Doyle to Senate - A player in Harper's Lie Book

Norm Doyle is a nice guy. That is the general consensus of most who know him.

He did in fact do a very honourable thing when he donated a pension to charity. It was also very open and accountable in that where the money went was publicized to his constituents on a regular basis.

Norm was - I believe - a good constituency representative and made himself available. It was my experience that he also was above pure partisan zealotry as I am aware that he assisted people who were not openly conservative.

This is why - unlike with Loyola Hearn - I was shocked and saddened when Doyle sided with Harper - against the better interests of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Norm Doyle - at the end of his political career - chose his party and his leader instead of his province and her people. For this reason - I am not supportive of Mr. Doyle's appointment to the Senate. It is now my assumption that his votes in the Senate will be partisan and can be predicted to be against Newfoundland and Labrador when Harper wants it.

With respect to Harper's Lie Book - this Prime Minister guaranteed he would bring Canada into an elected Senate. He was harping on it for years if not over a decade. I heard some excuses from Steve - that Opposition MP's were delaying it etc. The PM has no problem shoving other legislation through - despite the pounding fists in the House of Commons. He now has a majority - and he could have pushed through a Bill to deal with an unelected, unaccountable, and inequitable Upper Chamber.

This would not suit Steve - so he will hang on to his power base and appoint Conservatives until he is blue in the face. Once he gets the Senate where he wants it - a massive Conservative majority - he might then revive his holier that thou attitude and advise Canadians that we need to move toward an elected body.

Stephen Harper is a liar. He has harmed our province to the tune of tens of billions of dollars and he will continue to do so. Premier Dunderdale has chosen to hold his hand and for pennies on the dollar agree to be his champion here at home.

For these reasons and others - I hoped that Doyle would have declined when the dirtied hand reached out to welcome him in.

Option 3 - Our Government's Dirty Secret

In Newfoundland and Labrador the debate rages on among people as to whether we should export power through Quebec or through the Maritimes.

Please note that debate does not include our government, MHA's Cabinet and or Caucus or for that matter the Opposition parties. None of these entities wish to consult people - they after all know what's best for us. That should be obvious by the mess they have all made of it in the past.

Option 1 - exporting power through Quebec raises a whole host of problems not the least of which is the Upper Churchill hangover that no Screech in the land could possibly hope to cause. There is no question that access through provinces should be achievable and expected in Canada - however the work needed to be done appears outside the abilities of those currently sitting in the House of Assembly. The cost of this weakness is astronomical as we pay to avoid rather than deal with issue head-on and fight for what is most beneficial - economically to us.

Option 2 - exporting power through an "Atlantic/Maritime" route which in turn exponentially worsens our prospects from an economic basis and leaves us more vulnerable to Quebec than Option 1. The straight up logic that as a publicly traded company Emera can choose to sell a significant portion of their company or particular assets as they sit fit for the benefit of their shareholders (who generally speaking are not the people of Newfoundland and Labrador). It further increases cost which in turn makes you and I responsible for paying off unnecessary debt for years to come.

Option 3 - the dirty little secret and hidden option of simply not exporting the power and using it in Labrador. How can we as people move forward to reviewing export routes for our clean, renewable, green, reliable, and relatively cheap power - if we have not first determined if there is a market in Labrador for it. The fact that not one of our governments has successfully attracted such interests does not speak to the potential but rather the inept or disengaged politicians we have elected to represent us. In the case of some - the easier route has always been export as it does not require vision, dedicated effort, or thinking on a global level.

The media, Opposition, or Government has not provided one scrap of evidence that demonstrates we are unable to attract industry to Labrador using this superior power resource. They continue to say nobody has come knocking on our door. Why would they - when they know that eventually Newfoundland and Labrador will deliver the power to Nova Scotia, Ontario, or the New England States while paying for the enormous unnecessary cost of transmission. They know they can get the same deal in any of the jurisdictions we are going to export it to - because we dislike the Upper Churchill so much that we will pay through the nose ourselves just to bypass Quebec.

