Funny thing how people miss stuff.
Like a Bank of Montreal economist who offered this view of the provincial financial state:
"The commodity boom has lined the province's coffers," he said. "Meantime, a reversal in migration flows has sprung population growth back into positive territory after three years of outright declines - an important development given that a lack of skilled labour could be a constraint on the province as offshore development picks up speed and major construction projects come online."
If "lining the coffers" means supported spending way beyond what is sustainable then he's right, but look at that migration comment.
You'll see similar views coming from the provincial government, not surprisingly. There's lots of talk about the growing population as another sign that the fiscal messiahs are now in charge and that their "plan" is working.
That would be the plan, by the way, that Barack Obama is following. No, gentle reader, that isn't some effort at humour. It's a real quote and yes, he believes every word of it. That's just how brilliant this crowd are. This plan - which consists of nothing more grand than spending everything that comes in through the door - must come from all those books, well not books really but articles and magazines the Premier reads 24/7 on a go forward basis to try and keep track of what's going on out there.
But we digress.
This migration thing.
Three years, eh.
Only goes to show how much these bank economists don't know.
It hit some new records in the best years of Danny Williams economic miracle. That's right. At a time when the economic miracle was taking hold people were flooding out of the Happy Province in near record numbers. The chart at left gives an idea of how big the problem has been.
There are parts of the province that are almost entirely dependent on migrant labour and remittance workers.
In others - like Stephenville - the economic disaster of losing a pulp and paper mill on the Premier's watch didn't materialize solely because the workers there could find jobs in Alberta.
But yes, you say, there has been more people coming back to the province since 2007, you say.
And yes, that's true, but it isn't because of great economic opportunities in this province. Look around, especially outside the overpass. All those enormous, job-creating projects that were supposedly luring people back don't actually exist.
Even though he mentioned them in his financial statement, finance minister Jerome Kennedy told CBC Radio this morning that - in fact - the big projects that supposedly exist to keep the fire going in the economy, stuff like the Lower Churchill, don't actually exist right at the moment. These are projects Kennedy and his boss are "trying to get money for", according to his own words.
People started coming back to Newfoundland and Labrador, just as they have done previously, in advance of a major downturn in Ontario and Alberta. Only the stupid came back for jobs that - as Jerome Kennedy knows - don't exist. The housing boom in St. John's is driven largely by the movement of people within the province toward St. John's where there is at least the chance of decent work. The open taps on those public coffers don't hurt either. You'll find detailed discussions of the whole population thing over at labradore.
It really is funny how people miss stuff. Really obvious stuff that is readily available in the public domain. People who - presumably - actually keep track of these things like bird-watchers scanning the trees for this winged thing or that.
Evidently not.
Evidently, great big yellow birds get missed a lot.
Aloysius Snuffleupagus would understand.
-srbp-
