Wade Locke’s been making the rounds of local media in advance of his talk tonight at the Harris Centre of Memorial University. Your humble e-scribbler posted the details of it on Monday.
Some quick observations on this Telegram version:
- There is nothing new in Locke’s presentation that hasn’t been in the public domain - in some cases – for a couple of decades.
- That said, the fact that the government’s favourite economist is now undermining the economist’s favourite government might be enough to get these issues into wider discussion.
- Once that happens it should be fairly obvious the current crowd have helped shape the current mess and their intention is to make a bad situation even worse.
- Locke’s solution – we need a plan – is a penetrating insight into the obvious. The current crowd got us into this mess precisely because they had no plan.
- Unfortunately, there’s no sign of any pressure to create a plan in the near term.
- Politicians – like some of the people on the panel with Locke tonight - will continue to deny there’s anything here that needs attention. others, like the current administration will talk about doing something constructive and then either do nothing or make the situation worse.
- There’s no sign any of the political parties in the province are ready to deal with the provincial government’s financial mess.
Put all that together with the volatile political environment and you have the potential for one of the most dramatic political years in the province’s history.
- srbp -