Labrador sits there without one aluminum smelter - let alone two or three - while competitive jurisdictions such as Quebec, Ontario, Russia, Iceland, Norway and even Greenland move ahead with industrial development using hydro-power.

You figure before Dunderdale or anybody else suggest we take on enormous debt and sell power cheaper than the cost to produce and transmit it - to another province or state - they would inundate us with paper showing us how and when they tried to attract industry to use it. But - not a peep.

You can follow the destruction in our fishery and come up with the same game plan that is being applied here. Let's not kid ourselves - we remain our own worst enemy and continue to attempt resource deals that are not only inferior but down and out reckless.

The Emera deal is a bad deal - and must be stopped. Our Premier - while entertained and complimented on her rise to the top - must not be permitted to make such a disastrous contract based on what appears to be her like of power and the attention she gets based on it.

By the way another day has passed without proper action on Old Harry, the Romaine River, and the Labrador Boundary - wonder if Ed Martin or any Nalcor officials are all over that - or if Dunderdale is drilling down yet again to achieve due diligence. When they are all finished maybe Kevin O'Brien can tell us in his own unique way - that "to be quite honest witchu" it's time to love Stephen Harper again.

With the passion Danny Williams claims to possess for Newfoundland and Labrador - he must be chawing at the bit - and looking for sleep relief. There are rumours he would like to be a comedic actor. I fear the comic relief of Critch and Williams will not raise a smile on our faces if we do not stop destroying the future for our children.

Leave it to Old Harry - he can tell you all about the failures of Danny Williams!

Equalization will have to change again - if Ottawa is going to appease Quebec. Unfortunately - it will all be too late for us.

So the feds and Quebec are set to make a deal on offshore oil - in the disputed area between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. Old Harry as the area is nicknamed will see Quebec receive 100% of the royalties from any oil recovered.

Now the problem - Quebec - who argued that NL should not be exempt from equalization respecting oil revenues - non-renewable resource revenues - will now have to argue that they should be able to keep all the revenues without being penalized by Ottawa.

The Atlantic Accord which was supposed to insure that Newfoundland and Labrador was the primary beneficiary of offshore oil development - did not deliver on that promise. The weakness of the agreement - signed off by our politicians of the time - became evident as we witnessed Ottawa claw back close to 80% of the revenues under equalization. So for years the ranting went on - and finally the Williams administration caught Paul Martin on a weak political moment and righted the historical wrong. The Government of Canada passed over 2 billion which at least partially compensated our province by making us the primary beneficiary of the resource.

Then along came Harper - who promised equalization changes that would remove revenues from non-renewable resources from the formulary - allowing our children to benefit from resources that we were going to expire.

Harper lied - became the Prime Minister and then proceeded to put our province virtually right back to where we were before we made gains. That lie cost our province over 10 billion dollars. Danny started the ABC campaign - Conservatives were not elected in any riding and Fabian went to the Senate.

Problem is Danny was bluffing - there was no consequence to Harper - and then Danny quit. He had the political support but he chose to sit back and allow our province to be screwed - yet again - by Ottawa.

Now what do you think will happen to Quebec - do you believe they will let Ottawa claw back revenues from oil or gas under equalization? I for one am not that stupid. If Quebec ever recovers oil from this offshore parcel - equalization will be changed to accommodate that development. By then our resources will effectively be exhausted and the change will provide minimal to no return for us.

Today the feds and Quebec are set to sign a deal on the deposit ( potential 2 billion barrels of oil and 5,000 billion cubic feet natural gas) with environmental studies set to be complete by 2012.

Then there are the lagging questions - once again left hanging by Premier Williams - who owns the resource, which boundary is correct, if Newfoundland and Labrador opposes it what is the government going to do about it?

So Danny thinks he got one up on Quebec with the Emera deal. What a failure - and what a cost to our people.