The day after Cathy Bennett talked about the hate-filled and threatening messages she’d received after delivering last spring’s budget, the echo chamber that is Newfoundland politics had already absorbed the story and claimed it confirmed that men were the only perpetrators of the violence that was aimed exclusively at women
Continue readingAuthor: Ed Hollett
The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Brutal #nlpoli
Any Liberals who thought they were out of the political woods got a harsh reminder of the truth on Tuesday. Their leader remains as unpopular as ever. According to Angus Reid, only 20% of respondents to their recent poll thought Premier Dwight Ball was doing a good job. That’s scarcely
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Townie Elite #nlpoli
Add Townie Elite to your online reading. Peter Jackson spent 25 years at the Telegram, where he used to write a regular column. Now he’s decided to come over to the dark side and offer his opinions online through a blog. These are early days for the Elite. He only
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Unacceptable #nlpoli
Finance minister Cathy Bennett did something very brave on Monday. She did something far braver than carry on without disclosing some of the horrendous abuse she and her family has suffered since last spring’s budget. She talked publicly about the threats and abuse. One cannot watch the video of Bennett
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Six dollars and eighty cents #nlpoli
We should pay members of the House of Assembly a good salary because they do a hard job that demands much of them and their family. It is a thankless job but it is an important job for our province and its people. One of the hazards of the job
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: AIMS refutes austerity hysteria #nlpoli #AIMS
From the latest Atlantic Institute for Market Studies paper: “Measuring Austerity in Atlantic Canada investigates whether the use of the term austerity in the context of Atlantic Canada’s public finance is accurate. The author examines public accounts data from the four provinces, adjusting for inflation, to determine the annual amount of
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Poll numbers not very comforting #nlpoli
A little over a month ago, only about 16 or 17 percent of respondents told pollsters they thought Dwight Ball was the best choice for Premier. In November, 27% of respondents picked Ball above Paul Davis and Earle McCurdy in Corporate Research Associate’s quarterly survey. That’s a big jump in
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Megawreck #nlpoli
Over the past couple of weeks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have been shown more and more the lunacy that is Muskrat Falls. Nothing better exemplifies the crazy world of the Muskrateers than Dwight Ball’s claim in interviews that he has wrestled the project back under control. Not long
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Faint hope #nlpoli
Nalcor won’t be able to install a boom upstream from the powerhouse construction. The result is that there will likely be damage to the dam construction, according to Nalcor boss Stan Marshall. Well, likely if the winter is normal or colder. But maybe not. “It’s weather dependent,” said Marshall. “So
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Get Knotted Doc O’Keefe #nlpoli
No one should be surprised that St. John’s mayor Doc O’Keefe is huffing and puffing over comments by former mayor Andy Wells to the effect that O’Keefe’s crowd had been doing things improperly if not illegally at city hall. “You’ve got a council that’s been profligate, wasteful, irresponsible and certainly
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Policy and sausages #nlpoli
People like to think the world we live in is run by some sort of magically rational process and the folks in charge are all much smarter than the rest of us. This brief sketch from an early Simon Pegg television series is actually much closer to the reality some
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Mazel Tov Cocktails #nlpoli
Scottie Nell Hughes is one of the legion of ident-a-bots who turned up on news programs during the recent American election spouting lines from the Trump campaign. She’s already famous as the one who gave us the mazel tov cocktail flub. She grabbed some headlines last week for making the
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Setting the agenda #nlpoli
In a set of media interviews this week, Premier Dwight Ball thought he would be talking about what’s he learned in his first year in office, what motivates him, and the great plans he has for the future. The election was on November 30, 2015 and Ball took office on
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Down due to illness
A cold has sidelined your e-scribbler for a couple of days. Regular screeds will resume shortly. -srbp-
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Waiting for Fidel #nlpoli #cdnpoli
From the National Film Board: “This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro’s Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundlandpremier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The graveyard of ambition #nlpoli
Think of it as an inside joke. James McLeod interviewed Premier Dwight Ball about the horror show that has been Ball’s first year in office. “Ball also came under heavy fire,” McLeod wrote, “for his handling of Nalcor Energy and perceived dishonesty about what he knew about outgoing CEO Ed
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Fractured Fairy Tales: Jerry Earle edition #nlpoli
Via VOCM, the reaction of NAPE boss Jerry Earle to a study that showed the provincial government is overloaded with provincial public servants compared to the situation in other provinces: Earle says while that might be true, there are good reasons, given the province’s geography and demographics. He says even
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The future will be something #nlpoli
The association representing the province’s offshore supply and service businesses paid a consultant from London to look at the potential for development of the oil located in very deep water offshore Newfoundland. As CBC’s Terry Roberts tells us, the goal of the exercise was to help NOIA members get ready
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Population density and just dense #nlpoli
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is in financial trouble. It will spend this year about $3.0 billion more than it will take in. In fact, this year, as last year, banks and other sources of borrowing will be the largest single source of income for the provincial government. Newfoundland
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Unopen Government #nlpoli
The idea of open data has been around for a while. In government, it means that government would make information like census data, statistics, licensing information easily and freely available for anyone to use, free of charge and any restrictions. It’s a way of sparking creativity, crowd-sourcing new information, and
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