Strategic Social Plan (1995) - Forward

This Strategic Social Plan Consultation Paper initiates the final phase of an intensive Provincial planning process which began more than six years ago. When this Government took office in 1989, we made a commitment to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to review all economic and social programs and mandates and to develop strategic plans to carry the Province through the turbulent changes of the 1990s into a stronger future in the 21st century.

In the fall of 1990, Government began the first phase of this planning process through a review of economy's strengths and weaknesses, examination of the activities and policies of economic departments and agencies, and the subsequent development of a public consultation paper to provide an opportunity for the people of the Province to have direct input into the vision, guiding principles, and actions that eventually became the Strategic Economic Plan (SEP).

When the SEP was released in June 1992, however, we stressed that it was only half of the planning cess. Economic issues cannot be examined or addressed in isolation from social issues and realities, and it was imperative to move on to the second phase of our strategic planning: the development of a Strategic Social Plan. A Social Planning Group (SPG) of senior officials was established, and on March 4, 1993, the Throne Speech in the House of Assembly reaffirmed Government's commitment to the development of a Strategic Social Plan as the essential and equal partner to the SEP.

During the past three years, the SPG faced many challenges in their task of researching global trends reviewing programs and policies. Unlike economic planning activity, strategic social planning models were virtually unknown, and the Group were for the most part breaking new ground. In addition, they were caught in a maelstrom of social change and reform at both the Provincial and Federal levels, and were obliged to constantly revise data and projections to keep pace with national social reforms and in funding.

Nevertheless, the work of the SPG progressed to the point where relatively stable data could be provided to Cabinet and a consultation paper could be developed. This document is not a final Strategic Social Plan but it is a clear statement of the direction in which Government intends to proceed in terms of providing essential services for the social well-being of our citizens in as effective and efficient as possible. We now invite comment and suggestions from the people of Newfoundland and through the extensive public consultation process which will precede the development of the Strategic Social Plan.

I encourage all citizens, and especially organizations concerned with various social issues, to examine this paper thoroughly and to give serious consideration to the social challenges that are outlined and to the strategies and actions that are proposed. I look forward to receiving the thoughtful views of people throughout the Province as we continue the process of planning our social order for generations to come.

[original signed by]

Clyde K. Wells

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To come:  “Introduction and Background”

• Introduction
• Social profile
• Demographic Change and Challenge
• Living in a Different World
• Realities
• Principles
• Vision

Explanatory Note:  The 159 page Strategic Social Plan [SSP] consultation paper is being presented in a series of instalments.  A companion to the 1992 Strategic Economic Plan, it lays out both a clear statement of where the province was in 1995,  the challenges to be faced in the future and policies to deal with those challenges successfully.

Approved by cabinet for release in December 1995, the 1,000 copies of the consultation document were ordered destroyed by the Tobin administration in 1996.  Only a handful of copies survived.

The planned consultation never took place.  Instead, and while something subsequently emerged which was labelled a Strategic Social Plan, the new Tobin administration went down an entirely different road from the one envisaged in the 1995 consultation paper.

Some specific initiatives from the 1995 document did make it into action.  Others did not. Unfortunately, the fundamental approach – the integrated concept – that underpinned the strategy went out the window with the change of administration in January 1996. 

It never returned.

The current state of the provincial government – unsustainable levels of public spending in an increasingly fragile economy – are a direct result. 

In a province facing an uncertain future, where political leaders are devoid of ideas, let alone sustainable or new ones, the 1995 Strategic Social Plan remains relevant.

Strategic Social Plan (1995) - Introduction

In June 1992, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador released Change and Challenge, the Province's Strategic Economic Plan. In the preparation of this document, involving an extensive public consultation process, it was stated repeatedly that economic planning was — in the words of Premier Wells — "only one half of the equation”. It was recognized that planning for the future development of the Province and the well-being of its people cannot be done on the basis of economic factors alone; it must embrace the social component as well.

This "other half of the equation" must reflect the needs of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for more effective and equitable distribution of social services and benefits, improvement of educational levels, and progressive and innovative programs in health care and justice.

Social planning is not a "necessary evil” which must be accommodated within economic activity. It is the hallmark of a caring, democratic society. However, it cannot be conducted in isolation, oblivious to the economic realities which dictate the extent of the fiscal resources which are available to provide the social services that are needed.

Indeed the sheer weight of Provincial social spending demands that programs be carefully examined and prioritized, or the economy will be unable to sustain them. In the current Provincial budget of over $3.5 billion, 67.8 percent ($2,402172,000) will be spent in the social sector as compared to 5.6 percent ($198,474,000) in economic development (see Figure 1 and 2) The combined expenditure of the Departments of Industry, Trade and Technology, Natural Resources, Tourism, Culture and Recreation, Fisheries, Food and Agriculture, and Environment are less than 55 percent of the cost of the Department of Social Services alone, and little more than one-fifth the cost of health care in the Province.

These costs have been more than the Province's tax base can bear, and consequently the direct Provincial debt has increased almost every year since Confederation until it now totals more than $6 billion and costs more than $540 million a year to service. The problem of serving a small population in more than 700 communities scattered over a large land-mass becomes clear when compared to other geographic and demographic indicators.

For example, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is large enough to accommodate the entire United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland — and still have enough room left over to take the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Yet, our population is less than the city of Winnipeg.

