The Office of Steve Kent

26 public meetings.

More than 1,000 people showed up for them.

More than 28,000 people used the government website that the folks at the Office of Steve Kent call an app to make it sound more impressive to the punters.

Another 700 ideas arrived by email, fax, or carrier pigeons.

And...

Budget consultations and other political insanity #nlpoli

This year it is Charlene Johnson’s turn to host a series of meetings across the province that the provincial Conservatives cynically tout as a way for people to have some input into the provincial budget.

It’s cynical because – as the Conservatives know – the major budget decisions are already made before the finance minister heads to the first of these meetings. They are a waste of time.

The people who show up at these sessions have no idea what the actual state of the province’s finances are. The provincial government hides the real numbers until budget day.   Therefore the people who show up can’t offer any sensible suggestions, anyway.  Instead, they wind up begging like a bunch of serfs for more cash for this and more cash for that, even though the cash isn’t really available.

Could be right. Could be wrong. #nlpoli

If you accept the provincial government’s version of things, spending a half a billion dollars more than you are collecting is a responsible decision.

That’s the headline the government’s communications people put on the news release covering the release of the fall budget update.

And if you look at either the Telegram or the CBC version of the story,  the biggest thing to notice is that the provincial government deficit is $100 million less than originally forecast.

Let’s take a deeper look and see what is there.

“Doom and gloom” #nlpoli

Seems that finance minister Jerome Kennedy isn’t the only fellow out there conducting the annual budget “consultation” farce this year.

According to the Southern Gazette, justice minister Darin King “acknowledged, as part of a small cabinet committee appointed by Premier Kathy Dunderdale to bring budget recommendations back to government, he was asked to split the pre-budget consultations with Mr. Kennedy.”

Apparently, the idea is to have a bunch of ministers fan out across the province so they can come back with ideas on how to get through a “couple of years” when oil production will be down and things will be tough.

A couple of years.

Only two years?

That’s an interesting way to put it.

What’s more interesting is the way the Southern Gazette led into their story on the Marystown session:

It was largely more ‘doom and gloom’ from Justice Minister Darin King, as he conducted a provincial pre-budget consultation in Marystown Friday afternoon.

Yuck.

King had company at his session.  Education minister Clyde Jackman tagged along.

And that small group King mentioned?  It includes Nick McGrath, the province’s government services minister. 

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The Annual Mixed-Message Season #nlpoli

Right after Ross Reid’s new job, Jerome Kennedy’s trip back to the finance ministry was the second most overblown story of the past week or so.

Most seem to think Kennedy is headed back to finance in order to tackle the public sector unions as part of the upcoming budget. That gives a bit too much credit to the individual in all this.  The budget isn’t handled by one person: it is the productive of collective action by a committee of ministers called the treasury board and ultimately by cabinet.

As the recent Telegram editorial on Kennedy’s appointment noted, the budget is all but finished at this point.  They are absolutely right.  What has normally happened in January since 2003 is essentially about the government delivering some kind of message or other.  In January 2008, part of the message was about a pile of new spending right after the 2007 election. And then right on the heels of that  - in the same year - was finance minister Tom Marshall and his debt clock warning about impending financial doom.

Sound familiar?

Budget consultation farce starts early

The budget consultation farce is starting early this year.

Last year, and the year before the farce started in January.

Doesn’t matter:  major budget decisions are made before Tom Marshall hits the road.

Fool ‘em  once, shame on you.

Fool ‘em twice, shame on them.

So what is it for fool ‘em seven times in a row?

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Let’s slap some study on that

This is a government that talks more and more about less and less.

The latest example:

• a feasibility study of a single province-wide emergency telephone number.

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Full of sound and fury

Public consultations on a strategy for “the inclusion of persons with disabilities” in society.

In the 21st century.

A strategy to include people with disabilities in society.

Another consultation to develop a strategy for early childhood education.

Novel idea.

41 cash announcements in the month of August alone, according to the Telegram editorial, a great many of which involved the announcement – yet again -  of earlier announcements.  In some others, announcements include money for new food carts in hospitals and nursing homes.

Announcement of a plan to install a new set of road scales in Labrador.

A gaggle of ministers and government members of the legislature visit a shipyard to look at construction of new ferries that have been in the works for most of the current administration’s tenure.

And then there’s the study of garbage.

This is a provincial government that talks more and more about less and less.

