Kremlinology 6: the curious last days of Paul Oram

On September 10, 2009, then health minister Paul Oram gave a version of the health care cuts decision that contradicted what his boss was saying.

On September 21, 2009, then health minister Paul Oram said that his own administration had boosted spending to levels that were unsustainable.

That was an amazing admission that the province’s finances were in such a horrendous state.  Until then virtually every cabinet minister had claimed the opposite.

Paul’s talk of cuts prompted your humble e-scribbler to remind the universe of a previously unsuccessful health minister whose daughter now works for the Premier and of the current Premier’s own phrase when talking about a previous administration.  But that was just fun.

On September 29, 2009, then justice minister Tom Marshall turned up on a local call-in show to discuss the province’s finances.

Marshall said a whole bunch of things that tended to affirm Oram’s statement, although Marshall – who had been finance minister for the highest of the high-spending years never actually said the word “unsustainable.”

But notice that it was Marshall delivering the message.

Not Jerome Kennedy, the guy actually holding down the title of  finance minister at the time.

But Tom Marshall, the former finance minister, calling from his ministerial office in Corner Brook.

This was the day Danny headed off for a gigantic swan hobnobbing with the international environmental hoi-polloi that ran from the 30th of September to October 2.

On October 1st – and despite his previous insistence that the cuts at Flower’s Cove and Lewisporte were carved in stone - Paul restored at least some of the previous cut in Flower’s Cove.

Danny got back on the weekend.

On Monday, Paul told Danny he was leaving.  That’s by Paul’s own version of  the timing.

Paul heads off to Buchans for an emergency town meeting, called very hastily by the provincial government Tuesday morning.

The next morning, Oram ends it all, politically, in front of the House of Assembly.

Of course, Oram has some cock and bull set of talking points about health issues and the pain his family suffered and the evils of the CBC none of which explained why he was not only bailing out of cabinet but hauling ass out of politics altogether.

Oram was slitting the wrists of his own political body and yet he was blaming someone else for wielding the blade.

One of the examples Oram cited as painful was having his wife’s name on the television news in connection with the family business.

Odd that Paul Oram backbencher had no trouble with his wife’s picture and name being in a Labrador newspaper when she and her husband travelled to Labrador west talking about opening a new personal care home in the area.  Anyone got a picture of that to share for posterity?

But that’s to get away from the real oddity here namely the appearance of the former finance minister a week or so before he got the job back again to tackle a finance issue when there was a perfectly serviceable finance minister more than capable of sorting out the whole issue.  And to really add to the oddity, the formerly serviceable finance minister has now become the health minister.

The timing and the comments all seem a little curious.

One of the Premier’s most loyal foot soldiers leaving politics so quickly is highly unusual in itself.

The context might make it more unusual.

And if that’s the case, then Paul’s reference to Danny Williams as having been a father figure to him? 

Well, that’s just likely to give a body the heebie jeebies. 

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Diversifying the economy and slowing things down #nlpoli

Paul Oram was a colourful politician.

Well, colourful in the sense that he flamed out very quickly.  Regular readers of these scribbles will remember him as the guy who had no idea what had happened in the province during his lifetime.  Not long after taking over the health department, Oram precipitated a huge political crisis.  Then he high-tailed it from politics altogether with some pretty damning comments about how his colleagues were spending public money. 

These days Paul turns up as the token Tory on CBC Radio’s West Coast Morning Show political panel. he is still colourful.

On Monday’s show, Oram said that Muskrat Falls was a wonderful thing because it diversifies the provincial economy.  He did not say how.  Oram just said that it would.  No one asked him to explain what he meant.

That’s a lucky break for Paul.  You see, Muskrat Falls will not diversify the provincial economy. It is a public utility project.  What’s more, it does not produce any revenue other than what the people of this province will be forced to pay.  In that respect it is less of a way to diversify the economy as it is a new kind of government tax on the local economy.

But that’s okay: Paul has usually had trouble understanding this whole economic development thing.  That’s probably why Danny put him in charge of economic development at one point.

After bashing that around, the panel switched to talking about the provincial budget and health care.  Bernice Hillier – the host – asked Paul about the money in the budget for planning the new Corner brook hospital. 

Not a problem, said Paul.  The hospital is important.  The government will build it.

It’s just that times are tough, according to Paul.  The government is just slowing things down a bit until they have the money to build the hospital.

Interesting idea Paul had there.

Interesting because it is something that Oram’s old colleagues have categorically denied. 

Don’t have the money to build it now?

“That is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in a long time,” said finance minister Tom Marshall last week.   Here’s what health minister Susan Sullivan said in the House of Assembly on Monday:

What we had in the past was a replacement design. Mr. Speaker, we are much more progressive than that. We do not want a replacement of the Corner Brook hospital; we want a hospital that is going to see us into the future. Therefore, we have asked them to go back, and with this $1 million we will look at a hospital that will meet the needs of the future in terms of essential services that are going to be in that hospital, Mr. Speaker. When that is done, then we will move forward with a design concept for the facility itself.

Paul Oram was a colourful politician.

He still says some curious things. Makes you wonder what he is going to say next.

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Oram and Williams tell radically different versions of departure story

Even in Paul Oram’s political death, he and Danny Williams can’t get on the same page.

Asked about Oram’s resignation, Danny Williams told reporters that when it comes to an individual’s health and family, he doesn’t even try and convince someone to stay. “I just accept it,” said Williams.

But that’s not what Paul says.  As the Gander Beacon put it:

Mr. Oram said the premier asked whether he would consider staying on as an MHA, but he said he felt if he was going to walk away from one aspect of his work, he would prefer to fully remove himself from politics.

"I just felt that if I needed to regain control of my life, I had to walk away from politics altogether."

That’s not the first time that Oram and Williams have been at odds.

On the same day in early September – before Oram’s surprise resignation - Williams said the decision on  cutting lab and x-ray services was made months earlier, long before Oram became minister. 