These 576,000 souls maintain 8,900 kilometres of roads, 67 heath care institutions including hospitals, nursing homes and service agencies, 476 schools, a university and 23 facilities for community colleges and vocational training, and all the trappings of modern North American society. It is a financial burden that can only be borne by a strong and vibrant economy, and demands that priority attention be given to the task of increasing Provincial

revenues through stimulating new and existing enterprises. Without private sector business growth, we cannot survive as a province. At the same time, social services and facilities must be operated as efficiently as possible without sacrificing essential programs for health, education, and public safety.

Obviously, economic and social planning are inextricably linked. But they must be linked in support of each other, not in conflict or competition. They must be partners, not adversaries, and a viable economy and effective social system both depend on a healthy and sustainable environment. The three together constitute our human ecosystem. The simple fact is that in the everyday living of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, social and economic factors merge into one single, simple priority: Quality of Life. Whether wealthy or impoverished, people share the same needs for health, happiness, enlightenment, security, freedom, opportunity, and community.

No one living in this Province wishes to create wealth either individually or collectively by wreaking third-world conditions on our physical environment or standard of living. The collapse of our basic resource industry through the devastation of groundfish stocks through foreign over-fishing, errors in resource management, and local over-production has demonstrated with a vengeance that it profits us nothing to gain short-term prosperity if we destroy our long-term resources in the process.

At the same time, no one will dispute that we cannot maintain our quality of life without a stronger economic base. In other words, we cannot build a vibrant economy without a strong social structure; neither can we maintain vital social support programs nor preserve our culture and quality of life without strong economic growth.

Accordingly, on March 4, 1993 the Throne Speech in the House of Assembly committed Government to continue its planning process with the development of a Strategic Social Plan as the essential and equal partner to the successful and highly-acclaimed economic plan. A Strategic Social Planning Committee of senior officials was established immediately, and work began on the first phase of the process, i.e., the initial task of reviewing all Government social programs and policies, studying emerging social trends locally and globally, collecting and analyzing data, and preparing discussion papers for Cabinet consideration. The result of that activity is this Consultation Paper which is offered for public consideration, discussion, and commentary in the second phase of the process.

As in the case of the Strategic Economic Plan, the public consultation will be conducted independently of Government to provide opportunity for objective and effective participation by the widest possible representation of the general public. The input of the people who participate in this process will be incorporated into the third phase of the process: the development, release and implementation of the completed Provincial Strategic Social Plan.

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Next:  Background – Social Profile

Spending the future

" [The change in the province's financial outlook] That's very dramatic...Some people are going to stand back and say 'Oh yeah, that's just because your very lucky. That's because the oil prices have gone up.' Well, no. That's part of it. But we had a tough budget, a prudent budget. We've managed the province, fiscally, very tightly."

Premier Danny Williams
Quoted in "Cash boon may fund province's infrastructure"
by Rob Antle, The Telegram, 22 October 2005, p. A3

Premier Danny Williams is absolutely correct.

The provincial government's financial state is a direct result of oil and gas revenues. High oil prices have produced a boost beyond what the Real Atlantic Accord, the offshore royalty regimes and development at Voisey's Bay would have produced anyway.

Unfortunately, the premier's positive comments may have two unwelcome results. First it may make it seem as though the province can afford to increase spending in a number of ways. Second, his comments divert attention away from the fundamental failure of the Williams administration, two years into its mandate, to produce integrated plans to address the province's financial windfalls in a way that will yield the greatest long term benefit.

Let us deal first with the overall financial situation.

The Premier stated that the "consolidated deficit [this year] could be down in the range $100 [million], $200 [million] range" from the $492 million accrual deficit forecast in March. The Premier proposed to spend at least some of this money on infrastructure, especially in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let us be clear: the $492 million shortfall forecast in March 2005, indeed all the accrual deficits forecast by the provincial government, include significant components that are made up of several unfunded liabilities.

The Premier's comments come from adding into his calculations the huge amount of money coming from the offshore. This year it is reputedly in the range of $400 million beyond what was projected. The provincial government's own figures, used by economist Wade Locke, showed that the province's offshore revenues would be $600 million this year. This was based on oil at about US$15 per barrel lower than current market prices.

His comments about the improved financial situation are also based on growth in the province's economy (gross domestic product or GDP), as well as changes to the structure of the debt that themselves reflect long term efforts by successive administrations since 1989.

On the face of it, the debt to gross-domestic-product [GDP] ratio seems greatly improved. In 1991, for example, the province's total debt was 65% of the provincial GDP. Its accrual debt was approaching 100% of GDP.

In Fiscal Year 2004, by contrast, the total debt was 44% and its accrual debt was about 50% of GDP. This change was entirely due to growth in the provincial economy. Little if any debt was retired in the intervening 13 years; in fact the provincial government and its agencies owed more money in 2004 than in 1991.

One substantive positive change, however was the reduction of debt held in foreign currencies. In 1991, almost half the province's direct debt was held in expensive foreign currencies and much of the debt was held at high interest rates. This greatly increased the amount needed to service the debt, that is, to make the interest payments. By FY 2004, less than 22% of the debt was in foreign currencies and government continued to roll over its high interest debt in lower-rate loans. Such is the improvement that in 2004, the province was paying slightly less to service its debt than it was a decade earlier yet the total debt (not accrual) was actually $2.0 billion more and debt servicing accounted for 13% of total government expenditures compared to 15% in 1994. Looked at another way, in constant dollars, the provincial government is actually spending less on servicing its debt than it was in the early 1990s despite owing almost 40% more.

