Four candidates for Tory leadership waffle, only Crane calls for inquiry

Jamie Ballem, burying the PNP?

Tory leadership candidates Jamie Fox, Fred McCardle and Peter Llewellyn were recipients of free money from the PNP fund.

If nothing else this demonstrates how easy it was for the “politically connected” on PEI to get $45,000 to $200,000 from the PNP fund. Did you get any?

Candidate Jamie Ballem is sitting on the fence about the PNP. “Jamie Ballem said he didn’t participate, but called it a good program. ” PNP basically kept us out of a recession: we had people working here, the injection of capital was critical,” said Ballem. “Having said that, it was abused.” CBC “We have to move on,” he told the Guardian.

That is code for cover up.

Only Tory leadership candidate Olive Crane has called for a public inquiry into how the PNP program was run. Crane has been unrelenting on the subject over the past two years. She brings it up in the Legislature and in public. Read the rest of this entry »

Conservative Bagnall sees gains for Tories and weakness in Ghiz as leader

Liberals have double lead over Tories in decided voters (chart NJN Network)

The September 2, 2010 CRA poll says the Liberals are steady in voter support on Prince Edward Island.

CRA disguise this with mumbo jumbo about “over six in ten (62%, compared with 64% in May 2010) Islanders offer a positive assessment of the performance of the Liberal government.”

Jim Bagnall, interim leader of the PEI Progressive Conservatives, doesn’t agree.

“This government has put out over 60 press releases in the past month,” said Bagnall. “They’ve spent thousands of dollars hiring additional communications people; they are constantly revamping and developing fancy web sites to promote themselves; they’ve put out glossy document, after glossy document, yet their support is going down. The Progressive Conservative party hasn’t had a permanent leader since 2007, we have only three MLAs and yet our support has been increasing.”   Read the rest of this entry »

Effective September 1 – Seniors’ Drug Co-pay Reduced by 25 per cent

Genuflecting for small crumbs - Minister of Health Carolyn Bertram, President of the PEI Seniors’ Federation John Kenny, Executive Director of the PEI Pharmacists Association Erin MacKenzie, and Premier Robert Ghiz (government photo)

Premier Robert Ghiz announced he is cutting the co-pay for the PEI Senior’s Drug Plan by 25% on the 1st of September.

The co-pay is being reduced from $11 to $8.25. The government estimates the savings to PEI’s seniors at $900,000.

Seniors with disabilities would still like their wheelchairs, walkers and hearing aids when the Premier has time away from his golf game and checking his bank accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein.

What Ghiz didn’t announce is the promised coverage of 8,900 Island seniors with disabilities in the PEI Disability Support Program. That was his promise in the last election.

Everyone with a disability on Prince Edward Island, other than seniors, qualifies for assistance under the PEI Disability Support Program. Robert Ghiz promised to fix that inequality before he became Premier. Read the rest of this entry »

The $200,000 cocktail party was especially galling considering the budget for the Disability Support Program was cut $35,000 while Myrtle Jenkins Smith got another $90,000 contract

Updated – Two years after this story, the Disability Services Review has come and gone without any material improvements in the PEI Disability Support Program.

May 2008 was a firestorm for the Ghiz government. It weathered  crisis after crisis generating reams of bad publicity.

The $200,000 cocktail party was especially galling considering the budget for the Disability Support Program was cut $35,000. Yes they had one of those luxury cocktail parties under the Tories and it was just as odious.

If then-Minister Valerie Docherty was in a party mood, maybe she could have one of those cocktail parties in every town in PEI and invite the poor and disabled instead of rich high-class friends.

It appears people get elected on a platform of “change” but once in power become mesmerized by the money. Economists say that most people can’t handle sudden a increase in personal income. It’s like winning the lottery.

For most of our newly elected officials, their incomes have doubled and tripled after the election. Obviously for some ministers the sudden wealth has gone to their head. They want to hobnob with the rich and famous.  Read the rest of this entry »

Opposition charges Liberals dropped the ball no more wind development

West Cape, PEI wind farm (photo: David Grenier)

The Opposition Conservatives charged yesterday that the 500 megawatt wind development on Prince Edward Island was dead.

“What we have is maybe six megawatts of energy that this government is going to bring since they’ve been elected,” said Bagnall. “It’s very disheartening that government would mislead Islanders to the extent that they were going to put a major wind project here in the province, and actually come up with six megawatts.” CBC

The scuttlebutt around Charlottetown is that the Liberals can’t agree on wind development because the companies haven’t offered a big enough – or any – kickback to the Liberal Party.

Premier Ghiz assumed that wind power was going to be another Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) with foreign money flowing in all directions including into Liberal off shore bank accounts.  When Suez and the other potential developers wouldn’t play ball, the government refused to approve the plans.  Read the rest of this entry »

Jamie Ballem gives disaffected Tories a place to park their vote

Jamie Ballem, candidate for Tory leadership

By Paul MacNeill, Eastern Graphic - It would be naive to call provincial PC leadership hopefuls the Fab 5. But the last minute entry of former cabinet minister Jamie Ballem dramatically changes the race and, at a minimum, gives the contest a pulse.

Ballem’s entry will energize an otherwise boring contest that was setting itself up as a forced coronation of Olive Crane. The only real question was who would finish second and how many votes would they drain from the front-runner. It actually had a similar feel to the coronation of Catherine Callbeck back in the early 90s. Despite being the establishment candidate, and facing no real competition, Callbeck only managed to win the Liberal leadership with 85 per cent of the vote.

Ballem’s entry means Tories not enamored with the prospect of an Olive Crane leadership – and there are plenty of them – have a credible place to drop their vote.

The Island’s political winds are blowing in competing directions these days. There is perhaps no Island government in recent Island history so susceptible to being turfed after a single term – and this analysis comes from senior Liberals.  

