Truly, things are very strange when the guy who backed a second university for the province - despite evidence at the time of declining enrolment – laces into critics who don’t like the much less ambitious version of “Grenfell autonomy” announced by the provincial government before Christmas.
For Former Williams administration employee Alex Marland, Premier Danny Williams attack on people inside the province must come as a complete shock. Anger isn’t always for reform, Alex.
But the most bizarre part of the Premier’s speech in Corner Brook on Thursday was the comparison between Grenfell College and the Sprung greenhouse fiasco over two decades ago.
“With the situation of declining enrolment, we want to make sure we don’t launch this initiative and it fails and Grenfell becomes the Sprung (Greenhouse) of the west coast,” said Williams.
For those who don’t know, Sprung was the disastrous decision that spelled the end of Brian Peckford’s third administration.
Now Sprung didn’t fail because its proponents failed to support the government decision and prove the idea could work.
Sprung failed because it was doomed from the start. Senior provincial government officials warned against the magnificent claims of the proponents, claims like growing more cucumbers in a hydroponic greenhouse in Newfoundland than could be grown with the near perpetual sunlight of a city near the Equator.
Unfortunately for the provincial treasury, that is for taxpayers, the politicians involved ignored the sound advice they got from people who warned of problems with the whole scheme and instead poured cash into the project.
In the Grenfell case, there is no sign any government officials voiced objections. Others, like your humble e-scribbler and a bunch of people at Memorial University did point out that – among other things – the whole scheme the provincial government endorsed (the Premier included) was built on a model that needed Grenfell enrolment to double in 10 years.
One of those people – one Eddie Campbell – paid a price for speaking his mind. That mess over finding a new president for the university led to a second major crisis for the university on top of the Grenfell one, both of which were driven entirely by politicians around the cabinet table.
And as for enrolment at Grenfell, it hasn’t been working its way to double in a decade. Far from it. Enrolment has been sliding steadily downward but not from lack of effort by the good people at Grenfell. Rather, there just aren’t the students or prospective students to fill the seats.
They also endorsed the whole idea based on little more, apparently, than a rather lightweight assessment of the whole idea of Uni Two concept. That study was bought and paid for by the politicians, not by the proponents of the project. And the study would also have figured out the enrolment problem since the signs were there at the time.
The consultants would have figured that out if they had actually bothered to look at the issue. Odd that they didn’t give it a thought, given that enrolment – students – is one of the big things that would drive a university’s success in the first place.
All in all, it seems to have been a very odd first speech in the New Year for the Premier in his district. It’s not odd that he chose the occasion to pick a fight with people or react negatively to anything less than an outpouring of unending support and devotion. What’s odd is that the Premier linked his own decision with one of the singularly worst decisions taken by any administration in recent times, bar none.
This speech and all its implications might wind up having some not so pleasant consequences.
Meanwhile, for those who are interested in the Sprung fiasco, just scan down the right side and check out the series of posts linked there on Great Gambols with Public Money. If that doesn’t work, just type that phrase into the search box up there on the top right.
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3 comments:
"...we want to make sure we don’t launch this initiative and it fails ..."
What's being launched?
I know Williams hasn't spent much time in Corner Brook, but surely he knows that SWGC was launched many, many years ago.
Silly tourist.
The unresolved issue re: SWGC's "status" was borne out of the dysfunctional relationship that exists between it and the main campus in St. John's. Had that been improved and strengthened with a degree of autonomy that befits such an institution, all the studies & political shananigans would have been avoided. There has been a lot of wasted words and talk but for some structural changes in reporting relationships and more involvement in decision making.
Premier Williams usual tactic of grandly evoking past events to distract and change the channel is typical of his style. Trotting out the sad legacy of the Sprung project beautifully fits this strategy.
Sadly SRBP, you fell for this too as you could not miss the opportunity to pull out all the stops on the Sprung issue. You had no trouble indentifying the main characters of the story on this occasion but somehow when the sucesses of that administration is up for discussion you seem to forget the names of the main characters ( my earlier post refers)
I have no quarrel with the view vis a vis the absolute folly of the Sprung project.
Larry:
You and I both know that Brian's name has been invoked more than once here in a positive way and in his defence.
That has been especially true when he has been savaged - as in this case - by people who supposedly belong to the same political party.
Sprung was a particular fiasco and can only be described as such. I can easily list off the names of the people involved but as with the glory of something like the Atlantic Accord 1985, the guy in charge has to wear the failures as well.
Let's focus on the Grenfell case though since I mentioned Sprung simply because it was so completely devoid of any similarity to Grenfell I just couldn't believe Williams mentioned it. The reasons for his use of it are irrelevent. It's just out to lunch.
In Sprung - and to give it a generous interpretation - you had a government which was in a very difficult financial circumstance, had a bleak outlook, and which grasped at any straw which seemed to hold even the vaguest hope of success.
In the Grenfell case though, we have a case of a government which - entirely on its own - made spectacular promises based on the flimsiest of information and a complete lack of a clear plan. The decision was taken entirely for political purposes and was driven, so it appears, by nothing more than the interests of pork and the then-upcoming election.
There have been countless promises made and claims made all of which ultimately wound up delivering a solution which the government's own consultants identified as the worst choice.
Had the university been either allowed to or strongly encouraged to continue on the course of granting more decision-making authority to Grenfell, things would have been better for all concerned. We'd have even avoided the Eddie Campbell fiasco. I take that as being your point with a few of my own words added.
Ultimately it gets down to this: where the Sprung decision is actually atypical of the Peckford era, Grenfell is sadly all too typical of the current crowd in virtually every respect:
- a politically driven decision, made without benefit of thought or study, accompanied by gigantic promises, vicious attacks on people who point out the obvious problems with the Scheme du Jour, literally years of delay in getting any action on the promise as the huge problems with the original bad decision are sorted through and ultimately a decision which is light years away from the initial forecasts of glory.
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