Showing posts with label Cabinet 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cabinet 2011. Show all posts

01 November 2011

The Apprentice #nlpoli

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

It’s a great quote even if it has been misattributed to a raft of people, including someone named Petronius Arbiter who lived so long ago that some people can’t even agree on whether or not he was a Roman or a Greek.

But the quote is still appropriate, especially if you look at the provincial government.

Remember how in an earlier post, your humble e-scribbler noted that last weeks second Dunderdale cabinet was a lot less than it was cracked up to be?

Well, in the Tuesday Telegram Joan Burke gave an amazing insight into just exactly how the Tories came to create this new department Burke is running. Be warned before you go read the whole thing that it is a puff piece of the first order, but do read the whole piece just because of what it tells you about how the current administration functions.

At its core, Burke said the shift is about apprentices, skilled trades and filling the jobs of the future.

“The whole apprenticeship issue has become more and more complicated,” Burke said.

“We have 6,000 apprentices registered in the province, so where are they? You know, we should be well underway of filling all the labour gaps.”

On the very first full day of the election campaign this fall, Premier Kathy Dunderdale promised to do more about apprentices.

At the time she called it a “bottleneck” in the skilled trades process.

It was the apprenticeship issue, primarily, that drove the marriage between Education and HRLE, Burke said.

A single issue led the government to create a whole new department that consumes not only the university but also the entire government apparatus designed to deliver income support to thousands of residents of the province.

Now it is by no means a trivial matter, but sorting out a problem with apprentices is no reason to create a whole new department.  That’s the sort of issue that comes up all the time in government.  What happens?  Well, usually someone gets told to sort it out.  Could be a deputy minister or it could be a cabinet minister or a group of cabinet ministers.

As for the labour shortage, that’s an old issue.  The report mentioned in the article actually just gives the latest description of a problem that’s been identified for a decade or more. 

Again, it’s not a problem that needs a whole new department to figure out.  If the schools that train skilled trades workers haven’t been doing their job in meeting known market demands, a new department won’t fix that.  This is the sort of stuff they are already supposed to be doing. 

And if they aren’t doing it, then that seems to be a high-end management problem:

  • People who are supposed to decide things apparently aren’t deciding., or,
  • There’s a problem getting word out about decisions, or,
  • People who are supposed to decide things farther down the food chain are too frightened to take decisions, or,
  • They are so pre-occupied with chasing their tails that they can’t get on with the job of governing.

Creating this new department is starting to look more like a sign of the underlying problem than an answer to it.  This is, after all, a government that can’t seem to get its capital works done, that has legislation laying about unfinished and that seems to have a chronic problem managing more than one issue at a time.

Re-organizing makes it look like something is going on when it actually isn’t.

- srbp -

Related:

28 October 2011

Quickie Cabinet Reaction: Happy Campers #nlpoli

  1. If you don’t want the job, then quit:  All these people in cabinet and every one looks like they have had something shoved up inside them, sideways.  Even Kathy Dunderdale herself looks sour as sour can be in the picture illustrating the online CBC story.
  2. Big Winner:  The NDP.  The insurgent Dippers got a huge boost from Kathy Dunderdale as she seemed to take some policy advice from Danny Dumaresque and the Liberals.  By leaving out representation from Mount Pearl and St. John’s, Kathy Dunderdale gave the four Dipper MHAs every excuse they needed to hammer away at the provincial government on every issue from roads to health care.  The Tories at Tammany Hall  - Doc O’Keefe chief amongst them - won’t be able to cope with the political fall-out, especially if Dunderdale has to cut and chop anything. In fact,  if Doc and the gang are serious about changing municipal funding options, Kathy Dunderdale just gave them all the big middle finger.  That just plays into the Dipper expansion plans.
  3. Big Loser:  Darin King.  With this appointment, Kathy Dunderdale sent Darin to his political doom.
  4. The people who whispered in The Sister’s ear about a wellness portfolio need to check their sources. You know who you are.
  5. Lorraine Michael needs Cultural Awareness Lessons:  On Thursday, NDP leader Lorraine Michael told reporters “I really don't think we need two ministers for Labrador, one called the Minister of Labrador Affairs and the other Aboriginal Affairs. I think it's totally unnecessary.”  There are aboriginal people all across the province.  Michael displayed a truly remarkable level of ignorance by trying to claim that the aboriginal affairs a portfolio is only related to Labrador.

- srbp -

Cabinet swearing in at 10 AM #nlpoli

Kathy Dunderdale will be at Government House to see her second cabinet sworn in at 10:00 AM..

SRBP will will have the run-down later on Friday.

 

- srbp -

27 October 2011

Kent demoted by Dunderdale #nlpoli

There’ll be no chance to run the wellness department around Kathy Dunderdale’s cabinet table for Mount Pearl wunderkind Steve Kent.

The Big Scout took a major kick in the parliamentary goolies on Thursday, getting punted from the Premier’s good graces to take up the job of deputy chair of committees in the House of Assembly/

Sure there’s a little extra in the pay packet compared to your average member of the legislature but as the third in line to the Speaker’s chair, Kent basically gets to do nothing more exciting than chair a few committee meetings when the House sits.

And under the Tories, that’s not very often.

Before this, Kent managed to finagle a job as parliamentary secretary for forestry and agrifoods, a sort of half-minister reporting to the natural resources minister. 

Normally a parl sec gig is the gateway to a cabinet appointment but not for the ambitious young fellow from Mount Pearl.

Maybe his demotion had something to do with his lack of enthusiasm for the Old Woman who replaced the Old Man.  We told you about Steve’s sudden website make-over back in August. He dumped Danny – after the better part of a year  - but in the remake, there was no sign of Kathy.

Kathy’s absence was very conspicuous.  As SRBP put it in August:

Aside from one side-on shot at some event or other, Kathy Dunderdale is a big black hole on Steve Kent’s website.

Talk about negative space.  Kathy’s absence just screams at you.

Steve could even have links to government news releases and a reference to the department he works for.

But there’s nada.

As it turns out the nada on the website mirrored the nada for Steve in cabinet appointments.

Did anyone see Paul Lane picking up a new suit at Tip Top by the Village Thursday night?

- srbp -