Williams told a scrum that Lewisporte MHA Wade Verge knew of the cuts some time before July 9, 2009. Williams indicated Verge had the information from both Williams’ chief of staff and from Ross Wiseman when the latter was still health minister. 

Oram told the House of Assembly  - at almost the same time Williams was talking to reporters at another location - that he made the decision after meeting with concerned citizens in Lewisporte in mid-August. 

None of the dates match up since letters released by Oram in early September were part of the pre-budget process.  They were dated in February 2009.

But now even Danny Williams can’t get it straight.

According to the Northern Pen, the Beacon’s sister newspaper, a campaigning Danny Williams said something completely different from his earlier versions:

"Paul Oram had proceeded on the basis of recommendations made to him by the health authority," stated Premier Williams.

Not only did Oram now supposedly make a decisions Williams earlier attributed to someone else but the health authorities actually didn’t make the recommendations.  They were simply asked for options to save money, money that – as it turned out – they actually never had to save anyway.

No wonder some people don’t trust some politicians.

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Paul Oram: Minister of Revisionist History

Former business minister Paul Oram did a series of interviews when he was in Atlanta last October to attend a trade mission.

His interview on diversifying the economy is interesting mostly because Oram manages to completely cock-up just about everything.

According to Oram, the cod moratorium took place in the “early to mid-1980s”.

If you think that was a slip of the tongue consider that according to Oram, once the moratorium started,  we then turned to diversifying the economy with mining for things like iron ore and uranium.  Iron ore mining dates back to the 1890s, not the 1980s and as for uranium, there isn’t a functioning uranium in the province at the moment.  There never has been one. There are prospects but no actual mine.

The Lower Churchill will start up within the coming year (i.e. 2009) according to Oram, even though the thing had not even started the environmental review process when he did the interview.  It won’t complete the process until 2010-2011.

When asked about innovation, Oram couldn’t give an example.  Instead, he talked about the difference between his department and the innovation department.

We’ll be generous and say that oram sounded like the minister of revisionist history.

Others might say he was the minister of  the “Don’t know a Damn Thing” department.

Oh.

Incidentally, just count the number of times Oram says “to be honest with you.”

We assume he is being honest.  It’s just that he honestly doesn’t have a clue about recent events in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Kremlinology 7: Desperate in the Straits

Signs that things are not good in some parts of the province for some people:

1.   The Other One Percent:  Danny Williams rockets into Flower’s Cove a few days after advance polls and announces he’s managed to find the last one percent under the cushions of his Avalanche.  Lab and x-ray will stay in Flower’s Cove regardless of who wins the by-election.

2.  How many shifts of position does that make?  It really depends on how many shifts of position you want to count. 

In Flower’s Cove alone, a suggestion last February from the regional health authority to reduce clinic hours in the community as a way – theoretically – to save money was never implemented because cabinet ponied up the cash.

Suddenly and inexplicably that became a decision - by cabinet as it turned out - announced in August to cut operating hours and take out lab and x-ray service.

On top of that there was a review of x-ray and lab services everywhere in the province.

As the by-election started in the Straits and White Bay North, the clinic hours miraculously reappeared.

Then the lab and x-ray cuts became mere possibilities if savings could be found.

Then the review went into the “Doubtful it will be finished” pile.

Then suddenly the Premier was 99% sure the lab and x-ray service could be saved.

But only 99% sure.

And now it’s 100% back.

That’s eight shifts and it doesn’t even begin to count the finance minister flip flops on whether there is cash for everyone or things are tight and previous decisions were unsustainable.

3.  Who actually made the decision?  Paul Oram claimed he made the fateful decision in late August.  No one really contradicted him directly but the Premier said early on that the decision were know before Oram became minister.   Maybe Ross made it. 

After Oram resigned, the Premier told someone on the campaign trail that “Paul Oram had proceeded on the basis of recommendations made to him by the health authority.”  The story was picked up in the local paper.

Now it turns out that isn’t true. 

Well, at least according to Jerome! Kennedy it isn’t true.  In an interview with Here and Now on Thursday, the former finance minister and current health minister Kennedy told Debbie Cooper that the decision to cut lab and x-ray service was not made by Paul Oram but by cabinet.  Paul was just the messenger boy.

That means that Jerome and Danny made the decision  - along with every other cabinet minister in the district St. Anthony is in -  a fact they didn’t disclose as they started campaigning and began switching positions.

4.  Who’s fault is it anyway?  Apparently, Jerome was in a fessing up mood on Thursday.  He told VOCM that this has been a useful exercise for government since it forced government to look at the issues and admit they were wrong.

That’s pretty good for a guy who only a few days ago was admitting to the same  media outlet that he and his cabinet colleagues would be playing the whole issue of lab and x-ray and the by-election by ear and see how it went.

Evidently making it up as you go along isn’t a good strategy after all.

5.  How many ministers can dance on the end of a line?  Pretty well all of them, if the radio call-in shows are any indication.

Shawn Skinner was charming if not a wee bit patronising as he recounted how Trevor Taylor had taught him so much about rural Newfoundland in their discussions around the cabinet table and in caucus.

Best of the bunch?  Kevin O’Brien, the minister of permits and licenses for two reasons. 

First he talked about much money this government had spent in the district and allowed that they wanted to keep doing that.  Sounded a bit like a threat, it did.

Second – and the best bit – was when he stumbled repeatedly trying to remember the name of the district he was in.  Finally O’Brien blurted out something like how great it was to be in the district St. Anthony was in. 

Evidently he wasn’t in the same cabinet meeting as Shawn.

6.  Things are that bad, eh?  During his report on Here and Now, CBC’s David Cochrane referred this evening to senior Conservatives who admitted to him that the race was tight in the Straits.  If the Tories are admitting even that much, along with Danny’s win-or-lose-ya-got-it-back, you can guess the Tory campaign shows the Liberals out in front.