Read the rest of this entry »

Construction of the $18 million Charlottetown Convention Centre will drain taxpayer’s wallets for decades

Charlottetown Convention Centre artist sketch, the white elephant that will cost money for decades

When all the right officials line up behind massive public spending based on flawed logic hold onto your wallets.  The announcement of an $18 million convention centre for Charlottetown is one of those magic moments.  Taxpayers are being saddled with tens of millions in public debt including ongoing operating losses. The politicians, land owners and developers don’t care. They will retire to Florida living off our gullibility.

Within hours of announcing the government will build the white elephant, local developer Tim Banks confirmed he is building a $22 million hotel and condo complex. Wait for the details on this one because you can be sure there is public money involved. Premier Ghiz and Banks are political buddies. Ghiz offered Banks a loan to build Banks’ head office building. How much public money is behind the new 120 room hotel?   Read the rest of this entry »

Charlottetown is about to lose a major marine landmark to satisfy the egos and greed of the Liberal back room boys

Canadian Coast Guard vessel Louis St. Laurent (image: Canadian Coast Guard)

Fisheries Minister Gail Shea announced yesterday that the Coast Guard installation will not leave Charlottetown. She said they are going to relocate it so Premier Ghiz can build another convention centre. Since it’s now located at the optimum location for vessels, one can only assume the site is being downgraded.

Any Premier or State governor worth his salt would be fighting tooth and nail to keep a Coast Guard installation in their capital city. Why is Premier Ghiz negotiating to remove the Coast Guard from Charlottetown?

Along with the economic benefit to PEI from the Coast Guard, it is a main feature of Charlottetown Harbour. Replacing it with a convention centre borders on the stupid but we have come to expect that from our provincial government.

Port cities have active wharves with real business going on. Vancouver is an active port with real ships. Halifax without the Navy dockyards and shipping docks would not be the port attraction that it is.
Read the rest of this entry »

Not quite On The Waterfront with Marlon Brando, Charlottetown Port Authority has good corruption story going

Ron Switzer, Charlottetown Port Authority in obvious conflict of interest ?

First it was a little thing – the independent tour operators couldn’t get inside to pick up clients coming off the cruise ships. Then the Port Authority management was apparently running a competitive business that benefited from the exclusion zone. Now we discover the waterfront is tied to the PNP scandal.

Privacy Commissioner’s ruling will be challenged in court

Supreme Court of PEI Justices Taylor, Mitchell and Matheson image: Nigel Armstrong Guardian

CBC is taking the recent ruling of the Acting Privacy Commissioner for PEI to the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island.

A judicial review is the next step in the process under PEI’s oddly named Freedom of Information and Privacy Act or FOIP.  The FOIP website shows two previous judicial reviews, which were split 50/50 for and against the Commissioner.

The ruling appeared to us and the public to be pure PEI politics. Twice before the same Acting Commissioner had released loan and grant information despite protests from the business it would impact their reputation. This ruling does not appear to be consistent with those previous decisions. See PEI ordered to release information on Island business loans and PEI Lending Agency ordered to release details of loans and grants.
Read the rest of this entry »

Seniors and Social Services Minister Doug Currie, Statistics Canada unreliable

Previous reliance on Statistics Canada appears to be negotiable

Is the Province negotiating a new funding formula with the Federal government that excludes Statistics Canada?

Sharon Cameron, Deputy Minister of Seniors and Social services said the numbers from Statistics Canada are not reliable.

“You can’t trust Statistics Canada to get it right,” she said in a telephone interview.

“There numbers are wrong,” she added. “For instance, Statistics Canada tells us PEI doesn’t have any poverty above 5%. We know we have poverty higher than that.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The cover-up is worse than the facts on the PNP story which only deepens the public interest

PEI Premier Robert Ghiz

The recent decision of the acting PEI Privacy Commissioner to withhold the names of PEI’s 1,200 or so PNP recipients is a false victory for Premier Robert Ghiz. PEI Privacy Commissioner turns down media request for PNP names

The public wants to know who got the $540 million. Not telling them only delays the agony for Premier Ghiz.

The media smell a story, as they should, and won’t let up.

The public is getting a bad taste in it’s mouth about  Ghiz. What has he got to hide? How much money went to his friends? How much did the Premier’s family get? The revelation that Kat Ghiz benefited from the PNP was shocking.

When the story broke, there were more than 100 comments on the CBC and Guardian websites, most of them denouncing the Premier for a lack of transparency at best and ethics at the worst.

This is the classic mistake of the Watergate cover-up of Nixonian proportions. US President Nixon lost his presidency because he tried to cover-up what was “a third rate burglary.”

Read the rest of this entry »

If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!

Judy Haldemann, past acting Privacy Commissioner "If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!" Charles Dickens

By Paul MacNeill, Eastern Graphic - Judy Haldemann’s controversial decision not to release a full list of companies that received benefit from the Provincial Nominee Program proves only one thing: the law is an ass.

In a head scratching decision, the acting Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy commissioner relied in part on unsubstantiated rhetoric to justify holding the PNP list as government’s most closely guarded secret.

It’s not surprising. The PEI freedom of information act is a national joke. We are the only province in the country where freedom of information makes it legally impossible to find out who works for government, what their job is and what they are paid. That means 70 per cent of our provincial budget is beyond scrutiny.

Just last month, PEI was the only province in the country with the gall to use the act as justification for not releasing government’s strategy to deal with H1N1, an outrageous abuse of accountability.

Many Islanders hoped that abysmal record would change with this long anticipated ruling on PNP, the controversial immigrant program that saw foreign nationals buy speedy access to Canadian visas by investing in Island companies. Read the rest of this entry »