An increased debt load with what are admittedly transient increases in both the economy and provincial revenues do not make for a windfall. Nor does it support dramatic increases in program spending or capital works.

Consider as well that in his remarks to the Telegram editorial board, Premier Williams spoke of spending the supposed windfall on public infrastructure around the province, especially in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2004, infrastructure cash was supposed to come from a new transfer payment from the Government of Canada designed to offset Equalization losses.

That deal, when it was finally signed, actually did not effectively double offshore revenues, as the Premier had originally sought. Instead, it added a single lump sum payment of $2.0 billion. That money sits collecting interest at a rate of about $5.0 million per month, with no publicly announced plans on what the government plans to do with either the $2.0 billion or any of the $60 million in interest coming from it.

Against this backdrop, one must look at the Premier's comments with some degree of concern. The provincial government still has no coherent plan for tackling the long-term financial issues identified by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. There is no commitment to paying off debt.

The "revitalization" of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, embodied in the Williams administration's Rural Secretariat is merely a slightly revamped version of the ruralist approach of the previous Grimes and Tobin governments. This was simply a collection of short-sighted efforts to avoid dealing with the substantive changes coming to much of Newfoundland Labrador as a result of changes in demographics and in the economy.

One of the last acts of the Wells administration, in December 1995, was to approve release of a discussion paper on a Strategic Social Plan [SSP] for Newfoundland and Labrador. While the incoming Tobin administration scrapped the planned release and ordered copies destroyed, some have survived. The introductory essay describes the looming changes in simple and compelling detail.

Beyond the outmigration resulting from the collapse of the cod fishery and the then-anticipated economic growth from oil and Voisey's Bay (see the conclusions of the 2002 provincial report linked above), rural Newfoundland and Labrador would change dramatically from what it had been. A chronically low birth rate would produce an internal migration from small coastal communities to larger centres. Changes in the fishery would reduce the number of workers there and, if allowed to take its natural course, the fishing industry would dramatically lower the number of people employed while increasing the earnings of those involved. Overall, the workforce would be smaller than the non-working population - the so-called dependent population - for the first time in many decades.

Newfoundland and Labrador is not alone in this respect. Quebec is in much the same situation, as the recent Quebec Lucide manifesto reveals.

At home, we have a curious mixture of action from the provincial government. On the one hand, the provincial government's raw materials sharing plan for the crab industry reflected yet another attempt to forestall changes that demographics and economics would otherwise produce in Newfoundland and Labrador. This echoed the actions of both Brian Tobin and Roger Grimes.

At the same time, Premier Williams comments to the Telegram echo the Strategic Economic Plan [SEP] and the real Strategic Social Plan of the Wells administration. His description of regional hubs and a focus on local strengths as a means of diversifying local economies around the province are lifted almost word for word from the SEP and comments by Clyde Wells.

What appears to be missing from the Williams administration is a clear-eyed vision of the province's challenges and of its solutions. Both the Wells SEP and SSP had such a vision, derived not from the Premier's Office or Clyde Wells' own predilections but from intensive discussion among the province's own people. That the development vision survives today as core economic development policies from the Williams' administration is testament to its fundamental strength.

Before the Premier starts spending any of the windfalls he has coming this year and over the next five years or so, he might want to actually produce an integrated economic and social plan. The many promises of plans contained in the last Throne Speech, indeed all the promises of plan that have been made since October 2003, do not add up to very much of anything at all.

The clock is indeed ticking and before we spend the future of the province and its people, the Premier and his administration might be well advised to climb up and tree, see what the future may bring and set the province on the course.

A little straight talk often times goes a long further than singing one's praises to earn both proper recognition for the good job done already and continued support for the journey ahead.

Spending the future (2005) #nlpoli

" [The change in the province's financial outlook] That's very dramatic...Some people are going to stand back and say 'Oh yeah, that's just because your very lucky. That's because the oil prices have gone up.' Well, no. That's part of it. But we had a tough budget, a prudent budget. We've managed the province, fiscally, very tightly."

Premier Danny Williams

Quoted in "Cash boon may fund province's infrastructure"

by Rob Antle, The Telegram, 22 October 2005, p. A3

Premier Danny Williams is absolutely correct.

The provincial government's financial state is a direct result of oil and gas revenues. High oil prices have produced a boost beyond what the Real Atlantic Accord, the offshore royalty regimes and development at Voisey's Bay would have produced anyway.

Unfortunately, the premier's positive comments may have two unwelcome results. First it may make it seem as though the province can afford to increase spending in a number of ways. Second, his comments divert attention away from the fundamental failure of the Williams administration, two years into its mandate, to produce integrated plans to address the province's financial windfalls in a way that will yield the greatest long term benefit.

Paging Dr. Freud #nlpoli

Moya Greene, head of the Premier’s Economic Recovery Team, told municipal leaders last week that the provincial government spends almost $2.0 billion less on health care than it actually does.

Weird.

