May 5, 1989 was a Friday. It only took the couple of weeks between the election on April 20 that year and May 5 for the government to change hands between political parties for only the second time since Confederation. The House met before the end of the month was
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The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Two solitudes – the pdf version #nlpoli
This is an article I wrote a couple of years ago for The Dorchester Review. (Volume 6, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2016. I posted about the piece when it came out but now you can buy buy the whole issue online, subscribe, or download the pdf of “Two solitudes” at academia.edu) “Newfoundland and Canada,
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Spin, bias, or just wrong? #nlpoli
If four media outlets all reported a story in precisely the same way despite some fairly obvious factual problems with their interpretation, is it spin, bias, or just a mistake? That’s the logical question out of last week’s post on the way local newsrooms had reported a recent political poll
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Conventional media bias #nlpoli
You know what “spin” is, right? Spin is a biased interpretation of something to favour one side or the other. You get spin when someone uses an interpretation of an event or information in order to modify the perception of an issue or event, particularly to either increase or decrease
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: No room for dissent. No time for silence. #nlpoli
The controversy about The Rooms’ recent request for proposals is not about Muskrat Falls. Maybe someone at The Rooms or within the provincial government thought that was the problem when Des Sullivan raised concerns about it. After all, Des is well known as a critic of Muskrat Falls. That might
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: TDIH: "Quebec paper reports Lower Churchill agreement" #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Two decades ago, there was talk of a deal to develop not one, not two, but three dams in Labrador. The story broke in a Quebec newspaper, Le soleil, on February 19 and the next day the Telegram did a front pager written by business editor Chris Flanagan. “The big
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Muskrat Falls Inquiry Terms of Reference – Comments #nlpoli #cdnpoli
MF Inquiry TOR Commentary EGHollett by Edward Hollett on Scribd
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Politics and History: SRBP at 13. #nlpoli
The week before Christmas, I dropped by The Rooms for a quick check of some government documents in the provincial archive. The last time I’d been there, a major public display covered the Newfoundland experience in the First World War. The provincial government is, at least on paper, still in
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Bridging to Nowhere… or not #nlpoli
Since December 2015, Dwight Ball has been talking about the federal government as the source of cash he wants to tap into. Specifically he has been talking a lot about how Newfoundland and Labrador is being screwed because it cannot collect Equalization. Ball’s whining about Equalization is part of his
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Don’t blame me (-dia) #nlpoli
Now that Muskrat Falls is officially a boondoggle, all sorts of people are rushing forward to criticise it. Others are also rushing forward to ensure we all know that they were on the side of the angels back in the day and so, as Brian Jones pleads this weekend in
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Plain English , Disclosure, and Bad Public Policy #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Right off the start, let’s affirm that Nalcor was created by an administration that was, from the time it took office, notorious for its efforts to flout the law in order to keep information secret. Polling information was the first sign of the problem bit wasn’t the last example. There
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Multiple Interlocking Rationalizations #nlpoli #cdnpoli
In announcing an inquiry into some aspects of Muskrat Falls on Monday, the Premier muddled up some numbers that suggest the confusion at the heart of Monday’s big news. He said that the inquiry will explain how a project that was originally supposed to cost $5.0 billion at the wound up costing
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: When a change is not a change: the NDP and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli #cdnpoli
One newsroom. Two different interpretations of federal NDP leader Jagmeet Sing’s position on Muskrat Falls. In Sarah Smellie’s online story, Singh had a few concerns and is “not comfortable” with the project. But he didn’t outright condemn the project. “Right now I’m concerned … I’m concerned about those two pieces
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Poppy
According to the Royal Canadian Legion’s Poppy Manual, the Legion will never authorize the display of a poppy on “blogs or discussion groups even of a remembrance nature, as the Legion cannot control the text content of such forums [sic].” A symbol of the defence of freedom can’t be displayed in
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Fixing the date or fixing the election #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Arguably, Justice Gillian Butler’s decision in a six year old case on the special ballot provisions of the provincial election law is one of the most significant political events in recent years. Butler ruled the special ballot rules are unconstitutional since they deny an individual’s right to vote under the
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Quebec Demon #nlpoli #cdnpoli
The fancy word for it is revanchism. People who study words and language call it a borrowed word, meaning that we use it in English but got it from the French word. In this case, it is the French word for revenge. People familiar with history are most likely to
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Muskrat, risk, and memory #nlpoli
There’s a great column in Saturday’s Telegram by Pam Frampton than anyone concerned about Muskrat Falls should read. It’s the latest in a string of columns that Pam’s been writing about the troubled megadebt project and events in 2013 around the time that the major contractor on the project produced
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Dunkirk (2017)
Reviewers have been so effusive in their praise for Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk that one suspects that something is very wrong here. The New York Times, for example, called it a “tour de force”, “a brilliant new film”, and “a characteristically complex and condensed vision of a war in a movie that is
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