That would also explain the steady barrage of cabinet ministers and Jerome’s repeated admissions of mistakes and errors and acceptance of blame.  Odds are good the Tories are trying everything, including backing as far away as possible from their usual arrogance to try and win over  every vote they can.

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"Petty, mean and intimidating"

And those are words from a guy who likes Danny.

Now admittedly, the guy hadn't seen NTV news on Friday night or seen the Telegram coverage, so he was only commenting on Paul Oram's version of the attack on Lorraine Michael.

So when the opposition does its job the Government, or at least one of its ministers throws out the threat of not supporting providing the money needed to offer opposition. I have to say it was not a classy move on Oram’s part. Petty, mean and intimidating. The Premier should put him on a leash.

R'uh R'oh.

'Cause here's where the whole thing started:

“Lorraine Michael is out calling on us to do this and do that, and saying she’ll be annoyed with government if we don’t get this done,” the premier told The Telegram late Friday.

“By way of interest, you should know this — Lorraine Michael now has a request in to the management committee (at the House of Assembly) for a raise. So here is the champion of the people out there, who’s calling on the government to do this and do that, and now, after all the heat over MHA salaries … has come back and looked for a special raise as leader of the New Democratic Party.”

That's gotta hurt something, especially when the piece goes back to the standard government Blackberry line right at the end, even if the excuse of blaming it all on Harper contradicts everything that preceded it:

That said the stepping stone, the $10 Billion carrot dangled in front of us and than cruelly yanked away by Ottawa would repair a lot of hospitals, roads, bridges, schools, sewers, water supplies and allow us to pay down our debt while we are in a positive cash flow position. Spending all of our surpluses to catch up on generations of under funding is going to leave us more reliant on the federal government when our non-renewable resources are depleted than we ever were.

You see, the provincial government has had growing income of its own for the past four years.  The surpluses are not the growth:  they are a sign of how massive the growth has been. They are also a clue has to how the provincial government's spending has grown over the same time period.  There's been more money spent in the past three years than at any time in the province's history ever. Newfoundland and Labrador spends more per capita on government operations than every provincial government in Canada except for Alberta.

And on top of that growth in budgeted spending, the cash surpluses (the money left over on annual operating budgets at the end of the year), have totalled almost $2.0 billion in 2005, 2006 and 2007 combined.

Yes, the cash coming in the door on top of what was forecast has actually been as much as the entire one-shot transfer from Ottawa's coffers in 2005.

So even with all the growth in public spending and with all the surpluses piling up, the provincial government still opted not to repair critical health care infrastructure, even though it clearly had the cash.

Randy Simms made Paul Oram look foolish because Simms wasn't talking about  "[s]pending all our surpluses."  He was talking about budgeting.  And he wasn't talking about chronic under-funding:  that suggests the prior governments had the cash but opted not to spend it.

Dead wrong, and even wronger  - if that's possible - considering that those words came from a former executive assistant to a cabinet minister.  As he should know, until now the provincial government often had to face a drop in revenues every year.  Often, provincial governments didn't have money to meet existing needs and normal inflation.  Having a windfall of almost a billion dollars was unthinkable and having such a bonus on top of huge growth in revenue anyway was the stuff of wild fantasy.  "Underfunded" only works if you understand the word means "didn't have the cash to do things with in the first place."

But that's not what he meant, clearly.

Nope, trotting out the "promise" myth is just like the attack on Lorraine Michael;  it's just a subtle version of the same kind of distraction.  The provincial government doesn't want a discussion in public of spending priorities based on accurate information.  Open, informed public discussion  - like a sitting legislature - gets in the way of government doing whatever it wishes.

What the "promise" fable returned to in that post is actually what Paul Oram was trying to do:  make excuses for why government did what it did.  Oram went on at length trying to explain why there were more demands on government cash than there was cash.

Yada, yada, yada.

Yeah and if Harper...

The attack on Michael is a scurrilous personal attack, but the goal remains the same.

It's all just a distraction.

Pretty fast update:

Well, your humble e-scribbler and two others pointed out the obvious, namely that the Premier actually started the attack.

The response?

Well the Premier needs a better attack dog because Oram never pulled it off very well.

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The Kings of Cuts

There’s something about Paul Oram that just seems so familiar.

Maybe it’s his similarities to the equally-perfectly coifed predecessor, Lloyd Matthews.

Yes the father of the Premier’s Chief Publicist occupied the health minister’s office until early 1997 when he was hastily shuffled out.  There was a massive revolt against the way government was handling health care. 

Take a second and read the old news releases from those days though, and you’ll find more than a few things that seem oddly familiar.  Stuff like reviewing health care in central Newfoundland with an eye to what could get “improved”:

Health Minister Lloyd Matthews will take the next 6-8 weeks to fully evaluate and consider the recommendations of the report into health services in Central Newfoundland. KPMG Management Consultants recently presented the final report to the minister following four months of consultation with individuals and organizations throughout the region.

"This review is a comprehensive analysis of current and future health needs for the entire Central Newfoundland region," said Mr. Matthews. "The report looks at the network of primary, secondary, chronic and community based care, and makes recommendations on how these services can be better organized and coordinated to meet existing health needs and to reflect the emerging health needs of residents in the region."

The minister stated he would now be presenting this report to Cabinet for consideration. "Once government has had an opportunity to consider the full report, I will be able to provide further details on health services contained in the report, as well as outline future directions for health services in Central Newfoundland," said Matthews.

The minister thanked all individuals who made presentations or submissions to the consultants during the period of review, for their interest in health service delivery.

Matthews released the review in March, 1997, after announcing it had been received in early January.  The project started the previous June.   It recommended a number of things, including renovations to North Haven Manor in Lewisporte to ensure it could provide service out to 2005.

There are a lot of things in Matthews’ ministerial past that seem oddly familiar to the current generation, as well as a few surprising differences.

