First Wells ministry, 05 May 1989 #nlpoli
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…
Ed Hollett
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…
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?…
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…
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…
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…
Muskrat Falls Inquiry Terms of Reference – Comments #nlpoli #cdnpoli
MF Inquiry TOR Commentary EGHollett by Edward Hollett on Scribd
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…
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…
O Holy Night
-sbrp-
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…