Deflated but Unbroken, Dwight Ball Finally Bounces
With the premier out of the picture, it is harder to hide the hungry abyss at the heart of Newfoundland and Labrador politics.
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The Dwight Ball Exit Interview
In his own words, Dwight Ball reflects on his resignation, achievements, and legacy as the 13th Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Reckoning With Colonial Violence in Canada
Those who assembled on Saturday in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en are among thousands taking part in ongoing blockades and demonstrations across Canada.
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Premier Ball Wearing Out the Emperor’s New Clothes
Well, there it was. The big announcement. The big rate mitigation plan. The rescue plan to save us all from Muskrat Falls, the hydro megaproject that was sold as the province’s future and instead has morphed into the self-destruct button. Ever since they were elected, it seems, the Liberals have been announcing plans to save us from Muskrat Falls. Or more properly speaking, they’ve been announcing plans to come up with plans to save us from Muskrat Falls. Or rather, plans to make plans to come up with plans to save us from Muskrat Falls. Well, you get the idea. Even if you don’t get the plan. (But it’s the Progressive Conservatives’ fault, of course! Have they mentioned that yet?) But this was supposed to be it—the big one. The one we’ve all been waiting for. And what did it turn out to be? You guessed it. They’ve welcomed the…
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Milestone or Millstone?: Unpacking the Premier’s “Plan”
Several days after the premier’s “significant announcement,” neither the plan—or Dwight Ball’s political future—is clear.
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Indy Inks (10 February 2020)
Thinking about electricity rates, feeling absolutely great.
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Indy Inks (8 January 2020)
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR, for your crimes of NOT DOING MUSKRAT FALLS PROPERLY AT ALL, we sentence you to fulfill MURPHY’S LAW for all eternity, apparently.
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Mitigating Muskrat Falls
We have some suggestions on how to pay for a boondoggle.
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Indy Inks (15 November 2019)
Step right up! It’s time for Muskrat Madness, Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite gameshow! Where will your money end up today? Who knows! Reason is dead!
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Creating Sacred Space in Labrador
Religion, she tells me, is about structure and the power to manipulate and control. Spirituality, she suggests, is about creating sacred space.
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Life After Muskrat: What Have We Learned?
Will the Inquiry really do anything? That remains to be seen. The people of the province still have to deal with the reality of the Muskrat Falls project.
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Muskrat Falls is the Future of Contamination in Canada
The management of methylmercury risk at Muskrat Falls and Lake Melville shows us that colonialism is still very much alive in Canada.
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Dam Nation: Fortis in Belize, Part 2
Should we be surprised that the practices fine-tuned by marauding corporations in the developing world are finally coming home to roost?
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The Red and Blue Doors Open the Same Room
As promised in response to the budget/not-a-budget pre-election kick off, I thought it would be useful to take a deeper look at what the Liberals have accomplished in their four years in office. Halfway through the election campaign is as good a time as any. Everything old is new again. As both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have now released their “costed” platforms, it’s probably a good idea to think back to where we were when the parties went through this exercise in 2015. Memories of Elections Past In the spring of 2015, Progressive Conservative premier Paul Davis brought down an austerity budget in response to the collapse in oil prices and the sudden realization that the good times of the previous decade had gone bust. Budget ’15 projected staggering deficits and proposed a series of tax increases (including a controversial HST increase) and a public sector attrition plan…
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Muskrat Falls and the Tip of the Iceberg
Last Thursday night, instead of attending a letter writing campaign at the LSPU Hall where dozens of local artists had assembled to write to government policy makers, begging for an increase in funding for our provincial arts council, I was on Springdale Street replacing a set of leaky kitchen taps in a rental property. The owner was a nice Scottish man who works in the oil industry. He complained about the lost equity in the house. He’s working in Azerbaijan now, but has fallen in love with a Newfoundland woman. He bemoaned the lack of work here, while I was under his sink. He said most oil companies would never build another major project in Newfoundland, after what went on with Hebron. He said the Koreans were much cheaper and better organized. “I worked on that project,” I said. “What a shit show.” We went on to discuss the rampant…
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Where Does Government End and Nalcor Begin?