Matthews didn’t have much money to play with either as minister or as a member of cabinet generally.  Paul Oram and his cabinet colleagues  - by stark contrast - have access to more cash than any cabinet in the province’s history.

Oram talks about health care cuts.

Matthews’ review of health care in central Newfoundland could note that since the creation of new health care boards (re-organized out of existence by Oram’s clan), day surgery had increased by 70% in Gander. Note, for example, the reference to demographic projections for 2005.

There’s a sense of planning and organization to the whole thing.  The re-organization started with a view to changing how health care money was spent so more could be pushed toward front-line service.   It may not have worked out exactly as intended, but there was a long-range goal based on the knowledge that by 2005ish, the population would be pretty much where it actually turned out to be.  That brought with it certain predictable consequences and government worked to organize a system that could provide needed care within the budget likely to exist.

Sometimes, the differences are startling.  Back in the 1990s, the health minister could commission a report, get it and then release it within six weeks.  When was the last time Oram and his colleagues managed to get a report on the street within six months of getting it in hand? 

Compare as well, Matthews’ language to that used in the past 48 hours or so.  The emphasis on changes in the 1990s was ensuring that the government could continue to meet health care needs despite limited funds and what was anticipated to be skyrocketing demand. 

There’s a decidedly less positive sound to the way Oram put it:

“Our government faces a difficult decision to make regarding the types of services we can offer in the long-term, how much we can continue to invest as a province and identifying how we can improve the quality in our programs and services across the province.”

Still through it all there are some common threads, ones that transcend the superficial nonsense Oram got on with the other day by referring to cuts in the 1990s. 

He might do well to check with some of his predecessors, people who had a real hard time running the department but who managed to get through it with their reputation intact.  Roger Grimes would likely give him a good pile of advice. So too would Herb Kitchen or Julie Bettney.   Lloyd Matthews wouldn’t:  if memory serves, he got into political hot water largely due to the way he presented himself publicly.

How Oram handles himself might determine who really gets remembers as being the Kings of Cuts: Danny Williams and his crew or the guy Danny used to call the King of Cuts.

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Cat Fight, the new series

Conservative member of parliament Fabian Manning, left, and Paul Oram, parliamentary assistant to Premier Danny Williams, spent a few minutes on Tuesday night bashing each other in public, courtesy of VOCM's Night Line talk show.

Oram, right, started the row by calling the show to slag Manning for supporting the federal government's budget. Oram claimed that, by way of a gigantic contrast, Oram had voted for a controversial fisheries measure because he was told it was in the best interests of the province. [Now the wording he used was curious enough in itself, but that's another story.]

While claiming purest motives for himself, Oram could not grant the same courtesy to Manning; after all, the guy who holds the keys to Oram's future as a cabinet minister had already declared Manning an un-person. A senior member of Williams' staff reputedly attended the caucus meeting that punted Manning to the opposition benches.

Manning would not be outdone by the likes of Oram. So he called the show from Ottawa to give a spirited defense of himself and his reasons for supporting the budget measure. Not surprisingly it had something to do with best interests of the province.

At some point, Manning also noted that he and Oram had discussed said controversial fisheries initiative back in the days before Manning's image was airbrushed out of every photo of provincial Tories.

Da byes were apparently gnoshing at a local eatery ironically called "My brother's place" when Oram allegedly declared he would cross the floor before he would support the fisheries package.
[Photo removed by request] Of course, Oram didn't cross the floor. He backed the deal to the hilt. By-the-by, in the photo at left that's Oram in the shades and sans 'stache along with a bunch of what appears to be Tory political staffers.

The event was the the supposedly non-partisan Rally for Danny last week in which the rhetoric flowed thick and heavy even if the crowd was thin and the results were light to non-existent.

While Manning was on the air, Oram called to refute Manning's version of events. Smart producer and host put the two together and let them hammer away much to the delight of their audience.

It was a truly spectacular bout of "You did. I din't."

Now the real point isn't what Oram or Manning did back then, although frankly, Manning has nothing to gain by telling a whopper of a fib.

Neither side can likely prove his version of events.

But that isn't the point.

People should notice that the current crusade against the federal Conservatives has opened up deep divisions in the local Connie/PC camp. There are plenty of close friends caught up in the divide, just as two years ago there were some deep divisions among Liberals.

The Tory and Connie cleavages might be bigger though since at no point in the Liberal case did one crowd call for the public lynching of the other. Premier Danny Williams wants to see every Conservative in the province defeated at the next election. Heck, in the process, DW's even turned on a guy he once supported to be provincial Tory leader and Premier.

Oram and Manning's pissing match could be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. More blood may well flow yet before the whole thing is settled.

Meanwhile, the federal Grits are quietly going about their business.

And the Dippers?

Likely they are doing a very fine impression of Jon Lovitz from The Wedding Singer.

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Hickey to pay own tab, Oram flubs badly

Despite his vehement defence of having the public treasury cover transportation minister John Hickey's legal bills in the battle with former premier Roger Grimes, Premier Danny Williams today told VOCM Open Line that Hickey would be footing the bill himself.

Many in the province - heck most people - were taken aback by the sudden change of direction.

Late in the day, Hickey turned up to tell CBC Radio that "I've thought it through and I decided that I wanted to change course here.... I'm going to pick up whatever legal cost that's going to be associated with this particular issue."

Later in the day still, Paul Oram, the Premier's tried vainly to explain to Back Talk host Bill Rowe what the heck the whole dispute was about. Rowe, a former politician and lawyer, tried in vain to get Oram to state specifically what remarks Grimes should apologise for.

Oram went down several roads, always making the same unsubstantiated claim likely contained in the talking points from the Premier's publicity department. At every juncture, Rowe shut him down with simple, obvious questions related specifically to the case.

