Frank Coleman’s idea for change in Newfoundland and Labrador is to keep everything the way it is.
As CBC reported in March, “Coleman said one of his priorities if he assumed the role of premier would be to maintain the economic momentum created by the Tories.”
He might even want to roll back the clock a bit, too, on some things.
But on economic policy, Coleman is firmly committed to the Conservative plan to use public money to subsidize private sector businesses.
On Thursday, whoever it is that maintains Frank’s Twitter account flipped out a picture of Frank touring the Dynamic Air Shelters plant in Grand Bank (left).
That’s a fitting choice given that DAS has been in the receiving end of millions of dollars of public cash in the mere 10 years of the company’s presence in Grand Bank.
In March 2014, DAS got the latest injection. Government gave the company more than $560,000 in additional aid. Most of the cash – $466,00 or so – will let the company build six shelters it can lease out. The rest of the cash will go to helping the company market products in Europe and the Middle East.
That’s on top of $151,000 the provincial government spent on a shelter that wound up going to the Philippines in 2013 for disaster relief.
And that was on top of the $4.0 million in federal and provincial cash DAS got in four years, most of which came within a 12-18 month period around 2009.
Altogether, the Conservatives have handed out at least $20 million to support about 100 jobs, as Rob Antle reported in 2012.
-srbp-