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Governance Without Teeth: Why Local Councils Fail and Global Agendas Win

In this opening editorial under the Governance category, we explore how Newfoundland’s municipal structures have been strategically weakened, allowing outside interests to dictate local outcomes without meaningful oversight. Drawing from The Local Paradox in Grand Policy Schemes, the Muskrat Falls debacle, and the author’s own experience with censorship, this piece distinguishes between governance and government—and shows how the rise of the former is not always a step forward. With Orwell’s warnings in mind and federal projects proceeding unchecked, we ask: who really governs Newfoundland now? Read More...

The Playback Loop: When Chaos Becomes a Cover for Control

In the third and final installment of The Consultant and the Keepers series, we examine the internal collapse of the Screaming Eagles opposition group and the emotional unraveling that followed. Using the recent all-caps posts by Coreen Tourout as a lens, this piece explores how Newfoundland’s resistance movements often replicate the very dysfunctions they claim to fight. While factions implode and narratives are hijacked, the Kitchen sisters remain focused on the bigger picture—emerging governance frameworks, stakeholder influence, and the quiet restructuring of local authority. This article connects the public meltdowns to deeper systems of control and offers a warning: when chaos becomes the norm, real resistance risks being written out of the story. Read More...

The Whisper Network: When Narrative Control Replaces Public Truth

This article examines a Facebook comment by Sylvia Benoit through the lens of the Asch Conformity Experiments, revealing how emotional outbursts can mask deeper efforts to control public discourse. Her demand that truth be handled through private messages and phone calls isn’t about accuracy—it’s about preserving the local narrative and silencing contradiction. In communities where group identity trumps open dialogue, even simple facts become dangerous. Read More...

Fractured Frontlines: How Local Infighting Serves Federal Control

Following a staged photo-op with SSHRC-backed researcher Nick Mercer, Newfoundland’s local resistance to industrial wind development fractures into infighting. This editorial unpacks how federal consultants exploit emotional divisions to construct curated opposition narratives, neutralizing dissent while capturing optics. Drawing from Van Assche’s "Local Paradox" theory, it reveals how narrative control replaces real governance in vulnerable communities. Read More...

The Consultant and the Keepers: When Opposition Becomes Optics

This is a closer look at how federal consultant Nick Mercer embedded himself in a local resistance movement and used a single photo-op to manufacture the illusion of dialogue, trust, and consent. Framed in smiles and solidarity, the image was anything but neutral—it served as a calculated piece of policy theatre, transforming grassroots opposition into optics that support Newfoundland’s top-down Net Zero agenda. Read More...

The ABCD Project Exposed: Federal Funding, Local Voices, and the Soft Face of Occupation

A federally funded academic study led by UPEI’s Dr. Nick Mercer is quietly collecting local narratives in Newfoundland’s Port au Port region— one of the most outspoken communities against Net Zero industrialization. Disguised as grassroots consultation, this project taps into federal SSHRC grants and local activist groups to legitimize future development plans under the banner of "community research." This editorial exposes how story-gathering is being weaponized as policy justification—and how locals, unpaid and unguarded, may be surrendering more than they realize. Read More...