Some people
need to be hoisted on their own petard.
Individuals
who are paid from the public purse, and who use a public platform from which
they derive credibility, should be held to account when they use poor judgement
by choosing to favour political interests over the public interest.
A society looks
to all leadership, especially those who occupy important positions in our institutions.
Memorial University’s Wade Locke is one such example. Such people are often
given the privilege to counsel the highest leadership, and to influence public
policy.
Others, like
the Consumer Advocate, hold an official Office.
Such an appointee
is thought to speak for the public at the exclusion of all other interests. The
presumption is that he will keep his distance from those who would influence him
for a less than honourable purpose.
It is true
that the explosion of “consultancy” roles in government and its agencies,
especially during the recent years of free spending, has given rise to a new
kind of “boondoggle”. Yet the proliferation of paid “advisors” does not justify
the lowering of professional standards nor condone any less than the highest levels
of integrity in those performing such roles.
To err, as
the saying goes, is human. But real professionals who make mistakes of
judgement, potentially harming the public interest thereby — whether due to their
underestimation of the capriciousness of their political benefactors, poor
research, or having put their pay packets first — will acknowledge their error
and express contrition.
That is what
the Head of the Department of Economics at Memorial, Dr. Wade Locke, and the
Consumer Advocate, Tom Johnson, ought to have contemplated in advance of their respective
PR outbursts last week.
But the pair
offered neither regret nor anything close to the unveiling of a Damascene moment.
Indeed, their expostulations seem to have had an opposite intent.
I suppose
had either of them offered to repay unmerited fees they were paid, in an effort
to help offset the economic and human cost of $11.4 billion and 21.4 cents per
kWh power, the offer might have earned
them advancement in a plan of social rehabilitation. But, alas, their
mission contained no restorative component. In the way of inflated egos, their media
relations exposed merely a search for justification, not an offer of contrition
or recompense, and certainly not to forge any bond containing forgiveness.
The Telegram
reported last week Locke stating the Muskrat Falls’ “sanctioning decision in
2012 was made with the best information available at the time, and just because
it turns out that things have gone very badly doesn’t mean it was the wrong
decision, based on what was known back then.”
The best information
available to whom? To Nalcor?
Didn’t Locke
essentially parrot Nalcor’s data at the time? Even then, did he not forget to
include the cost of the transmission line, leaving it to Nalcor to correct his
flawed analysis a couple of days later? Did he not fail to reveal that his
conclusions might be coloured, directly or indirectly, he having been in the
pay of Nalcor and the Provincial Department of Finance at various times?
Besides, didn’t
Stan Marshall say recently that the project’s “capital cost estimates were
really aggressive and optimistic”; that “false assumptions” were employed, that
the project was held up by “false underpinnings”? Did he not say “there were clearly
more affordable options”?
Such
conclusions were not those of the “naysayer” or the partisan but of the Head of
the Crown Corporation responsible. Weren’t they the obverse of the conclusions which
Locke took to Memorial’s Inco Centre and other
platforms?
Even in the
world of economics, a field given credibility not by “cheerleaders” but by
serious practitioners of the discipline, it is tough find any grey between
“boondoggle” and the “analysis” which Locke asserts. How can such a term ever
be validated with the claim that it was the “best information at the time”?
One is
forced to ask: why is Locke not lamenting that he was duped by Nalcor officials?
Because he agreed with their assumptions in whatever manner they were contrived?
Where is the
admission that his research (if he conducted any) was poor, or that he may have
been irrationally exuberant, having failed to employ the academic rigour of a
freshman — let alone that demanded by the serious practitioner of his
discipline?
Of Muskrat’s
current $11.4 billion price tag, Locke told the Telegram: “I mean, had we known
these numbers at the start, we probably wouldn’t be saying that was a viable
project.”
This from the
Head of Memorial’s Economics Department!
When do we
ever have “all the numbers” at the start of anything, especially on a large and
complicated project? Why do we employ economists, and specialists from other
disciplines, if not to spot what Stan Marshall characterizes as “false
assumptions”?
No economist
can forecast the misjudgements made by an inexperienced management team. But his
analysis was used to garner public approval (Wangersky’s Saturday column reminded
us of Premier Dunderdale invoking Locke’s analysis) and to defeat cries for
independent review. It was a role that a willing Locke played with enthusiasm.
Bear in mind
that this is the same economist who continued to counsel the short-term
cyclicality of oil prices and continued strength in iron ore prices, too, though
his expertise in these areas always seemed to lag his seemingly effortless and
timely support of the Government’s projects including for Alderon.
