The smallest details tell the biggest story #nlpoli

Last week, provincial fisheries minister Vaughn Granter held a news conference at a local restaurant known for its seafood dishes to announce that from now on, that restaurant and even ordinary consumers could buy fish.directly from a fisherman without facing any legal problems.

That may sound a bit odd to some people but truth be told the provincial government has for decades banned direct sales to consumers.  Ostensibly it was based on concerns over public health but in truth it was just another way the government tried to control the hell out of the fish business.

Wonderful news.

But the really fascinating detail was buried away in Granter’s speaking notes.

On change #nlpoli

One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen might change the world, as Malala Yousefzai says.

The pen and book are of no use, though,  if the student and the teacher are not interested in finding things out. The horror of the Taliban is the same horror one finds in religious fanatics of any sort, or political zealots for that matter.  They do not wish to know anything.  They believe they have already been handed the complete set of answers to everything.  They fancy the information comes from God or from some local manifestation of some god but the root of their brand of evil is their belief that they already know everything.

They lack inquisitiveness.

What holds us collectively from changing the world is not the absence of a pen or a book. 

We are held back by a lack of inquisitiveness.

"The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know,” wrote Stephen Fry in the second volume of his autobiography, titled The Fry Chronicles.  “They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is."

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The Other Damn-Fool Fisheries Policy #nlpoli #cdnpoli

About 30 years ago, Kathy Dunderdale started out her political career fighting against fisheries reform.

Last December,  she scolded fish plant workers in Marystown for turning out 18 weeks work that would have qualified them for employment insurance and kept their plant open.

She continued her fight against fisheries reform over the weekend in a series of interviews with national media about the federal government’s proposed changes to the employment insurance system.

“And one fine morning…”, or change versus more of the same #nlpoli

 Wanted: One Saviour  

No experience necessary 

Apply:  Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador

Since Joey died – politically, that is - the Liberal Party has often wandered the political desert of Newfoundland and Labrador.

They are out there again, searching for the a saviour who will - single-handedly and by sheer force of his magical personality - lead them back to the corridors of power just as Joe S did long, long ago.

In another world, Danny Williams would have been the Liberal Jesus-de-jour. 

Would have been, that is, except his Mom wouldn’t let him.

So instead, Danny transformed the provincial Conservatives into a crowd of drooling arse-lickers the likes of which the province hasn’t seen since the 1960s.

Inside the party, Williams surrounded himself with a bunch of people who, when they were not tugging forelocks, apparently believed the Danny-love they felt as they looked out Mordor’s windows would one day be Darin-love or Dunder-love or [insert-name-of-generic-Tory-here]-love. They are getting a rude shock.

The Liberals flocked to his nether regions, too, lips primed for fish kisses just as their fathers did and their fathers before them. Decades of conditioning is hard thing to break.

You’ll still hear them on the open line shows, pining for Danny’s posterior.  I am a Liberal, said one fellow on Thursday’s call-in show, but I backed Danny and I’d do it again.  Lots did.  Like Kevin Aylward, for example, and the people who are behind Aylward’s recent sojourn as fill-in Liberal leader.

One of the perennial saviour-wannabes of recent times  - Dean MacDonald - popped up this week delivering a speech on leadership and vision to the members of the Conception Bay Area Chamber of Commerce.

The story made it to the front page of the Telegram on Thursday, right up at the top above everything else. 
On cue, both NTV and CBC obliged the saviour-in-waiting with fawning, gushing interviews about his intentions, vis-a-vis the salvation thing.

And Dean, coquettishly protesting that he did not wish to be coy, was coy.

At least one of the interviewers asked about Danny and well, like he’s a Tory and like Dean’s a Liberal, so like what’s up with that? 

What’s up with that was obvious from Dean’s speech and from his comments during the interviews.

Dean lambasted Kathy Dunderdale for all the things he either praised Danny for or ignored when Danny did them. Unsustainable public spending?  That was Danny’s stock in trade.  Dean loved Muskrat Falls and then talked about the need for everyone to put politics to one side and get down to the political job of negotiating business deals. 

Sound familiar? 

It should.

Dean MacDonald is fond of saying things that are absolutely correct.  He did it a couple of years ago when he told a bunch of young Liberals that in politics you needed to distinguish yourself from the Other Guys.

And just as he says things that are correct, Dean likes to stand up for exactly the opposite of what he advocates.  In Gander in 2009,  Dean proceeded to explain  - as he did in his interviews on Thursday - exactly how he supports the same political ideas and piss-poor management that got the province into the mess it’s in.

No change. 

Exactly the same.

And therein lies the problem.

The province needs real change.

Dean MacDonald is just more of the same.

Dean would be so much more of the same, in fact that it is like something out of a Brian Tobin speech:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

- srbp -

Blooms and roses

News reports about a climb in the number of jobs across the country buried a key aspect of the story, as in this example from the Globe.

