The Fibre Optic Deal
Lobbyist or Not
Part IV
Please read Parts I - II - and III before reading the final Part IV
Part I Lobby or Not
Part II Lobbyist or Not
Part III Lobbyist or Not
As Sue's Blog pointed out in Part III - it is anticipated that the "boys" will come up with yet another excuse for not registering.
In Brian Tobin like fashion - MacDonald might suggest he was not representing Rogers or MTS Allstream as a "consultant lobbyist" or Persona as an "in-house" lobbyist because he was actually representing the CONSORTIUM (yet to be publicly identified by a name).
If MacDonald tries to pull this one - again he will run into difficulties.
You see if Dean says that he is in-house for the consortium - a consortium which has not yet begun to build anything - then he would have to admit that 20% of his duties as an employee (senior officer) of the consortium would have been spent lobbying. You see that's all apparently the consortium has done to date.
NOTE
Sue's Blog recommends that people refer to the Act and not the Guide or FAQ publications - as those documents tend to mislead the reader into believing that pay is the only prerequisite for being a "consultant lobbyist". In fact the Act says that you are a "consultant lobbyist" if you are a person who, for remuneration (pay) , or other gain, reward or benefit, undertakes to lobby on behalf of a client.
The Clients are clear - Rogers - MTS Allstream and the benefits are clear in that Dean MacDonald would gain at a minimum - a benefit as a shareholder in Persona - if the lobby was successful.
The other concern in this relationship is how one determines how many personal meetings might have taken place on the golf course - on vacation - or while visiting the home of a public official - when the parties involved are known to each other on a personal level.
In every sense - these individuals did everything they could to keep the public from knowing anything about this deal - until they had it in the bag - and found a "convenient" or "most opportune" time to reveal it. ( the phone black-out)
I hope the Commissioner of Lobbyists considers the entire Act if and when a review is done - not just those sections of the Act that MacDonald deems appropriate.
8 comments:
So can you be classified as a Liberal Lobbyist?
Do you want your old $90,000.00 dollar a year consulting job back if the Liberal party gets back in?
You certainly don't have the best interests of the province at heart, more like personal agenda and self serving interests.
I dare you to write one thing that would put the present PC govt in a good light.
No, The Atlantic Accord doesn't count.
Or write one bad thing that the Liberal party of NL has done.
Sorry Sue but you have lost all credibility in my eyes.
No I cannot be classified a lobbyist under any model. It is sad that you believe that 15 years of volunteer participation - research - and public commentary is reflected by a position of less than one year.
Further the comments you make are identical to those made against me when I fought Clyde Wells (liberal) on the Hydro Privatization - and Brian Tobin (liberal) and Dean MacDonald when they proposed to give 33% of the Lower Churchill to Quebec.
What is particularly unfortunate is that all these people you wish to protect were nowhere to be found until they wanted to be politicians.
During the initial years of the fishery moratorium - they said nothing. What are you talking about. If you believe that any deal should go unquestioned - legitimately and validly - that bothers me - you potentially participate in harming us all (blindly) - without the benefit of having seen the deal. You have not seen the deal - because it has not been made public.
I have already said and agree with many of the groups MUN NATI CANARIE - that the concept of having competition is good - having two separate systems is good. This deal being the best one we could have participated in - I don't know and I have many unanswered questions - as would anybody when there is no RFP or tender - when the EWA does not match up with what has been said.
To be partisan is one thing - but are you under some umbrella that protects you from all the great business people who have ended up not providing the best deal for the people? The only way this is avoided is to ask questions.Questions are warranted here.
I don't disagree that questions are warranted but in the end was there another option?
Rogers, persona, and the others comprise the list of competitors out there.
So if Aliant responded to the RFP and due to their already having picked all of the low hanging fruit could under bid any competitors bids and we would still be no better off with the exception of having another fibre going into the same switch and the south shore getting high speed. But still under the Alliant monopoly for external access through the one switch. The weak link in the chain.
Williams knew this would look bad he also knew he had to burn some political good will to make it happen. Why else do you think he turned it down twice before this wasn't concocted over night.
While he may have taken advantage of the outage if we had competition and two carriers the outage wouldn't have happened at least not to the extent it did.
Personally I couldn't care less if he paid for the whole thing in my mind improved infrastructure is the only way NL will ever get ahead. My god were like a third world country no roads in Labrador no roads on the south shore and the roads we do have aren't much more than goat paths in comparison to upalong. Diesel generating electric plants on south shore and coastal Labrador no high speed in Bally HAlly my god give me a break and either stop this witch hunt or propose an equivalant or better alternative instead of playing politics for what can be construed as your own personal self interest.
http://nl-outsidethebox.blogspot.com/2006/11/good-for-nl-but-dammit-it-looks-bad.html
Labrador should be serviced by hydro - instead we will give that to Ontario - highspeed and equivalent service in Labrador should already exist and certainly not be occuring only after the island has 2 complete infrastructures. Nothing prevented the public from being informed about this when the EWA Report was complete and government was considering this change to public policy.
I want to see the deal as a 28% shareholder - which is what the contribution amounts to. I want to be able to benefit from the future sale of our portion to a growing and thriving private sector. I want a percentage of the profits in the same manner we would if we were partial owners of the Hebron field.
For 28% I want to see the deal and read all reports (complete versions)
Sue said
To be partisan is one thing - but are you under some umbrella that protects you from all the great business people who have ended up not providing the best deal for the people?
Nope I am not under any umbrella of any sort. Just sticking my neck out to try and better my homeland and Brethren.
If anything I only have things to lose and nothing to gain but thats ok.
I sleep well at night, well not really but my conscience is clear.