She said the government spent 25% of its budget on health care.  VOCM reported it: “Greene says healthcare is about 25 per cent of the province’s total expenditures, and that it is a conversation we have to have.”

The actual share in 2019 was 42% and the forecast share in 2020 in 37%. You can find the figures in the budget tabled in the House of Assembly at the end of September.

This is a really bizarro comment since Greene is already well into her job of sorting out both government overspending and re-organizing the economy.  She should have a handle on all numbers. 

After all, Greene and her provincial recovery team will deliver a preliminary report by the end of February. Sure she’s not due to have the whole thing finished until April, but the first deadline of February is really only about three months away, if you allow an interruption for Christmas.

But that’s not the only weirdness.

Where the money goes – 15 years later

Just to put the Strategic Social Plan (1995) in a bit of context, you should realise that health care spending as a share of the provincial budget has increased dramatically in the past 15 years while other sectors have stayed the same or decreased.

The change is actually quite dramatic – 10 percentage points – from 265 in 1995 to reportedly 36.8% in 2010.  In dollars, spending on health care has tripled in the province since 1995 and the health share of the budget going from $933 million to $2.7 billion in a decade and a half.

This chart compares the 1995 figures from the Estimates with the recently tabled budget. It corresponds to a chart (Figure 2) from the 1995 Strategic Social Plan consultation paper. The light blue line represents the 1995 budget while the purple-blue line is the current budget estimate.

The province’s business development and economic diversification efforts – ITT then and INTRD and Business today – take less of a share of the budget now.  That’s despite government claims that it has a plan to expand the economy and that the plan is in place.

Mind you, the amounts spent have increased.  For example, the cost of operating the departments has gone from about $50 million for the Industry, Trade and technology department to about $66 million spread over Business and Innovation, Trade and Rural Development today. 

The amount available for business investment is also up:  $18 million then compared to $29 million. Even then, though, the province’s business department -  the vehicle through which Danny Williams was once supposed to personally reinvigorate the provincial economy – actually doesn’t do very much with the cash in the budget.  Sure there are plenty of free gifts – like Rolls Royce – or the apparently endless supply of cash for inflatable shelters. 

But as the Telegram discovered two years ago, the provincial government spent nothing at all of the $30 million budgeted for business development in 2007. And earlier this year the Telegram confirmed that in the past three years, less than one third of the $90 budgeted for business attraction was ever spent.

Spending on education is down as a share of the overall budget, even though the amount spent is up from $763 million to $1.2 billion.

Interestingly, the most dramatic decline has been in what the budget estimates call Consolidated Fund Services.  Basically CFS covers all those expenditures that it takes to pay the interest on the public debt, maybe retire whatever tiny portion comes due each year, cover bank charges and  that sort of thing.

As a share of the budget, CFS has gone from 17% to 6.6%.  In dollars we are talking $403 million this year to service the public debt and another $87 million to cover employee retirement plans.  Fifteen years ago, the figures were $544 million and $60 million respectively.

Some bright bunny out there is likely hopping up and down thinking that the big improvement there is due to the actions of the current administration in paying off debt. 

Some bright bunny like innovation minister Shawn Skinner, speaking in the budget debate last week:

Our net debt, that big yolk around our necks that everybody talks about, that big millstone that drags everybody down which was about $12 billion - that is billion with a ‘b’ - when this government took office is now down by $3.9 billion to just under $8 billion. We have gone from a twelve-billion-dollar debt down to an eight-billion-dollar debt in six short years. Now, that is good economic policy I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker. That is good fiscal policy and that is something that the people of this Province understand and appreciate. I do not have the figures right in front of me …

Well, not exactly.

The taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador actually have greater liabilities now than they did in 1995. 

What Skinner mentioned was net debt – liabilities less any assets – and that figure has actually gone back up in the past year.  Why?  Well because the provincial government had to dip into its cash reserves to avoid borrowing money from the banks to cover the $500 million they were short last year.  It’s also a couple of billion or so beyond what it was in the bad old days of the mid-1990s when the provincial government had no where near as much cash flowing in as it does today.

There’s no real point in going into the debt charade Skinner and his colleagues have been foisting the past few years. Regular readers of these scribbles are well-used to the argument.

What we really have to look at are the things that make the cost of carrying that debt lower today than in 1995. 

For one thing, interest rates are much lower than they were when some of that debt was incurred in the 1980s.  As old debt at high interest rates has matured, successive administrations simply rolled it over at much lower rates.  In that respect, the current crowd are doing exactly what the former crowd used to do. It’s a perfectly sensible thing to do when you don’t have the cash to pay debt off.

For another thing, the debt today is pretty much all in Canadian currency.  In the 1990s, chunks of the debt  - upwards of a third of it - were in American dollars and Japanese yen.  The weak Canadian dollar over the years meant that the taxpayers shelled out bundles in order to pay interest in higher valued currency.  Starting in the Wells administration, the provincial government started rolling over that foreign debt and borrowing Canadian.  That has saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions over the years.

For a third thing, the direct provincial debt  - the money the provincial government itself owes – has been dropping again from the high incurred during the Williams administration. Yes, that’s right for all the pitcher plants clogging the local media Internet sites thinking other. 

The direct public debt actually hit its peak of almost $7.0 billion under the current crew.  In fact,  the guy the pitcher plants and Fan Clubbers love to hate – Roger Grimes – left office in 2003 with the provincial government direct debt lower than the direct debt under Danny Williams today:  Grimes = $6.5915  billion versus Williams 2010 = $6.6468 billion. 

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Building on our successes #nlpoli

"First and foremost, be totally honest with the electorate,”  former Premier Clyde Wells told Anthony Germain on CBC’s Sunday Edition last weekend.  He was giving some general advice to the next Premier on how to handle the provincial government’s enormous financial problems.

“Don't go sugar-coating anything. Fully disclose what you're doing [and] why you're doing it. Have a logical plan that will treat everybody fairly.”

Right after honesty,  came communication in Wells' approach.  Hes told Germain that he took every opportunity to explain what was going on and why it was happening to the public.  He made a couple of televised province-wide addresses to do just that.   

People didn’t like it at first.  The opposition parties and the unions criticised everything.  That’s what they are supposed to do.  But, as Wells, pointed out, “the people of the province come around. In my case, it was proven that they come around, because in the 1993 election, after four years of the most severe cutting, we had an increased majority.”

Few Premiers have done that in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1855 and none have done it since Wells.  In 2007, with bags of cash, great times, and no opposition to speak of, the governing Conservatives won more seats than they did in 2003 but they did it with fewer votes.  In 1993, the Liberals got *more* votes than they received in 1989.

But that doesn’t really tell the whole story.

What started in 1989 was a change in strategic direction for the provincial government and the province. 

The provincial government didn’t just cut spending and eliminate jobs in the public service.  Reforms to health care and education organization and governance were supposed to shift power out of the bureaucracy in St. John’s and hand it to people in the regions where they lived. 

Education reform was tied to improving economic performance and opportunities laid out in the Strategic Economic Plan.  The plan was the product of a two-year-long process spearheaded by the economic planning group, appointed by cabinet in the summer of 1990 under the chairmanship of the Premier's chief of staff, Edsel Bonnell.  The group brought together a diverse set of individuals with an equally diverse set of ideas. There were within the group contending ideas, as former chairman of the Economic Recovery Commission Doug House describes in his book Against the tide. 

The process the SEP team used overcame those differences and built a consensus on a future direction found on three fundamental changes, as laid out in the introduction to the plan:

• A change within people. There is a need for a renewed sense of pride, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship. We must be outward-looking, enterprising, and innovative, and to help bring about this change in attitude we will have to be better educated. During the consultation process, most people agreed that education is essential to our economic development.
• A change within governments. Governments (both politicians and the bureaucracy) must focus on long-term economic development and planning, while still responding to short-term problems and needs. Government programs and services must place a greater emphasis on the quality of the services provided and on the client. Changes in education, taxation and income security systems are also considered critical to our economic development.
• A change in relationships. To facilitate the necessary changes in the economy, new partnerships must be formed among governments, business, labour, academia, and community groups. In particular, better co-ordination between the federal and provincial governments in the delivery of business and economic development programs is needed to eliminate duplication and to prevent confusion for those who use them.

What happened in 2003 abandoned that strategic approach in favour of (once again) using provincial spending as a substitute for economically and environmentally sustainable private sector development. Megaprojects were all the rage and economic development became basically an exercise in handing out cheques.  Changes to education and health care governance put power back in the hands of the central bureaucracy and minimised the connection between schools or hospitals and the communities they served.

In every respect, the current financial and organizational mess of the provincial government is the result of the strategic change of direction after 2003.   Dwight Ball’s “Way Forward” stays within all the same strategic premises. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t fixed the problems.

Any proposal from any political party that doesn’t change the strategic direction of the province won’t succeed in fixing the current financial problems the provincial government faces.  That doesn’t mean going back to the 1992 strategic plan, which was designed for a different situation. 

It means using the same integrated approach, though, starting with the understanding that only a strategic shift will work.  The process is important as:  strategic change is only possible with a consensus across the province. A strategic consensus is essential because making strategic changes will require a commitment that will last beyond one four-year administration.

That consensus will only come with a lot of public discussion and debate. There will be differences of opinion.  There needs to be a lot of disagreement to make sure we explore all the options before setting on a new strategic plan made up of elements that can work.  

The new strategic plan must shift the focus of economic development from government to the private sector.  Government needs to create the environment in which the private sector can succeed while protecting the public interest through proper regulation.

The plan needs to focus not on specific topics – like substituting “tech” for the current obsession with oil – but on creating an environment in which the private sector can respond to market forces.  We cannot know what will be important in the future.  Instead, we need to create the economy that can best respond to shifts.

The lesson from the 1990s is that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can solve their own economic and financial problems. Wells’ interview this past weekend is the first he’s given in almost 30 years and it is a reminder of what happened here, not in Saskatchewan or Iceland. 

We’ve been ignoring what happened in the 1990s in Newfoundland and Labrador.  People are casting about for some easy answers to their current problems that don’t involve actually changing anything. Unfortunately for them, more of the same simply isn’t an option.  

Well, the answers are right in front of use.  We just have to decide to build on our past successes rather than continue with tales of doom and gloom that get us nowhere. After all, it’s not like we haven’t faced bigger problems than the ones we have today and solved them ourselves.

