Some observations on the state of the news media in Newfoundland and Labrador, circa 1988, from Dr. Susan McCorquodale, “Newfoundland: personality, party, and politics” in Gary Levy and Graham White, editors, Provincial and territorial legislatures in Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1989) Those who write about the relationship between
Continue readingAuthor: Edward Hollett
The Sir Robert Bond Papers: How much is Churchill Falls worth? #nlpoli
The public policy advantage of quantifying or estimating what the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador might get in revenue from Churchill Falls 21 years from now is that it takes discussions today from the world of fantasy and make-believe to something closer to reality. Churchill Falls Generating Station People talk
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Innu Nation suing provincial government not HQ over Churchill Falls #nlpoli
Laws suits get filed in court. Political claims for cash launch with a news conference, a website, and a deceptive news release that misidentifies the target of the action. The Innu Nation statement of claim filed in Newfoundland and Labrador Tuesday is against the Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation as
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The New Colonialists #nlpoli
The New Colonialistsdon’t look like the old ones The last day of September is known as Orange Shirt Day. It is a day to remember residential schools for Indigenous people, which, as the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in its final report, “were a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Policy confusion does no one any good #nlpoli
Last week, the Liberal governments in Ottawa and St. John’s unleashed a bold new innovation in political announcements. Fridays used to be the day when governments buried announcements, they didn’t want anyone to notice. They’d take out the trash, as the day came to be known, by slipping out a
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Rumpole and The Old Bull #nlpoli
Mr. Justice Don Burridge(Not exactly as illustrated) Supporters of the travel ban won a victory last week as Supreme Court Justice Don Burridge said it was okay to ban travel into the province during an emergency even though it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They might want to hold
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Husky Boys’ Challenge #nlpoli
The Husky gambit last week presents the province’s leaders with a fundamental challenge. Do we continue on the current path or do we change? This is not just a question of oil development versus some nebulous, pseudo-intellectual gibberish called “decarbonization”. It is the question from 1984: who will control the Newfoundland and Labrador
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Warning: Elephant Crossing #nlpoli
Lots of people are very worried and some are quite upset about the government’s plan to re-open schools next week. There’s more than enough controversy, way too much noise, and very little useful information to get into here, but there is one aspect of the way people are talking about
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Illusions of knowledge #nlpoli
Last week,testimony in the travel ban case by the province’s chief medical officer Dr. Janice Fitzgerald and epidemiologist Dr. Proton Rahman confirmed the extent to which decisions taken by the provincial government in the first wave of COVID-19 were *not* based on evidence and analysis. This is extremely important reasons.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Walking Dead Duck
This evening Liberals will elect a new leader. And about two weeks from now – likely Friday, February 14 – the new leader will take the oath of office and become the 38thfirst minister of Newfoundland and Labrador since it became self-governing (May 5, 1855) and the 14th Premier since
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Dwight and Tom’s legacy: more of the same #nlpoli
Herb Kitchen died last week. He was the minister of finance in the early 1990s who brought down the difficult budgets, starting in 1991 that were part of a plan that turned the provincial government around. The deficit at the time was about $300 million and the total budget called
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Change versus more of the same: Summer 2020 edition #nlpoli
Spring 1994. At the point Clyde Wells spoke to the graduating class of Memorial University’s business school that year, the administration he led had already started getting government spending under control and transforming the economy. Wells goes through all of that with the class, why government was undertaking the changes, and
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The challenge of change #nlpoli
Change is hard. It’s even harder when no one wants to change. Our Former Dear Premier Some people outside the Liberal Party have been obsessed lately with the leadership contest currently going on. They seem to think that one person can make all the difference in how the provincial government
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Muskrat committee flags cost risk for potential alternate transmission software #nlpoli
At the end of December 2019, the Muskrat Falls Oversight Committee added development of alternate protection and control software for the high voltage direct current transmission system – that is, the Labrador-Island Link – to its list of risks the committee is monitoring for potential added project costs. Alternate software
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Building on our successes #nlpoli
“First and foremost, be totally honest with the electorate,” former Premier Clyde Wells told Anthony Germain on CBC’s Sunday Edition last weekend. He was giving some general advice to the next Premier on how to handle the provincial government’s enormous financial problems. “Don’t go sugar-coating anything. Fully disclose what you’re
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: All the news the mob will let us print #nlpoli
Saltwire laid off a hundred or so people last week, 25 of them in Newfoundland and Labrador. The most recent cuts are the result of revenue drops due to COVID but Saltwire has been hacking and slashing at its operations across the region since buying up a raft of dailies
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: SCC decision complicates school budgets for fall 2020 #nlpoli
The provincial government’s budget problems, the amount it spends on education, and its plans for the fall living with COVID-19 just got a whole lot more complicated thanks to the Supreme Court of Canada decision on Friday in a case involving minority-language schools. Francophone Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are constitutionally entitled
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Racism in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli
An expression of power and privilege Some people in Newfoundland and Labrador are talking about racism. This is good. Unfortunately, they are talking about racism somewhere else. This is bad. And, they aren’t really talking about racism with the intent to do something about. They are talking about something completely
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Mimicry and Pantomime #nlpoli
A couple of thousand people turned out in St. John’s on Saturday for a rally organized by a new group calling itself Black Lives Matter NL. They listened to speeches, raised their fists, and did all the things one would expect at a rally to draw attention to anti-black racism
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The facts of the case #nlpoli
From the start of the pandemic, the provincial government took decisions for political reasons, not medical ones. It continues to do so. It is clear that the provincial government has maintained very tight restrictions on the public far longer than necessary and that far more extensive efforts to control the public
Continue reading