To embarrass the hapless politician even more, Rowe insulted him at several points, essentially begging Oram to take offense and threaten to sue Rowe. Each time, Oram declined, thereby confirming that his initial point was impossible to defend. Of course that means that the Premier's point on the whole affray is nonsense as well.

Memo to the Premier: Paul Oram deserves a cabinet seat solely for his ability to defend the indefensible, repeatedly, despite the savaging of his own credibility in the process.

Oram and Williams give wildly contradictory accounts of Lewisporte decision

As a sharp-eared reader picked up, the raw video of the Premier’s scrum revealed that Lewisporte MHA Wade Verge knew about cuts to health service in his district some time before July 9, 2009.

That’s the day Premier Danny Williams shuffled Ross Wiseman out of health and moved Paul Oram in.

The decision wasn’t announced until August 31, almost two months later.  And even then, some people claim,  the wording of the news release didn’t make plain what was happening in the affected communities.

The regional health authorities involved didn’t hear about the changes until the morning they were announced.

But even that is now at odds with comments by health minister Paul Oram.  Under questioning in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Oram said the decision was made after a trip he made to the region to discuss the issue with local officials:

The fact is that this decision was made during discussions, Mr. Speaker, with Central Health and Community Services, also with discussions that we had ongoing with the community. The fact of the matter is, we went out to Lewisporte, and we told them very clearly that this facility would not be built or put inside of the new facility. We would not have X-ray and lab inside of the new facility. That is exactly what we told them, Mr. Speaker. They understood where we were coming from and we moved forward on that basis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Isn’t it true that you told the people in Lewisporte at that time that there would not be a one-roof concept for lab and X-ray services, but you did not tell them you were prepared to gut their service within two weeks, did you?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ORAM: Mr. Speaker, I said exactly what I said, and that was that there would be no laboratory and X-ray services under the one roof in the new facility that we were building in Lewisporte. In terms of –

MS JONES: (Inaudible).

MR. ORAM: - if she would let me answer. In terms of a discussion around what was happening with closing out the lab and X-ray part of what we were doing in Lewisporte, that discussion was had but there was no final decision made on that when I was out in Lewisporte.

Either the Premier has his story shagged up or Oram does.

Which is it?

 

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His own private Gene Krupa

Oram says there are a lot of companies inquiring about the potential to do business here, especially with the economy booming as it is now.

The Oram in this quotation from the Great Oracle of the Valley would be the disciple Paul Oram, minister of business.

Look at his news release pile and that of his predecessor and we might conclude he is the "minister-of-traveling-around-giving-speeches-to-anyone-who-will-listen", but that's another issue.

Now back to the quote.

The Quote.

Now presumably the G.O.V. got the quote right and Paul actually did say that the economy is booming right now. And presumably he was talking about the economy in this province, it being the economy which a business minister in this province would be concerned about.

'Cause if he did say the economy is booming,  you got to wonder if the disciples talk among themselves.

The disciple Tom delivered his budget earlier this year with predictions for economic growth across the province that were not booming. Indeed no economic oracle  - public sector or private - has been predicting a booming economy in Newfoundland and Labrador since at least the Summer of Love last year.

In fact, they aren't predicting a booming economy next year, either.

And even if all that weren't true, we need only look to last week's provincial forecast issued by RBC Economics. 

They issue these things quarterly and Bond Papers has posted more than a few from the major banks. Here's the RBC one from June 25 2007.

The forecast for Newfoundland and Labrador and it has been consisten since last year - is for the province to go from leading the country in growth to trailing badly.  They've refined their forecast of "trailing" to say that the economy will grow at the blistering pace of point two percent.

That's two tenths of one percent for those weaned on the New Math.

That is so perilously close to a recession that a breath in the wrong place would push it over.

That is so not a "boom".

Take a look at the forecast for next year.  Run your eye across the line in the pdf linked above.  Run your finger if you have to and move your lips to read the words.  That's what your humble e-scribbler had to do just to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

Even if you have to move your finger so slowly people would think you were dead or asleep,  there's no way you'd describe the next two years in the provincial economy as a "boom".

Growth in employment?  Two per cent this year versus one half of one per cent next year.

Housing starts?  Two thousand  - that's it two friggin' thousand versus the double digits - like in the 30, 40s and 50 thousands in Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and Bee Cee.

Even in Saskatchewan they'll have double Newfoundland's starts next year.

Manitoba?  Poor Equalization-receiving Manitoba? 

New Brunswick?  The benighted crowd up the Saint John river?

Both are forecast to see more than twice as many housing starts as "booming" Newfoundland.

Retail sales?  From a growth of 8.9% in 2007 and an anticipated growth of 6% in 2008, RBC says that  there'll be just 2% growth next year.

There is no an indicator in that pile that says "boom", unless we are talking about last year.

The disciple Paul must be dancing to his own drummer, to borrow a phrase.  That's the only way to explain the comments which are, at least, somewhat inconsistent with the facts.

In fact, Paul Oram's comments are so far removed from reality that he must have his own private drum kit pounding away with skins pounded by no less a drummer than the ghost of the long-late Gene Krupa or maybe  Buddy Rich in the middle of a seizure of some kind.

If Paul has a pile of  prospective projects on his desk - at last count, the disciple Kevin was scanning 60 of the things when he went off to look after issuing permits and licenses - or even just a list of companies that are looking to come here and set up shop, perhaps Paul'd be good enough to give us a list of them.

Let us see the reason for his optimism.

He can just pass them along to the Great Oracle of the Valley and they'll get the word out.

Otherwise, we'll just consider that his latest word is as good as his description of the economy as "booming".

-srbp-

Unsound financial management, the stunning Oram admission

In Budget 2009, we invested $2.6 billion in health and community services.  This is no doubt a significant amount.  This represents a billion dollar increase in the past five years.  While we would like to do everything and meet every demand, that investment is simply unsustainable.

Paul Oram, Minister of Health and Community Services, September 21, 2009 [video file]

Note the date.

