Connies dump another election commitment

The Harper administration will be locating 6200 federal jobs in Quebec, a move that will involve relocating about 4000 existing employees and adding another 2200, according to CBC Ottawa.

Infrastructure Minister Lawrence Cannon noted that the cost of office space in Gatineau is 20 to 30 per cent lower than in downtown Ottawa.

"So we're doing this for the Canadian taxpayer as well as, of course … respecting the long-standing policy that's been in place [since] back in 1994," he said.

That policy sets as a goal a ratio of 75:25 between federal office space in Ottawa and Gatineau. Right now, the ratio is 77:23, the government says.

Of course that policy on how to distribute workers within the National Capital Region doesn't square very well with the Conservative campaign commitment, as contained in Stephen Harper's letter to Danny Williams during the last federal election campaign:

There is an over-concentration of certain federal government services in some areas of the country and an effort must be made to ensure that there is a fair distribution of the federal government presence across the country.

It will be interesting to see how local Conservatives react to this news. Federal presence was a major issue for the Conservative team, including provincial Progressive Conservatives. An incomplete assessment by the Harris Centre at Memorial University was used by both candidates, the provincial government and Conservative supporters at the time, like members of St. John's city council as a political issue during and after the election.

Now the whole issue of federal presence was a partisan crock wrapped up with all the nonsense of looking at public spending as a matter of pure pork. That's been the Bond position, whether it's been about federal jobs or provincial government jobs. It's just laughable to see all the posturing that went on during the last election from federal Conservative politicians, backed by their provincial friends only to see the issue all but vanish from their collective minds. Sure it gets a mention once in a while but it hardly gets the shrill attention it used to get, that is before the federal administration changed hands.

Face it. There was as much commitment to the federal jobs thing as there was to custodial management or Loyola Hearn's call in 2004 for the federal government to hand over its Hibernia shares to the provincial government. Nothing stopped Hearn from pushing that and then running twice for a party that specifically rejected the idea.

Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative Loyola Hearn made quite an issue of saving a single position originally to be relocated from St. John's to Montreal. In a news release issued at the time, Hearn was obviously proud of 14 new positions shifted to Newfoundland and Labrador and about the relocation of public weather forecasting to Gander from Dartmouth. Hearn, of course, did not note that marine and aviation forecasting remained in Montreal. Weather forecasting was moved from Gander to the two other locations in a move widely criticised in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Despite commentary in the media last week, this position will continue to reside in St.John's. I would encourage everyone to gather the facts first, before jumping to conclusions."

"People who know me know that federal presence in our province has always been a key issue for me. Whenever it makes sense to have federal jobs in different parts of the country, I will push for that."

"Since we've taken power, we've put 14 new Fishery Officers on Newfoundland and Labrador waters, we've reinstated the Gander weather office, and we've protected this position."

"Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should be encouraged by this trend during our first eight months in office."

Hearn subsequently announced the relocation of Coast Guard jobs from Dartmouth to Newfoundland, but thus far promises to locate hundreds of military personnel remain unfulfilled.

Of course, none of that addresses Hearn's comments just before he was appointed to cabinet. CTV quotes Hearn as saying something about the need for increased federal presence in the province to promote growth of the local oil and gas industry:

"Newfoundland and Labrador requires a federal presence capable of promoting the province as a fantastic place to do business and to address the industry's requests to streamline regulations," Hearn says in a written statement on his website.

"We need someone in the province, not a faceless bureaucrat thousands of kilometres away, that industry can approach to deal with the day-to-day issues stemming from all the significant oil patch business being generated."

While there's no indication about the departments receiving the 2200 new employees, if any of them are employed by Natural Resources, it looks like the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will be dealing with thousands of what Hearn once thought of as "faceless bureaucrats" thousands of kilometres from where the work gets done.

The whole move to abandon the federal presence issue just fulfils the point noted in this Bond Papers post from February 2006. Then treasury board president John Baird vowed at the time to stop any plans to relocate federal jobs outside the National Capital Region. Bond wasn't alone.

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