Perhaps I am
overstating the demands on the profession. Perhaps the Department Head simply
believes that economists make better cheerleaders — though I am quite certain
his colleague, Dr. Jim Feehan, would vehemently disagree.
Indeed,
Locke could have taken instruction had he simply trotted down the hall and
consulted with Feehan. The latter had written solid academic papers arguing how
changes in electricity pricing, conservation measures, and regulation could
help resolve the power demand peaking problem, which doubles in February as
compared with August.
Feehan also maintained
a detached — (un)conflicted view — possibly believing that plum consulting jobs
with an outfit seeking favourable reviews was not worth the risk on a project
he termed “risky from the very beginning”.
Then there
is Tom Johnson, the Consumer Advocate.
Johnson has
frequently come in for rebuke on this Blog. He is a truly tiresome subject, his
behaviour equally as transparent as his motivation. Johnson is of a type that
reminds us that even virtual ink eschews ennui. Hence he long ago merited the
summary conviction entitled, dismissively, "The Lap Cat Has No Claws". So, I
will keep this segment short.
After all
that has been said about the Muskrat Falls project — the threat of $11.4
billion capital cost (and counting), the financial and economic costs of 21.4
cents per kWh power, the threat to growth and jobs, the quite public failures
of Nalcor, even the possibly that the PUB will demand the restoration of
Holyrood to protect the Island’s economy and society from catastrophic Transmission
Line failure — you could still hear Johnson on several media this week,
ignoring all those grim realities.
The Consumer
Advocate assumes everyone has forgotten that at Nalcor’s early price of $6.2 billion, even then Nalcor concocted a “Power
Purchase Agreement” that attempted to avoid “sticker shock” during the early
years of commissioning. The public aren’t supposed to know “picky” details such
as the one that commits a future generation to a payment on just the powerhouse
of $1.2 billion, in year 50 of the financing period. What is it, now that the
project is nearly double the cost?
Johnson
nailed his colours to the Tory mast early, even getting ahead of Manitoba Hydro
International in the race for top cheerleader of the Muskrat Falls
project.
Ignoring the
travesty that has unfolded since, Johnson is confident that the price will come
down, presumably because the difference will be picked up by taxpayers. After
all these years, he has never figured out that taxpayers and ratepayers are not
a different species.
Johnson
comforts the public with the argument of “green power,” unmindful of either the
impact of methylmercury or of the threat from an unstable North Spur. He
invokes the final claim of former Nalcor CEO Ed Martin — when every other
failed — that Muskrat would still be producing power a hundred years from now.
His specious
renderings are repulsive not least because financing anything over a period of
50 years makes no economic sense. Emera, as a shareholder in the Labrador
Island TL, insisted that it should be financed over 35 years. Like Emera, anyone
who owns a house knows that maintenance-free is a myth. The capital needs to be
paid in the early years because the asset will continue to incur significant
and costly maintenance.
But the
Consumer Advocate, perhaps like Wade Locke, has an agenda that is less about
advocacy or public information. For him, the latest PR gambit is about the
avoidance of public recrimination and an attempt to justify, perhaps on Danny
Williams’ behalf as much as on his own, a decision whose false underpinnings
have been exposed.
His term of
his appointment as Consumer Advocate will expire soon. Perhaps he thinks that Premier
Ball will be foolish enough to re-appoint him. Perhaps Ball is.
I am not
fond of those who accept payment for services poorly delivered. As an Advocate,
Johnson was supposed to have spoken truth to power. Instead, he was happy just to
be a booster of expensively crazy ideas. Johnson liked being a friend.
Are Locke
and Johnson due a public flogging (metaphorically speaking, of course) for the role
they played as purveyors of a “boondoggle”? Isn’t there a time when the
advisors, boosters, and shills should enjoy ignominy — a minimum cost to be
sure, but a good start for the exercise of their poor judgement? Were they not part of the “team” that has
helped impoverish an ordinarily decent, albeit a frequently passive, society?
Must the
public endure their mutterings still, as if they were relevant? Must we let
them prove that we have earned the less-than-noble attribute manifest in the
phrase “silence of the lambs”?
We can best
deal with Wade Locke by ignoring him ever mindful, if he pops his head up again,
we should inquire as to his conflicts knowing it is likely not the public that
is being served.
But the
Consumer Advocate is a different matter. If the Premier re-appoints him, we can
assume that there will be no early cure to the rot in our public institutions.
Both deserve
a public flogging.
They should
count themselves lucky if they get off so lightly.