The reason is simple enough:  we are in a pre-election/pre-leadership period. We know that, all things being equal, there is an election in October 2011.  We also  know that Danny Williams will leave politics sometime over the next two to three years.

Now governments in either of those phases alone aren’t famous for doing much of anything new. Pre-election governments like to spend cash, as everyone in the province saw in 2007’s Summer of Love vote-buying orgy from the Reform-based Conservative Party currently running the local show.  Pre-leadership governments usually get caught up in the internal division as people jockey for position in the party leadership race.  And since they can’t get any agreement on any major initiative until someone winds up as leader, there is nothing knew likely to happen until the leadership issue is resolved. Well, nothing that is except spend money,

Governments in the double-whammy of pre-election and pre-leadership are rare.  But what they do is guarantee a unique kind of lowest-common-denominator politics.  Money is everywhere for everything.  In addition to that, you have the raft of consultations on things that are the sort motherhood issues not likely to raise controversy.  Inclusion?  Early childhood education?  These are hardly debatable subjects.

Even John Hickey  - seldom heard from any more - is getting in on the act. He’s got an information session scheduled for Churchill Falls.  Apparently there is something about the Northern Strategic Plan they haven’t heard yet.

You can tell these things are busy work, by the way.  First of all, there is that word strategy.  This is nothing more than the latest government cliche.  Second there is the schedule.  A good half of the consultations on childhood education take place in the afternoon, a time when the people most likely to be concerned about the subject are working.  As the video of the session from Mount Pearl showed, the room was nearly empty and two of those in the audience were cabinet minister Dave Denine and his executive assistant.

Added to this whirligig of deep thoughts are the early stages of a leadership racket.  Until lately, cabinet ministers seldom showed up to talk about anything substantial with anyone. Danny and Liz wouldn’t let them. But now education minister Darin King is on any radio station with a phone to discuss his early childhood education initiative.  Health minister Jerome! Kennedy is the face of health care spending.  Note the number of news stories about multiple sclerosis that described government spending as something Jerome! himself was doing personally.

Personally is the clue.  Cabinet government is normally collective government.  Sure there is a powerful front man, but cabinets wind up being committees that share the load of deciding on this problem or that one. Except of course, in the Danny Williams administration. It’s only natural that those who wish to replace The Old Man should work hard to be seen as the one person with an idea.

And while all of this consulting, and announcing and news conferencing is going on in public, not much else is happening.  No discussions about labour relations.  No talk about reforms to economic development policy, the fishery, a strategy to address problems in the labour force or anything else that might actually involve some serious discussion and tough choices that everyone in the province has a right to be involved in.

No.

That’s the sort of stuff that will have to wait until after the next election and Danny’s successor is firmly in place. Meanwhile, the people in government no one has heard much of in a while are busily sorting out the budget for 2011. 

That’s right. 

We are now half way through 2010 and it is usually around this time that government officials try and figure out what next year will look like.  For the past seven years that’s been pretty much Danny’s exclusive responsibility and odds are that’s where he’s been holed up lately.  He’ll work hard into the winter and make the big decisions well before sending old Tommy Marshall out for that biggest consultation farce, the one on the budget.

While the Old Man works quietly in the background on the stuff that involves real choices, government officials are wondering if you think that in 2010 we should find ways to allow people with disabilities to become fully contributing members of our society.

The busy-work will continue.  The number of news releases and consultations will only multiply as time goes by. It’s all part of an effort to make it seem like stuff is happening when, in truth, not much of consequence is. But it will certainly seem important, as only a Fernando Administration would allow. It is better, after all,  to look busy than to be busy.

And lest you doubt all this consider that coming soon to a motel meeting room or bingo hall near you, is a round table on that burning question on the minds of fish plant workers, and foresters and soccer moms everywhere -  puppy dogs: cute or what?

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Budget consultation farce: more evidence

Normally, budget decisions wouldn’t be announced until after the provincial government budget for the upcoming fiscal year is formally presented in the legislature.

Since 2007 – at least - that convention had gone out the window in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The fact that cabinet ministers announce spending priorities for the coming year starting in January also proves that the entire series of meetings the finance minister calls budget consultations are pretty much a joke and a half.

They are a complete farce, a cruel joke on the ordinary unsuspecting members of the public because – as the finance minister well knows – the decisions on spending are pretty much already made.

If the spending decisions weren’t made already, a cabinet minister could not announce on January 18 – some three months ahead of the budget being tabled in the House of Assembly - that a program would be funded for three more fiscal years.

