The goal of this meeting is to inform people about the plans for fracking in this province, with the intent of forming a Fracking Awareness Group for the East Coast.  A Fracking Awareness Group has been established on the West Coast and have been very effective in getting the word out and mobilizing people.

Learn more about what has already been done from allies reporting at the 4 O'Clock Whistle and other posts on fracking published on this blog.

Since there have been no public consultations thus far by Black Spruce Exploration Corp. on their (and Shoal Point Energy’s) plans to conduct hydraulic fracturing on the West Coast of Newfoundland, there has thus been little opportunity to question the company on the health and environmental impacts which may result from such an undertaking. However some information from the company has been presented to municipal leaders at a consultation they were invited to, and thankfully reporter Christopher Vaughan was on site to record what had been said by Black Spruce representative David Murray. Vaughan’s article (subsequently published in The Western Star) has thus brought to West Coast some snippets of Murray’s presentation - a presentation which it appears raises far more questions than it answers. The following is a list of quotes from the before mentioned article, paired with responses that highlight a need for greater information.

The following story was communicated to me by a mother who would prefer to remain anonymous. Given King's history of retaliation against critics, I don't blame her.

Concerning King: I really like the list through the Occupy link. It's all on the public record. What about the things that are not on the public record?
I shall start with one incident going back to 2001. Long before King enter politics he was a education director at the former Burin School District. In the meeting that I had with him, on the simple request of an assessment for my child to check learning disabilities - King personally attacked me and tried to stop me from pushing for an assessment for my child.

1. Your child is developmentally slow, based on his expertise dripping in condescending droplets encased with haughty and snooty tones.

2. King proceeded, that he has the PHD and compared to what do you have in levels of education and then he looks at the file - to accounting and its not even an accounting degree.

3. King proceeds to question by education background and then moves on to my abilities in both parenting and my intelligence.

4, Then he proceeds to questioned my inability to accept decisions from authority. 

Of course, I objected at all that he said, and he proceeded to attacked me personally to get me to shut-up.

No one needs permission to organize a protest. If you think it's a good idea to have a rally in your community or neighborhood, then you should. If you wanted to picket your MHA's office, then you should. If you want to write an editorial for the news or call into open line, you should. Make a sign or a banner, write the script for a protest play. There are many ways to take action, and a culture of protest emerges when people take it on themselves to just go ahead and act, feeling compelled to do so right now.

This is not to say protest actions should be impulsive -- on the contrary they need to be thought out -- but just to say that it's really up to you to take the lead and get the ball rolling if you want to effect change. Even seemingly small actions can have a big impact (putting up posters around your town, for example). There have been many protests in the last couple years we have written about on this page. If you browse through our content and the link list, you'll see lots of other ideas for protests as well. These range from occupation of public space, marches and rallies, to grassroots food-sharing kitchens, to culture jamming, and beyond. Protesting is about getting creative and thinking about what sort of action works to best convey your message.

Seeing some new graffiti around St. John's. Tag looks like "crisis". Something of the graffs brings to mind the subtle politics of the Listen Bird.

**** Update: The Dunderdale Must GO facebook group has been replaced with the Dunderdale Must Go facebook page which is much less vulnerable to sabotage.****


This amusing exchange exposed an impostor who was sabotaging the "Dunderdale Must GO" facebook group at the centre of recent controversy.

Well this is pretty rich.  On Wednesday, April 17th Tory backbencher Glen Littlejohn introduced a private members resolution lauding his party for the regressive tax cuts that helped created our fiscal crisis:

"BE IT RESOLVED that this hon. House commends the government for returning half a billion dollars a year to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians by reducing personal income taxes and supports the government in its decision not to increase personal income tax rates to address the Province's fiscal challenge. "

As we explained some time ago, the benefits of these tax cuts were heavily concentrated on the rich, but Littlejohn tries to spin it like all the money went to senior citizens and the poor. You can read it all in Hansard, but the tax relief he describes (using his numbers) is:

• $30 million increase for Low Income Seniors Benefit,

• $7 million for Seniors tax credit (my calculation based his information),

• $42 million home heating rebate,

• $17 million on a low-income tax deduction (rough calculation based on his numbers).

Add these numbers up and you get less then $100 million dollars. What about the other $400 million that Littlejohn is bragging about? Where did that go? Maybe Jerome Kennedy can enlighten us.

"In 2013, a single individual with taxable income of $50,000 will save over $1,600, or 30 per cent, compared to the amount of taxes they would have paid in 2006 ... So, what we are doing, Mr. Speaker, the tax reductions are benefiting the lower income earners. It is not benefiting the rich – again, whoever the rich may be."

Wow I guess he's right. All the money must go to low income earners, because rich people don't exist.  Next thing those craaazy lefties will have us taxing leprecauns and unicorns.

But hang on, don't provincial cabinet ministers make something like $150,000 a year? Someone earning that much will save about $7,000 a year from the tax cuts.  Sounds like a better deal than $1,600 to me, but what do I know? I'm not a finance minister.

One of the defining slogans of the Occupy movement is "We are the 99%", referring to the fact that  economic growth has mostly benefitted the wealthiest 1% of people in recent decades (you can read more about this trend in the US here and in Canada here).

Who are the 1% and what are their attitudes and political opinions?  These questions are the subject of an on-going a multi-year study by political scientist Larry Bartels and his collaborators. They have recently released the results of a pilot study looking at a representative sample of the one percent living in Chicago (the pdf is found here), reporting median wealth of $7.5 million dollars. Among the most striking findings of the study are:

Information Session on Hydraulic Fracturing - Tuesday April 23rd in Lark Harbour

7:30 PM - Lark Harbour Town Hall

Unrest

How do we understand the recent tide of indignation in the province? It is something of a conundrum to Kathy Dunderdale (listen to her 11 April call to VOCM, if you enjoy the feeling of being spoken to as though you are a small child) but to other commentators as well. It has something to do with the recent budget and its associated cuts and layoffs, but this era of austerity in the province is understood to be less severe than previous iterations of the same (one of the questions Bill Rowe puts to the premier on the call).

Of course, this needs to be framed alongside Muskrat Falls and the price tag, which through some form of economic acrobatics, is nothing to do with the financial situation of the government, and therefore nothing to do with the necessity of cuts and layoffs.Granted that this is somewhat difficult for thinking people to accept, let us assume, for argument sake, this is so. Nonetheless, the proliferation of protest and resistance to the project, notably by the NCC, as well as potential corruption and political manipulation, impacts the way cuts, layoffs, and other austerity measures are perceived.

Reposted from the blog of the 4 O'clock Whistle

***Facebook event page for province wide rally points***

Cabinet minister Darin King has a hard time dealing with criticism.  Time and again, he has responded to dissent against his authority with suspensions, censorship, funding cuts and other abuses of power.  I'm not sure if this is a misguided PR strategy, an authoritarian ideology, a Napoleon complex or an just an over-inflated ego at work, but his behaviour is an affront to democratic society and he needs to be called out for it.

In that spirit, here are some examples of Darin King abusing power or just generally acting like a dick.

Via the St. John's chapter of the Council of Canadians: