The Darker Side #nlpoli
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…
Ed Hollett
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Down due to illness
A cold has sidelined your e-scribbler for a couple of days. Regular screeds will resume shortly. -srbp-
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…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
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…