In 1998, then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright captured perfectly the multi-generational culture of the US Foreign Policy establishment: “if we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” That last part in particular has aged poorly. When she uttered it, the US-led West was ramping up its campaign to open and secure markets (“spread democracy”) in every corner of the globe—peacefully if possible; by force if necessary. Two decades later, it is hard to argue that this approach has been especially successful for the United States of America. In The Hell of Good Intentions, Stephen Walt, Professor of Foreign Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, describes the culture of this entrenched establishment as “fiercely self-protective.” Professional success depends on reputation, and you do not advance your career by challenging orthodoxy, which in this case…
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A Phone Call from Astaldi
[Rome, February 2013] “Yes, hello, hello, Terra Nova? Hello! Newfoundland and Labrador, it is Franco Astaldi, returning your call. Si, calling from Roma. Buongiorno! How can I help you? Our bid for the hydro dam is low? Hey, you crazy, you wanna a higher price? No, seriously we are having a sale this month on gianormous concrete dams. Si, this is true. Look I tell you, in confidence, Si, those other bidders, they don’t know the secret: we continue building when it snows by working under giant dome, is like magic igloo. Hey, and if there a problema down the line we make adjustments to the billing, no biggie. Do we know snow? Hey, I grow up in Torino! Labrador same thing, no? SNC-Lavalin, yeah, I know these guys, you crazy? Libya, Gaddafi, the whole deal. We were there building a highway, they were working with Muammar’s kid on the…
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Make Them Pay for Muskrat Falls
It was voted The Telegram’s top news story of the year: the Muskrat Falls Inquiry into a project that is “publicly funded, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over-budget.” The public has been riveted as they follow the proceedings. Those in the spotlight trade barbs with each other and the inquiry officials; they rant self-righteously and sanctimoniously defend their reputations. It will be interesting to see what the Inquiry concludes. (So far, the longer it goes on, the less popular the Muskrat Falls project becomes.) Interesting, but little else. The $33.7 million inquiry is unlikely to lead to any substantive change, unless it identifies guilty parties and proceeds to sanction and punish them. ‘Guilty’ in the context of public decision-making, of course, can span a broad spectrum: guilty of hiding or ignoring important information; guilty of failure to do due diligence; guilty of failure to uphold the public trust…
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Leave us something to build on?
As headlines tell us that Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest oil spill is now impossible to clean up and the provincial government promises to investigate the scope of the C-NLOPB’s authority, my plea to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is simple: just build a solid line in your budget to provide real investment in the development of the sustainable energies of the future and the infrastructure needed for post-oil economies. THE SOUND OF POST-OIL You can listen to Nick Mercer talk about the barriers to the development of wind energy in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the reasons it has strong potential. Nick Mercer is a PhD candidate in Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. The province’s last budget doubled down on oil. Whether we agree with it or not, we know why: it seems like easy money. What else would induce provincial leaders to keep the province tied…
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From Manitoba to Newfoundland – why understanding the significance of the treaty relationship is so important
When Loretta Ross was a young girl growing up in Manitoba, her school had a career day. The place was full of professionals from all sorts of fields. Yet there was only one Indigenous person. Ross was therefore drawn to him, and it was he who put the idea in her head that was to shape her future. “He said [Indigenous people] need lawyers. He talked a little bit about why we need lawyers—and I said that’s it! I’m going to do that. That’s what I want to be.” After the session, students returned to their classrooms, and their teacher asked them what careers they had decided they wanted to pursue. “I put up my hand, and she said: ‘What do you want to be?’ I said ‘I want to be a lawyer. I’m going to be a lawyer!’ And she squished her nose at me, and she said ‘Don’t…
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