As for your prior open line and advocacy efforts from years past against the then NL Liberal party until they shut you up by hiring you on.
I was loath to expose your past salary and consulting position with the NL Liberal party but I felt it was necessary to expose your true intentions what with you and your suspect fellow Liberal cronies making political hay out of something that in the end will be good for my province.
If you want to look at my efforts as drinking the cool aid as Randy would call me then that is fine but there are issues which I vehemently disagree with the Present NL PC party's stance namely Bottom Dragging, Quota for Burgeo Co-Op a community helping itself but getting no help. To name a few.
I ask you again name something good the NL PC party has done and something Bad the NL Liberal party has done. Free yourself and do what is right for your province and your people.
Sue you are a leader and to following along blindly partisan poll itiking does you and your province an injustice. I think in your heart you have the best interst of your fellow NL'ian at heart but you like alot of NL'ians have been compromised due to the poor economic situation our province is in.
Dam I hate having to check back to see if my comments get posted.
I only started to do this after a couple of my comments never got posted so my options were to no longer visit your blog or to keep copies of my comments and your blogs.
What is it with this blog anyway it isn't apart of Blogger.com you keep it on your own personal server?
For someone who didn't know what a blog was a year ago and just kept adding to the one entry very strange indeed.
There are those who accuse you of being paid by the NL Liberal party for your efforts but I see no evidence other than some circumstantial and coincedental time lines like.
You told me in an email a while back that you were moving away to work in Upalong. Then all of a sudden you create a blog several blogs all from a server and become the vocal minority to any and everything the Present PC govt is doing good bad or indifferent even if it is to the detriment of the province and it's people? The only people gaining from your one sided activism will be the NL Liberal party if any of the mud you and your suspect Liberal cronies continue to throw mud and instill a margin of doubt into the public perception because we all know perception is reallity amongst the uninformed masses.
Which is why it is all the more vital that our population have access to high speed internet so they can become informed and unite to make this province great like it could and should be.
Ignorance is Bliss
Knowledge is power
The pen might be mightier than the sword but the key board beats all.
Personally I would never move back to any town in NL which didn't have High speed internet. It would be like going back in time.
If there is some factual error in what I am presenting on the fibre optic deal - let me know. Do you have any idea what I think - when spending 30 hours of volunteer time a week on social and economic policy research and public discourse for 15 years - and paid for one year?
Where are the others you speak of that do that?
Have I overspent my allowance by hundreds of thousands of dollars? If you view the entire blog there are entries there on the Opposition - they do not like. It is the government that makes policy and their majority passes legislation - thereby the critique.
I will comment further on good and bad later tonight.
These are similar arguements and defences you are putting forth for yourself IE: 30 hours a week.
DW feels an indebtedness for not accepting a wage or donating his salary to his charity.
Either you do what you do for the good of your fellow man and women or your doing it to curry favor of some sort self preservation and gain?
What is it?
I put in at a minimum of 70 hours a week probably alot more if you count in the time I think about different issues or research. You don't hear me bragging or talking about whether the wages I was previously paid for a job I did at the time are still relevant. I consider it my volunteer work. How do you classify your activism?
The real question on this Fibre deal isn't whether the numbers can be shown to justify the money because I think we all know public money given to a private company can very seldom be justified but whether or not the province will be better of because of it.
While 15 million may seem like alot to you and me when it comes to the Prov budget it is chump change for what we will be getting in return IMHO.
Ownership/cheaper rates for fibre access.
Improved and expanded network with competition and redundancy built in by way of a second carrier.
If Alliant were given the 15 million to do the same thing they would have used the same switch and we wouldn't be any futher ahead by way of redundancy than we are right now. No competition and hopefully lower rates.
Just look at the work Alliant is doing right now and the possibility of outages because we are restricted to one carrier and one switch.
Think back to canadian IDOL.
This is long over due and DW should be commended for having the political will to go forward with it. Beats the hell outta work grants and lip programs. Money well spent.
Comparing this to the Upper Churchill has to be the furthest stretch anyone has ever made yet.
This is a one time investment for a equity ownership stake, improved expanded network with a built in redundancy by way of a second carrier. The Upper Churchill was supposedly Short Term finacial Pain for long term financial gain this is Short term political pain for long term financial gain.
DW knew this looked bad but he did it anyway knowing it would be good for the porovince and it's people.
If you want to talk about numbers and whetehr something will pass the cost benefit analysis you should be worried about the feds call for a cost benefit analysis and plan for the TLH because personally I don't think that money will come back to us anytime in the near future and if that is the criteria OTT has for building a nation we may as well all pack up and leave now. Especially if there is no future plan to build a fixed link.
We would be much better of building a fleet of cargo ships and forego any and all trade with canada and just concentrate on the US and EU markets. That is our ace in the hole access by way of sea to Boston NY, the EU and the world. We can't compete with canadian markets we are at a disadvantage with the marine atlantic and poor transportation infrastructure not to mention the distance from canadian markets and the self preservation of ON and our centrist political system and economic base.
We pay the Premier his salary - full stop - you are not paying mine full - stop. When I spoke about volunteer time it did not cost the general revenue of the province a penny. When I reference my time it is in response to your belief that my motivation is any different than your own.
I am not saying you are doing what you are doing for favours from the government - or that the Tories have shut you up.
I am looking at the deal from a provincial level - until I see the deal and the commitments we have made or will make I am unable to say that an RFP or tender would not have netted a better deal. It would also provide the person-hours of work - taxes - competition etc.
We do not have an equity position in this deal - we are buying an unknown amount of fibre strands.
For 28% of the money we should have equity - be privy to the full contract details and be entitled to 28% of the profit for the risk we are taking.
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