land Protectors, Democracy Alert and the Concer...

If there are still surprises hidden deep within Nalcor�s crumbling walls, recent information obtained by this blogger under ATIPPA has brought at least one more of them into the light. (Another is that the once - limp Muskrat Falls Oversight Committee is exhibiting serious signs of life!) Documents obtained from the Oversight Committee suggest that Nalcor may have maintained a secret �Management Reserve� budget for a category of risk known as �Strategic R isk �. The Reserve was kept out of the estimates for the project and placed under the control of the �Gatekeeper�, presumably the former Nalcor CEO, Ed Martin. Nalcor evidently understood that such an allocation had important budgetary implications for the project - and for their ability to sell the scheme. But its importance was too great to let the public know anything about it. The fund was not revealed to the PUB during examination of the DG-2 estimates � or later.  But, in addition,  Nalcor also did not disclose any all...