But there was a catch. Much of the private sector has yet to start hiring again. The job growth was due to 36,000 positions added in the public sector, while the private sector shed 17,100 jobs, in sectors such as transportation, professional services and accommodation. Private sector employment has dropped 3.9 per cent over the past year.

That was paragraph four, long after the stuff about huge gains and ones bigger than expected.

Now this is a rather interesting revelation in light of economic developments in Newfoundland and Labrador.

You see the boom on the northeast Avalon isn’t being fuelled by the offshore.  It’s coming entirely from massive increases in public sector hiring, public sector wage increases and a huge jump in public sector spending.

The most recent round of ‘stimulus’ spending for capital works is just more cash in on top of the gigantic increases in public spending over the past four years. That would be the “unsustainable” ones for those who missed the drama of the past few weeks.

Incidentally, the guy who revelled in boosting spending beyond the levels that the economy could support is back in charge of the cash box.  He proudly noted for listeners of one local call-in show that the province currently outspends Alberta on a per person basis just as it has done for most of the past decade and a half.

Yet for all that, the province just shed 4200 full-time jobs between August and September 2009 and there are 3100 fewer full-times jobs this September compared to last.

All this should lead people to be a bit cautious about predicting the end of the recession and the quick return to happier times. 

Here in this province, the current provincial economy is sustained by huge levels of public sector spending.  But that just isn’t going to work given the anticipated drop in oil production over the next four years.  Even if the global economy rebounds, crude oil prices aren’t likely to hit levels double and triple what they are today:  that’s the sort of prices the provincial government would need to keep up its current spending.

No one should be surprised, therefore, that the premier and his new health minister – the guy who used to be finance minister – just headed out to a by-election and pulled a fast one on the locals.

Come help us figure out cuts to the building cost, they said, so you can keep lab and x-ray services.  What they didn’t point out is that the savings needed are not the $200,000 in annual operating costs but the millions in construction costs.

In Lewisporte, for example, estimated costs for the new combination seniors home and acute care clinic skyrocketed from $22 million to $42 million before they even got to thinking about putting the first shovel in the ground.  In order to contain costs, government scrapped the acute care bit for a saving of $10 million.

But do the math. 

In order to restore the acute care centre and its anticipated cost of $10 million, the locals in Lewisporte will have to cut out one third of the beds – at least – in the new chronic care centre in order to get laboratory and x-ray service back.

So where are those old people supposed to go?

That’s a very good question.

Too bad the current administration doesn’t have an answer even though the problem and a viable solution have been available  - but ignored - for over a decade.

-srbp-

Change versus more of the same: Stronach on competitiveness

From the Tuesday National Post, Belinda Stronach [Photo:belinda.ca] writes

Being competitive globally involves education, job skills, infrastructure, innovation, technology and regulation. It is an integrated package. Competitiveness is the result of a political philosophy that sets the balance between government and the private sector.
...
Competitiveness, jobs and national prosperity need to be the principal ballot questions for the next federal election. Whoever can best ensure our quality of life through economic growth deserves to govern. We have the priorities backwards. Other issues such as government accountability, lowering the GST and same-sex marriage rights are secondary to making Canada competitive for the future. Without that, there won't be money for anything else.

They should be the major ballot questions in Newfoundland and Labrador this October.

Who really cares if a particular politician or party wins all the seats and scores high in the polls?

None of that is about "jobs, jobs, jobs".

Then again, it turned out that the last provincial election wasn't about "jobs, jobs, jobs" either.

It's time for a real change.

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Change versus more of the same

While former Liberal cabinet minister Walter Noel does his part to support the victim mythology of Newfoundland nationalism, perhaps he should consider a new approach to economic development and Newfoundland and Labrador's economic place in the world.

Noel's problem appears to be with Newfoundland and Labrador's balance of trade.

He identifies the solution to a general economic problem as being more federal transfer payments. Right problem. Wrong solution.

All that Noel succeeds in doing is demonstrating how the current administration and the one Noel served in are fundamentally the same. Heck, the current administration offers the same answers that have never worked for administration after administration since Confederation.

Like that's worked.

The idea outlined in this op-ed piece from the Toronto Star is increased inter-provincial free trade. In other words, open up the opportunities for Newfoundland and Labrador companies to do business in the rest of Canada. Rather than building barriers, Newfoundland and Labrador needs to open the doors.

Since Confederation, Canadians have been hampered by an inter-provincial distrust of the power of free markets to produce economic and social benefits.

As a result, federalism has evolved into an inefficient system of provincial and municipal enclaves of economic autonomy. Provincial economic independence has created an interprovincial trading system that hampers productivity through barriers that curb the flow of goods and services.

These have impeded Canada's evolution from a middle to a modern power.

Canada cannot hope to compete globally when we have the kind of barriers to internal trade we have now.

There's a similar idea in this study by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

More of the same won't work.

It's time for Newfoundland and Labrador to change.

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