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Guiding Principles for Economic Development

from the

1992 Strategic Economic Plan

1. The Province must focus on strategic industries. With increasing competition in world markets and limits to growth in primary- resource industries, the Province must target high-value-added activities in which we have, or can develop, a competitive advantage.
2. Our education and training system must adapt to the changing labour market demands for a highly skilled, innovative, and adaptable workforce. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, it is critical that governments, business, and labour work together to improve the level and quality of education, training, and re-training.
3. Newfoundland and Labrador must be competitive both at home and in world markets. To improve our prospects for economic growth and  development, and to maintain and expand local and export markets, the province must diversify its economic base by producing goods and services that are internationally competitive in price, quality, and service.
4. The private sector must be the engine of growth. While it is the role of government to create an economic and social environment that promotes competitiveness, it is the enterprising spirit of the private sector that will stimulate lasting economic growth.
5. Industry must be innovative and technologically progressive to enhance productivity and competitiveness. A competitive advantage can be created by integrating advanced technologies in the workplace with the innovation, skills, and creativity of our people.
6. To achieve economic prosperity, there must be a consensus about the need for change and a commitment from governments, business, labour, academia, and others to work together in building a competitive economy.
7. Government policies and actions must have a developmental focus where the client comes first. The structure of government must be streamlined, efficient and responsive to public needs and to changes in the economy.
8. The principle of environment must be managed to ensure that development can be sustained [economically and environmentally] over the long term.  

 

15 ideas (and more) – Setting the Table

Our economic vision for Newfoundland and Labrador is that of an enterprising, educated, distinctive and prosperous people working together to create a competitive economy based on innovation, creativity, productivity and quality.

Strategic Economic Plan, 1992

Our social vision for Newfoundland and Labrador is of a sharing society which balances its economic and social interests, cares for its disadvantaged, nurtures its human and physical environment, celebrates its quality of life and traditional values of individual respect and community responsibility and provides opportunities for personal and collective achievement.

Strategic Social Plan Consultation Paper, 1995

 

Within a mere two decades, Newfoundland and Labrador transformed almost two centuries of economic backwardness into unprecedented growth.

And yet, as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, a number of factors, some identified in the early 1990s, threaten to rob Newfoundlanders and Labradorians of the bright future they worked to achieve through careful planning, steady work, and a steely determination to endure.

Public sector debt remains at record levels.  Rather than reduce debt, the current Conservative administration plans to increase the debt burden still further by building an economically unsound megaproject.  What’s more, the most recent economic forecast predicts that the current administration’s policies could triple the debt within a decade.  That is on top of the burden from the  Muskrat Falls megaproject.

Changes in the province’s population, forecast in the early 1990s, have started to create pressure for new government spending and more government spending.  Just paying the interest on the growing debt will rob money that could be helping to pay for those new services.

The highly competitive global economy that has emerged in the past 20 years, coupled with fall-out from the recent recession, will demand even greater inventiveness if businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador will meet the challenges these changes present. 

Yet, over the past decade government policy has fostered greater social and business dependence on government hand-outs.  The result is a fragile economy that will grow less robust and more susceptible to set-backs.

The answer to these challenges can be found in the principles that lay at the heart of the 1992 Strategic Economic Plan: 

• We must foster a change in people.  We must renew genuine pride, self-reliance and entrepreneurship. We must once more become outward-looking, enterprising, educated and innovative. 
• We must change government.   Our people do not need saviours or demigods.  They can run their own affairs.  We must introduce fundamental democratic reforms.  Decisions about education, health and economic development must be made closer to the people directly affected by them. The role of government is to create an environment in which the private sector can develop economically and environmentally sustainable  businesses.
• We must change relationships. We must replace the chaotic, secretive and highly centralised government of the past decade, with mature, professional and open government based on sound long-term planning and a genuine understanding of the province’s long-term interests.  Beyond that, we must forge new relationships among governments, business, labour, academia and community groups of the sort envisioned two decades ago. We must build a strong relationship between the federal and provincial governments in order to deliver government services as efficiently and effectively as possible while ensuring that the people who pay for those services can hold the right government to account for what they do.

The ideas that will follow in posts over the coming days and weeks are nothing more than the starting point for discussion.

Only through vigorous, free-wheeling public debate can we build a mutual understanding among all the people of the province on both the necessity of change and of the specific changes themselves.

Change is not a luxury.

Change is not merely possible.

Change is essential.

- srbp -

Next:  Building the Fishery of the Future

Strategic Social Plan (1995) – Social Profile

This Province's unique advantage is the strength of character, resilience, ingenuity and enterprise of its people. In the past 50 years, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have experienced a political, cultural, economic, and social revolution.

People who have not yet reached retirement age have lived through, and coped with, the events of World War II and the impact of the establishment and subsequent decline of American and Canadian military bases; the dawn of the nuclear age; the change of political status from a British dominion to a province of Canada; the surge toward industrial development, inflow of national and multinational companies, globalization of trade, decline of traditional resource industries and shift to new-economy enterprises; the disappearance of hundreds of small rural communities; the victory over tuberculosis, and the threat of AIDS; progress in achieving women's rights and equality of opportunity and the emergence of women as a force for social change, economic renewal, and expansion of the labour market; changes in traditional family structures; the establishment of social safety nets such as unemployment insurance, social security programs, and universal health care; chronic unemployment, the loss of career security and the increase in public awareness of, and concern for, the environment.