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A statement of fact isn’t a criticism

Finance minister Tom Marshall told the Telegram’s Dave Bartlett a few interesting things in an interview that appeared in the Saturday print edition but hasn’t turned up on line yet.

Like this bit about the annual “consultation” farce:

He also said it's not true consultations are a waste of time or that he's made up his mind already on where he will spend taxpayers' money.

Marshall said every year someone raises that criticism.

"We're open minded. We're prepared to listen. But we're listening to a lot of people and the problem is ... everybody can't get what they want," he said.

Marshall said if he gets 100 proposals, 95 of them make sense, but there's simply not enough money to go around.

Okay well, the consultations aren’t a waste of time for Marshall since he uses them as a way of sending a message to people of the province.  He isn’t really looking for substantive input on how to spend public money.

That’s because – as your humble e-scribbler noted last year – the major decisions are already made. The same point turned up the year before, with an entirely different example of how the major spending decisions are already made long before the finance minister hits the road.

Not a waste of time for Marshall, but for anyone else looking to shift budget priorities via the consultations?  Yeah, pretty much an exercise in the utmost futility.  The people who show up for these things would have better chances of changing Marshall’s budget if they gathered around a kitchen table, held hands and stared at the magic blue spot from the National Enquirer all the while thinking nice thoughts.

And sure, Marshall listens.

But, as he noted, five percent are patently OTL.

And the other 95% of the ideas he listens to are sensible.

But Marshall can’t do anything about them because he just doesn’t have the money for them, as he told Dave Bartlett and the Telly.  A guy who has more money in temporary investments than his predecessors  had to spend in total some years doesn’t have the money for these great ideas for one simple reason:

By the time he gets to the “consultations” he’s already decided where the money is going.

And that’s why the whole exercise is a farce.

You see, a statement of fact is not a criticism.  It’s like unsustainable spending.  Marshall knows it’s a matter of fact.  He just won’t admit it until he has no choice.

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Recycled “stimulus”

There is an unprecedented, historic level of money in yesterday’s provincial government pre-budget spending announcement that is recycled cash from last year or money previously committed.

That’s pretty clear if you read comments by former finance minister Tom Marshall in the province’s other daily newspaper, the Western Star:

There will also be $16 million to finish off the new long-term care facility in Corner Brook.
The province is going to spend $50 million in health equipment and another $40 million on maintenance and repairs of current facilities, though Marshall did not have a breakdown of how much of those monies will be directed to Western Health.The new law courts under construction in Corner Brook will receive $7 million so that project can be completed in the coming year, while Sir Wilfred Grenfell College will be getting a share of the $9.4 million the province will spend on new residences at the Memorial University campuses in Corner Brook and St. John’s. The total cost of the Grenfell residences will be nearly $5 million, while new accommodations at the larger campus will eventually cost $67.5 million.

Leftover work from last year, including jobs on the Lewin Parkway and the off-ramp at Humber Village, will be among the $70.7 million o be spent on the province’s roads. Schools throughout western Newfoundland can expect to see some of the $30 million announced for repairs and maintenance  in K-12 schools.

It isn’t clear at this point how much of the money is actually new nor how much will actually be spent.

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Budget Farce starts next week

In keeping with tradition, Jerome Kennedy, the province’s noob finance minister, will be holding a round of farcical “consultations”.

The “consultations” are open to the public.

The minister claims the sessions “provide residents the opportunity to have their voice heard with respect to their priorities for the upcoming budget.”  Since members of the public won’t have an accurate picture of public spending from 2007 – yes 2007 – until some time later in 2009 and because the public won’t have any solid information on government projections for 2009, there really isn’t much a chance that people can have meaningful  - that is, informed - imput.

But then again, that’s not what the annual farce is about. It’s about the provincial government appearing to listen while in reality telling the public what it wants them to hear and nothing more.

It’s a farce because the major budget decisions are already made.  How do we know?  Well, the Premier told us when – around this time last year – the public heard about hospital facilities reports the government had sat on for three years.  The Premier gave enough information so anyone with a clue could figure out that the amount for hospital repairs had already been set and that was while the consultations were in progress.


Government upped the figure by a paltry four million or so, compared to the umpteen millions required.  The money was available of course, given the huge oil revenues.  The provincial government just hadn’t decided to increase the repair budget by any great amount until they were embarrassed into it.

Farce on, Jerome.

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