Health minister Paul Oram admitted today that the provincial government’s financial management since 2003 has produced a level of government spending that is - in his words -  “unsustainable.”

That is not just Paul Oram’s word.

His remarks were approved at the highest level.

That word  - unsustainable - is the word that the Premier’s Office chose to describe the financial state of the provincial government.

Until now, the Williams administration has prided itself on exactly the opposite. This is a remarkable admission for the Williams administration, an administration that has prided itself on what it claimed was sound management of the public treasury.

Regular readers of Bond Papers have known it for some time.

The earliest use of the word “unsustainable” in connection with provincial government spending was 2006:

What no one knew was that oil would hit US$70 a barrel and the cash would be pouring in at a rate no one in the province had ever seen before. That allowed Danny Williams to avoid making a whole bunch of good decisions and to crank up spending to unprecedented and, and in light of the economic slowdowns, likely unsustainable, heights.

The word turned up again a few months later in a quick look at the 2007 budget:

The current and forecast spending increases are based on optimistic projections for the price of oil in the medium term. Any downward trend in commodity prices (oil, minerals etc) will quickly make the consistent spending increases since 2003 unsustainable. Fiscal reality in those circumstances - taking less money in than is flowing out - would require program cuts, job losses and/or tax increases to correct.

Take a second and go read that post.  You’ll find the “unsustainable” again:

That level of per capita spending [second only to Alberta] is unsustainable in the long run. As a recent Atlantic Institute for Market Studies assessment concluded:

“If the province fails to reign in its whopping per capita government spending (about $8800/person [in FY 2006]) and super-size me civil service (96 provincial government employees /1000 people) it will quickly erode any gains from increased energy revenues.”

That is exactly the situation Paul Oram described today.

Look through Bond Papers and you will see repeated warnings about the unsustainable growth in government spending since 2004/05. 

This is not an exercise in “I-told-you-so”;  let’s clear that out of the way at the start.

This is about something much more significant.

Point One:  The issues are not new and the implications of the issues aren’t new.

Go back further than 2006.

Go back to the early to mid 1990s and you will see forecasts that showed the demographics in the province for the time period we are currently in and that mapped out the implications for health care costs.  Some of those same ideas turned up here in several posts throughout 2007 and 2008 that discussed the very serious financial state facing the provincial government.

Point Two:  Fail to plan;  plan to fail.

The current situation is a direct result of a series of short-term decisions made by the current administration since 2003.  The short-term spending decisions took place in every aspect of spending;  health care just happens to be the one place in the budget where the demand for more spending is greatest and where the implications of spending are also proportionately great..

How do we know the decisions have been made on an ad hoc basis?

Well, the indicators are littered throughout the correspondence released today by the provincial government.

For starters, just look at the dates on the e-mails to the regions.  The provincial government only settled on its spending allocations in late February and even then, the decisions were preliminary.  

Since 2003, the budget process has slipped further and further back in time such that crucial decisions – like gross spending – are not made until a few weeks before the end of the fiscal year. The reality of these letters suggests that budget decisions were not made until well into the current fiscal year. 

Throughout the 1990s and into the early part of this century,  the big picture spending decisions were made before Christmas.  By the time late February rolled around, the individual line items had been settled such that there was very little to decide.  In those days, the only adjustments that came after February would be cuts based on any changes to federal spending.

But in a provincial government where cash hasn’t been an issue, there is really no reason why the annual budget process should be so far out of whack that major budget decisions are still not settled four weeks before the end of the fiscal year.

Secondly, notice that the direction from the department to the regions is simply to freeze spending at 2008 levels.  That’s a short-term decision if ever there was one, not the sign of a decision taken within the context of a longer-term plan.

Thirdly, take a look at the list of options offered up by the boards.  In Central, there is a wide and unconnected list.  On  the one hand there are major program shifts.  On the other, there is an inconsequential cancellation of a single position for a few thousand dollars.  In Western, the increased costs forecast include substantial amounts that have to be annualised.  That is, the initial amounts increase over time as with any program spending. 

None of this is a sign of planning either at the regional or provincial level.  Rather it suggests a series of ad hoc decisions being made in response to ad hoc direction from central authorities.  As can be seen particularly in the letter from Western region and Labrador-Grenfell, significant new projects were started in 2007 and 2008 which need to be continued.  Yet, in preparing for 2009, the long-term implications of these projects are called into question by a predicted downturn in the economy.

In truth, this inconsistent management situation matches up with what we have seen from the provincial government across the board.  Capital works projects take inordinately long times to get start.  Significant legislative measures get lost for upwards of two years and more before they are implemented.   All the delays cost money. 

Point Three:  The solution cannot be more of the same.

One of the most obvious implications of analysis done for the Strategic Social Plan approved by cabinet in December 1995 was that government needed to fundamentally change how it delivered some services if it was going to balance the demand with the ability to supply.

Unfortunately, one of the first acts of the Tobin administration in 1996 was to scrap the SSP and replace it with a pale imitation. Gone were the needed reforms.  What has occurred since 2003 has been a continuation of the situation post-1996, with predictable results.  Until now, the Williams administration has steadfastly refused to acknowledge it faced a very serious problem.

But acknowledging that a problem exists is the first step to setting things right.

With all that as the basis, the next few posts will lay out some ideas for producing fundamental changes aimed at providing a financially sound future for the province.

-srbp-

Oram blames Danny for JSS cancellation

When Newfoundland and Labrador becomes the focal point and our shipyard becomes seemingly the best and only shipyard that can be used to do this particular contract, all of a sudden they first talk about going offshore and now they decide to cancel the project.  There is something going wrong somewhere.

"Something wrong with JSS contract, Oram says", Telegram, Tuesday, 25 August 2008

Newfoundland and Labrador business minister Paul Oram is blaming the strained relationship between his boss and the Prime Minister for the federal government's decision to scrap the joint support ship contract.