The pace of change has been challenging for North America generally, but it has been more dramatic in Newfoundland and Labrador because of the relatively sheltered existence and relaxed lifestyle which we enjoyed before the flood of highways, radio and television, fast-food and retail chains, and computers. Other people in cities and towns across Canada and the United States have not had to make such a quantum leap economically and culturally in the past half-century.  It is a long way indeed from pondering the literary delights of The Royal Readers to indulging in nightly armchair visits to the televised violence in the streets of downtown Detroit.

Economists and historians talk of the three great revolutions which have shaped civilization: the agrarian (natural resource), industrial, and information ages. Many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have experienced all three eras in the condensed time frame of the past five decades.

We have not only withstood such immense culture shock, but we have profited by it. This Province's unique advantage is the strength of character, resilience, ingenuity and enterprise of its people which has endured and intensified through 500 years of colourful, often chaotic, and always challenge-filled history. We have a tradition of turning constraints into opportunities, adversity into achievement, and despair into hope. It is this legacy of self-reliant determination and creativity that has sustained Newfoundland and Labrador through recession, fiscal restraint and the loss of its basic resource industry, and is building an economy that will be stronger and more diversified in the global market-place. It is also the force which must be brought to bear upon the challenge of effectively addressing social changes and issues of the late 1990s, identifying future trends and planning appropriate long-term strategy and allocating available financial resources in a manner that supports the goals and objectives.

In this respect, the Province's social ing efforts are constrained by national fiscal  realities. Social reform in Canada today is characterized by reductions in Unemployment Insurance benefits, limita­tions on the Canada Assistance Plan, re-evaluation of health care, less federal assistance for education and training, and a move toward block funding for overall provincial social programs.  Untenable and unsustainable national and provincial debt loads and lower transfer payments combine to further restrict the ability of Newfoundland and Labrador to address pressing social issues. The comparative national and provincial fiscal resources are shown in Figure 3.

The message is clear:  we have to find ways and means to spend smarter; in other words to do more with less.  It is a daunting challenge.

In order to accomplish this task, we must first consider realistically where we are and where we are heading as a province.  We cannot address 21st century problems with 20th century (or in some cases 19th century) approaches, solutions, or attitudes.

Although sectoral issues and trends will be dealt with in greater detail in succeeding chapters of this Consultation Paper, certain elements of our Provincial social profile are highlighted in this section in order to put the planning exercise in perspective and to provide the basis for determining an overall social vision, appropriate guiding principles, and attainable goals and objectives.

-srbp-

Next:  Demographic Change and Challenge

House of Cards (Part A) #nlpoli

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This is the third in a four part series on the current financial crisis the provincial government is facing.  The first instalment – “The origins of rentierism in Newfoundland and Labrador” – appeared on Tuesday and the second – “Other People’s Money”  - appeared on Wednesday.  The third instalment – “Rentierism at the national and sub-national level” -  appeared on Thursday.

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Finance minister Jerome Kennedy told the Telegram’s James McLeod on Wednesday that the provincial government had a structural deficit problem.

His proof was that government spent 60% or so of its total outlay each year on the social sector.  That includes health, social services, justice, and education.  If that’s what Jerome is worried about then he and his cabinet colleagues should know that in 2005, they spent 67% of their budget on the social sector.  In 2003,  the last year the Liberals ran the place, they spent about 64% of the budget on the social sector.

Before he goes all Grim Reaper, Jerome should know spending that kind of percentage on the social sector isn’t unusual for governments across Canada.  That’s been pretty much the norm since the late 1960s when governments introduce publicly-funded health care. In Ontario in 2012, for example, all but about $30 billion of the government’s $126 billion budget went to social program spending.

That doesn’t mean the provincial government doesn’t have a huge financial problem. They do. It just means that Jerome is looking in the wrong place to find a sign of it.

Verbiage Growth Strategy #nlpoli

Right on cue in the controversy over the population growth “strategy”,  a provincial cabinet minister issued a news release late on Monday and assured us that everything will be all right.

There is lots of bureaucratic jargon, like the trendy use of the word “inform”:

The Provincial Government has developed strategies focusing on youth, immigration, seniors and others. These efforts will help inform the development of the Population Growth Strategy.”

Aside from that, there’s very little of consequence in Joan Shea’s release. 

Change and Challenge: Chapter Three - Charting the Course

To address the challenges our Province is facing and to prioritize and co-ordinate government policies so that they will increase the level of wealth in the economy, the Government is committed to implementing a strategic economic plan for Newfoundland and Labrador. This plan articulates a new vision for the future, outlines the guiding principles for economic development, and provides a policy framework to support our strategic industries.

A Vision for the Future

The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is at a turning point in its economic history. To improve our prospects for the future, fundamental changes in attitudes, industrial structure and government policy are required, changes which must be part of a new vision for the Province's economy.

Our economic vision for Newfoundland and Labrador is that of an enterprising, educated, distinctive and prosperous people working together to create a competitive economy based on innovation, creativity, productivity and quality.

A primary role of government in such a society will be to create a positive economic and social climate so that the private sector can respond to opportunities in the global marketplace. To improve our competitiveness, the ideals of productivity, quality, profitability and a passion for excellence must be adopted by government, business, labour and other groups.

