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Monday 24 June 2013

GIVE PEOPLE LIKE JIM PRENTICE AN EARFUL

Golly gee.  Wasn’t it so nice of former Federal Tory Cabinet Minister, Jim Prentice, to pay the folks down in “Newfie” a call?  What would we have done without a visit from ‘ol Jim?

NOIA delegates showed up, in droves, to hear the words of the good ‘ol boy, from Calgary, now CIBC’s energy expert.  Reporters wrote down his every word; the newspaper and other media gave him precious space.  Jim must be thinking: what they say is really true: ‘they’re a bit dull but these Newfies sure are nice folks’!  Even the reporters were nice.  Yes, everyone was nice…they just loved what ah had to say…my bank buddies will be so pleased, ah shucks, ah sure hope we get to sell some of those Muskrat Falls Bonds. Why, I’ll get a bigger bank bonus if ah can turn that little trick.’

Yes, Jim, in Newfoundland and Labrador, we’re all rooting for you!

Oh my, Oh my! 
We have never properly celebrated Discovery Day.  Maybe Newfoundlanders should use it, each year, to check their political maturity.  We could start the Day by repeating one thousand times: “let’s ignore people like Jim Prentice”.  Maybe a thousand times is not enough; like hockey players, we might have to take the chant into overtime!

So, why do we let imposters, like Prentice, spread propaganda like spring pollen? People must know it’s all bull shit.  Yet, what do we do?  We thank him for it. He gets paid for it, too.  Like one lightweight to another, for this address,  Jim Prentice probably received more than Justin Trudeau charged the senior citizens of St. John, New Brunswick.  NOIA and CIBC have money far in excess of brains.

In case you weren’t there, let’s look at Jim gibberish.  Of course, he comes from Calgary, so that automatically makes him an energy expert.  What does he say? “Newfoundland and Labrador needs to develop the Lower Churchill — not just Muskrat Falls, but the larger Gull Island site as well.”

Said he, “consumption of oil in the United States has plateaued and is even beginning to decrease.  And the price of continental natural gas will for many, many years be the lowest in the world, providing an incredible industrial advantage for North Americans.”

This information is well known.  But, when you are just a pseudo expert, you are liable to get the analysis wrong. 

Some, in this Province, have been telling Kathy Dunderdale these things for a couple of years.  She can't make the connection and recognize that these are the very reasons we ought to be looking at alternatives to super expensive and risky power from Muskrat Falls.

Jim Prentice couldn’t make the connection, either.

Wrote the Telegram reporter, “Already, with the development of the Muskrat Falls and the relatively small amount of surplus electricity it provides, critics are saying that plunging energy prices mean that there will be nowhere to sell the power.”

But, of course, Prentice got a solution.  He tells the NOIA audience, “the electricity should go to Ontario instead.”

Let me think this through…….an acknowledgment of plunging energy prices...Muskrat power that will surely cost in excess of 30 cents per KWh…!!!!  So after we give Nova Scotia 20% of the deal for NADA, we’ll sell the rest, to Ontario, for a few pennies a KWh. BRILLIANT!!!!

(NOTE TO CIBC:  KEEP THIS MORON AWAY FROM THE TELLERS)

This wasn’t even the best of what Jimmy had to say at NOIA.

The Telegram quoted him again: “We as a country need to seize every advantage, and the Lower Churchill represents a significant advantage for this province, for the region, and for Canada as a whole,”.

He continued: “Now is the time for the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador to come together in partnership.”

The Telegram: “Prentice, a former cabinet minister in the Harper government, said he doesn’t see a role for the federal government in making that happen; instead, he said it’s a job for the premiers to work out.”

What on-line scribe writes this nonsense, for Prentice? Does he not understand that Newfoundland would rather blow its own brains out (as it is well on the way to doing) than “sit down with Quebec”?

But that’s not all……

Go back two paragraphs:  “he doesn’t see a role for the federal government in making it happen…it’s for the Premiers to work out”.  The fact that Alberta cannot get oil across B.C.‘s provincial boundary is a national crises; but Mr. Prentice, bet your bottom dollar, won’t spill that same line in Alberta.  No, Sir, as far as Jim is concerned, the Feds should get their booties moving and get this oil transportation problem resolved, pronto.  But as to electricity, no, no, no; that energy is different; it doesn’t go through pipelines, there’s no role for the Feds here.  

This is exactly the same tripe Trudeau (the father), Lalonde and Chretien and others used to slide out from under Feds national responsibility, in the 1980s; their successors, including Prentice have done nothing to change the script.  

Maybe you need a lobotomy to stand in front of the very people affected by this kind of offensive bull-shit, which lobotomy Mr. Prentice must surely possess.  The Newfoundlanders, in the audience, should have walked him to a waiting plane.  They are supposed to know the history of being refused transmission rights and the denial of the Feds' obligation to exercise its responsibilities for fear of pissing off Quebec. They ought to remember its impact on energy development in this Province. Likely, they don't; likely, they see only the dollar signs of a megaproject whose time is long passed. Likely, they paid Jim a level of deference not due him.

 Walk Jim to a plane? Absolutely!

It should become standard operating procedure, in this Province, when some ignoramus CFA, shows up to tell us how we can pick our own pockets, that someone will run to the podium, grab him by the ear and march him down Portugal Cove Road until he arrives at the Airport.  Don’t put him in a limo.  No. No! Walk him all the way out to the plane, his ear firmly within grip.  After a while, no one will even wonder what the commotion is all about.  Do it a few times and they will readily understand that another silly mainland politician is getting an earful.  Occasionally, someone should run out of their house and give him a boot in the arse, for good measure.  When a few Jim Prentices are put on a plane, with proper ceremony, then and only then, will the script change!

If Kathy Dunderdale and her Ministers had the ability to recognize bull-shit (except they can't even recognize their own); if they had a modicum of courage and self-respect, they would fight with each other for the next opportunity to the Jim Prentices of Canada an earful; they might not be first in the Polls but they would not be last. 

But, they don’t see that, do they? Why, you may ask? Because, they spend too much time listening to people, who listen to people, like Jim.