Premier Danny Williams said much the same thing in a radio talk show Tuesday.

Now of course that isn't what they meant, but, in truth, the very notion that the federal government would deliberately scrap an important contract because Danny and Steve don't get along is ludicrous in itself.  Silly as the thought is, both ministers offered it up to news media with a completely straight face.

In the Telegram story quoted above, Oram related a conversation he claims to have had with federal industry minister Jim Prentice while both ministers attended the Farnborough air show in July.  In the conversation, Prentice reportedly said that the federal government was considering having the hulls built outside Canada and the topsides and other fitting out work done in the country.

That part of the story is likely accurate since it jives with media reports that predate Oram's junket to the world's premiere air show. Oram would have had those reports long before Farnborough if his media clipping service and Our Man in a Blue Line Cab were doing their jobs.

Ottawa Citizen defence columnist David Pugliese reported in late May that both finalist shipyards had advised government they could produce only two of the three required ships for the $2.9 billion budgeted by treasury board for the project.

Pugliese blogged in early August that National Defence was examining a number of alternatives, including building the ships overseas.  That was seen at the time as politically unpalatable given that two shipyards in the country were technically capable of doing the work.

That's where Oram's account of the Prentice exchange and the likely one start to diverge.  While Oram claims the offshore option was considered because yards couldn't do the work, the thread that runs consistently through the story - and the one devoid of the political silliness Oram was trying to flog - is that there was enough money budgeted for either of the Canadian yards to be able to complete the project as tendered.

Big difference.

The joint support ships contract will likely come back and come back quickly since the vessels are needed urgently to replace the worn-out auxiliary oil replenishment vessels currently in service.  One of the consistent criticisms of the project is that the ships were supposed to do too many jobs for one hull.

In addition to providing logistics support for deployed naval forces (food, fuel and ammunition resupply), the JSS was supposed to serve as a transport ship capable of carrying an infantry company plus equipment to an overseas deployment.  At one point, the navy reportedly considered leasing a mothballed American amphibious assault ship for army support role while building conventional stores ships to replace the existing vessels.

There's no question these ships are needed, no matter what the configuration involved. Whatever the reason, the project was dealt a serious blow with the cancellation.  Coupled with the reported financial problems inside the current federal administration, it may not be back on track for some time to come.  In the meantime, the existing hulls will reach the end of the workable life in 2012. 

Something needs to be sorted out and sorted soon.

That will likely need to be done by federal politicians.

This contract may well serve voters as a good test to use when sorting through their federal candidates in the next election. If they are toeing a line - especially the childish ABC one - it might be an idea to leave them on the bench and look for a better alternative.

Unfortunately, the provincial government - through administrations of all stripes - doesn't seem to understand either the importance of defence industries to the provincial economy or what it takes to be effective in dealing with the federal government on defence issues.  Oram's not the first provincial cabinet minister to make asinine comments and sadly he likely won't be the last.

When politicians leap into complex issues they clearly know nothing about - as Oram clearly doesn't - they only serve to bugger up the works at worst or get ignored at best.

The men and women of the Canadian Forces, a great many of them from this province,  can do without that kind of "help".

The men and women of businesses like Marystown can do without it as well.

-srbp-

Just bear in mind…

the guy who is trying to explain health care decisions is the same guy who is clued out about a bunch of other things.

He’s also gotten himself in hot water over conflict of interest and briefing books and he even briefly turned up with one of the infamous rings from the House of Assembly scandal.

Last summer, as markets were tanking, then-business minister Paul Oram talked about a booming local economy.  In January, he was talking about bright the future will be but with no talk of any big financial problems at home.  Thankfully, the guy has finally wised up, or so it seems when it comes to the unsound state of the provincial government finances.

All that coupled with the inherent contradictions between what Paul Oram has been saying, what the Premier has said publicly,  and what the record shows might just make this health care crisis bleed all over the local political landscape well into the fall.

That Oram-fuelled health issue is on top of the other problems on both the Northern Peninsula and in central Newfoundland related to forestry that just won’t go away no matter how much money the provincial government has been willing to toss at the two areas.

Of course, now Oram and the talk of unsustainable spending built on oil makes it look like it is money government doesn’t have.

It may ell be one of the most interesting fall seasons in a long while in this province’s politics.

-srbp-

Strange bedfellows 2: Paul Oram's fickle affections

How quickly doth love turn to hate in the land of politics.

Remember this from Day 9 of the Summer of Love 2007?

Even the Premier's parliamentary assistant will be able to get in on the electioneering. The last SOL release for Thursday was an announcement of a photo op involving federal fish minister Loyola Hearn and the Premier's Open Line crackie, Paul Oram.

Oram and Hearn can be photographed at a municipal water and sewer project in Oram's district, on Friday at 1:30 PM.

In an election campaign, even the crap is apparently so potentially vote-worthy that a cabinet minister and a wannabe cabinet minister will pose for happy snaps with it.

Now sure, as the Telegram recently pointed out, these cost-shared programs have a promotional clause that requires a news release at least.  That was the official response when a government rep was asked this year about the joint funding announcement issued last week.

But last year - before the provincial general election - it apparently required a photo op and smiles with the minister with whom the provincial government was supposedly locked in a blood feud.

How times change. 

Campaign photo ops one day.  Daggers on the open line shows the next.

-srbp-

Paul Oram: busted

We knew Paul Oram’s comments the day he left politics were complete hogwash.

labradore refutes him, point by point.  And he adds the picture of Oram and his wife from 2006 that puts paid to the whole pack of nonsense Oram spouted about not wanting his family in the media.

-srbp-

Freedom from information: a symptom of ponocchiosis

That would be an inability to recognise realise that what one is saying is humourous because it contradicts the claim:

Oram said verbal briefings aren't an attempt to avoid putting anything in writing.

He said he can't remember if he was supplied with written briefing documents when he took over the business department in 2007.

But of course, not having any written briefing notes is exactly intended to avoid having anything in writing.  That way, there is nothing to contradict cabinet minister Paul Oram’s faulty memory.  In this instance, Oram cannot remember what he did less than two years ago in taking on the single most important job of his working life.  His mind is a complete blank slate.

Yet…

He would have us believe  - despite having an evidently sieve-like memory - he can successfully administer $2.6 billion in public money and account for his actions when needed.

Paul Oram is not alone.  Joan Burke and likely most of their cabinet colleagues  - update:  the Aural Majority - have adopted the paperless office approach.  The tendency to a paperless ministry is nothing new nor is it confined to Newfoundland and Labrador.  Donald Savoie, among others, has documented the trend and they have also firmly fixed the reason: avoiding accountability.

In itself, that’s a pretty dramatic development for a government that sought office in 2003 on a platform that included accountability and transparency as a cornerstone.   It would also pretty much make a mockery of former deputy minister Doug House’s claim in 2005 that the “Williams government is exceptional in the extent to which its electoral platform, Our Blueprint for the Future (commonly referred to as "the Blue Book") is actually being adhered to in implementing government policies.”

Now, one of the possibilities unexplored by either CBC or The Telegram – both have covered this same issue based on separate open records requests – is that the response from government is actually not completely in accord with the facts.  One of the other tendencies noted over the past couple of years is for government officials to respond to certain access to information requests in a way which is false.

For example, the now infamous case of the purple files, every knows that purple files exist.  The person requesting them saw them.  Both premier and an official of his office have confirmed they exist.  Yet, the official written response was that there were no such records. 

In other instances, officials have invented a category of documents simply to avoid releasing them.

Now at this point, no reasonable person in the province should need convincing that a problem exists and that it needs a solution.  We don’t need to see another story of another cabinet who claims to have a decent memory but who mysteriously can’t recall anything when asked about it.

The only real question is what, if anything, the current administration will do to correct the situation.

They started out with a platform that would have put this province in the forefront of public accountability, openness and government accessibility.  Where they’ve wound up is significantly less accountable, less open and far less accessible to voters than the government they attacked in 2003 with their pledge of 23 positive actions.

The only question right now is:  will they do what they promised six years ago?

-srbp-

Freedom from Information: Whose briefing book is it anyway?

Health minister Paul Oram claimed he didn’t have any briefing notes when he took over the department.

Aural is moral, as the saying went.

Some local media outlets, like the Telegram, went looking for briefing notes and were told by officials they didn’t exist. 

Now, of course it’s not unusual for government officials to be less than truthful in answering media requests for documents.  Back then, the officials said one thing (no documents) but the politician involved – namely no less a personage than the Premier Hisself – said something different (sure we got ‘em).

But in this case, it is way freakin’ spooky that Oram told the Gander Beacon he had a couple of feet of files -  including briefing notes -  to go through  after the officials and Oram had said there was nada in the space marked briefing notes. 

The story now gets off into a whole new realm of bizarre:   Oram is now claiming there were briefing notes but that they weren’t prepared or him. 

And in Oram’s whack-o world, he has time to read through two feet of material prepared “for someone else” but if he had briefing notes with his name on him, he’d never have time to do anything but read briefing notes.

Huh?

Exactly the reaction one would expect for such an obvious bullshit claim:

There are a bunch of files, and there are a bunch of different issues that sit on my desk every single day. They may not be in the form of a briefing note, but everything is filed and documented - there' a paper trail for everything."

Briefing notes are sent through his department on a constant basis, but Minister Oram said they are not prepared for him.

"I didn't ask for somebody to give me a load of briefing notes so I would start going through them," he said. "If I had to do that, that's all I'd do - read. I just don't have the time to go read every single formal briefing note that there is. But I do have the time to sit and have someone explain to me what we have on right now, and then I go through the files we have there."

All of this is in aid of defending efforts by the Oral Majority – i.e. the cabinet – that appear to be designed to circumvent laws in the province aimed at making government information available to the public.  Oram’s been at this a while:  recall that he earlier denied that not putting things in writing was not a way of not putting things in writing.

And again, your heads are clearly twisting trying to make sense of the ministerial confusion over such a simple thing as whether or not there are briefing notes Oram is reading in order to get up to speed on his new responsibilities.

It’s not like we asked him to recount recent history or anything.

-srbp-

No slack for Oram from reporters

Paul Oram left politics entirely today blaming ill health and the news media who apparently hounded him and his family.

That second one never lasted a second as reporters quite rightly pointed out that oram himself and his boss have said far worse about their political enemies than any reporter ever said about either one.

Watch the scrum down the right hand side of the cbc.ca/nl website.

The reporters cut him no slack, in other words and nailed his bullshit about the media for what it was.  He mentioned the coverage of his conflict of interest, in particular during the scrum. 

There are still many questions left by Oram’s sudden departure.

Why did he leave so hastily, leaving the Premier so little time to lash together a replacement scheme that he couldn’t even replace Trevor Taylor properly?

Why did Oram opt to quit entirely when he could have asked for a temporary leave from cabinet until he got his blood pressure under control?

Why did Oram leave politics altogether?  The back bench is not a hard spot and Oram could have taken the pause to get his health in order. 

As with Trevor’s departure there is much more to this than meets the eye.

-srbp-

That’s one way to stop the bleeding

The House of Assembly pay and compensation commission got its report in on time and out the door very quickly. 

While few people noticed it and normally few people even get it outside of a being defeated in an election, the commission recommended changes to the notion of severance for elected member of the legislature. There’s a whole section on it, in fact, beginning on page 26.

But that  recommendation  and the whole section is odd given that the commission admits right up in the front that:

Public submissions on MHA severance pay, as with pensions, were few. Those who did comment on MHA severance pay felt that it should be one week for each year of service instead of the current one month, to make it more in line with other severance payment provisions in the province.

How few?

Well one, to be exact. (page 27)