Guiding Principles for Economic Development

To achieve our vision, the strategic economic plan is founded on a set of guiding principles for economic development in Newfoundland and Labrador:

1. The Province must focus on strategic industries. With increasing competition in world markets and limits to growth in primary- resource industries, the Province must target high-value-added activities in which we have, or can develop, a competitive advantage.
2. Our education and training system must adapt to the changing labour market demands for a highly skilled, innovative and adaptable workforce. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, it is critical that governments, business and labour work together to improve the level and quality of education, training and re-training.
3. Newfoundland and Labrador must be competitive both at home and in world markets. To improve our prospects for economic growth and  development, and to maintain and expand local and export markets, the province must diversify its economic base by producing goods and services that are internationally competitive in price, quality and service.
4. The private sector must be the engine of growth. While it is the role of government to create an economic and social environment that promotes competitiveness, it is the enterprising spirit of the private sector that will stimulate lasting economic growth.
5. Industry must be innovative and technologically progressive to enhance productivity and competitiveness. A competitive advantage can be created by integrating advanced technologies in the workplace with the innovation, skills and creativity of our people.
6. To achieve economic prosperity, there must be a consensus about the need for change and a commitment from governments, business, labour, academia and others to work together in building a competitive economy.
7. Government policies and actions must have a developmental focus where the client comes first. The structure of government must be streamlined, efficient and responsive to public needs and to changes in the economy.
8. The principle of sustainable economic development must be maintained. Our natural resources and environment must be managed to ensure that development can be sustained over the long term.

A Focus on Strategic Opportunities

Opportunities for growth in the resource, manufacturing and services sectors, combined with a supportive government policy framework, can produce the level of economic activity required to reduce economic disparities between this Province and the rest of Canada. To realize our development potential in spite of limited financial resources, we must concentrate our economic development efforts on business opportunities in areas where we have, or can develop, a competitive advantage.

If we build on our strengths, a logical economic focus is our marine environment - our 10,000 kilometres of coastline and all the resources of nearly 1,000,000 square kilometres of continental shelf. By heritage and by aptitude, our people are knowledgeable, hard-working, and enterprising in marine-related industries. In fish harvesting and processing, in marine communications, in cold ocean research and technology, in offshore oil and gas, in marine-related education and training and in marine-related tourism, we have unique advantages that enhance the competitiveness of our economy.

Another major strength is the Province's environment, culture and quality of life. Such factors are becoming more important in determining where entrepreneurs decide to locate, and these attributes need to be promoted to attract new investment, especially in tourism development.

The initiative, inherent skills, resourcefulness and determination of our people, who have survived and progressed here for five centuries, are also important strengths which need to be developed for the benefit of the Province. These attributes can provide the basis for maximizing our competitive advantages as we adapt to the changing global economy and pursue new opportunities for growth. Action is therefore required to implement human resource development initiatives which build on these personal qualities in order to ensure that we are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop all opportunities which can contribute to economic growth.

To capitalize on these strengths, Government must assume a leadership role in creating an economic and social environment in which the private sector can stimulate real economic growth. To create the right economic climate, Government must ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador industry is equipped with a well-trained, highly motivated and productive workforce which is technologically progressive. Specific initiatives in the areas of education, technology transfer, competitiveness, trade and marketing, and business development are keys to future economic expansion.

Economic Zones and Regions

In addition to implementing the general support policies for economic development identified above, it will also be the role of Government to ensure that each region of the Province is able to participate in and respond to the opportunities which arise. To help ensure this, the Province's five major administrative regions will be sub-divided into 17 economic planning zones (see following map).

This division will provide for better coordination and integration of economic planning and development activities, including the provision of the infrastructure and services that are needed. More specifically, the creation of these economic zones will facilitate or allow:

• the development of economic plans by the people in each zone;
• communities within each economic zone to undertake joint initiatives which will benefit the whole zone;
• Government to strengthen the major centres in each zone to ensure that they have the necessary infrastructure and services to attract new investment and build a strong economic base;
• the economic zones to work more efficiently and effectively with the five regional offices of Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador (ENL) to ensure that each zone's economic plan is considered in the policy and program directions being pursued by ENL and other government agencies;
• the Province to promote more effectively the economic opportunities and strengths of each zone and region; and
• more regionalization of Government administration.

In addition to these advantages, the concept of economic zones will allow the unique characteristics of each region of Newfoundland and Labrador to be identified and better understood by both residents and non-residents. This is especially true for the Labrador region of our Province. While the vision, guiding principles, and general actions outlined in this document apply also to the Labrador region, it is recognized that the uniqueness of Labrador's geography, demography and ethnic diversity means that the region requires specific attention. Throughout this strategic economic plan there are actions which apply specifically to Labrador.

The Province is committed to a co-ordinated effort to develop fully the strengths of the Labrador region in order to improve employment and income prospects through the pursuit of sustainable economic activities based on viable and realistic opportunities. To accelerate this process, the Province will direct the Labrador regional office of Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador to facilitate the integration of economic plans for the five economic zones into a regional economic plan for Labrador.

Underlying these economic plans will be the Province's strong commitment to complete the Trans-Labrador Highway through a cooperative effort with the Federal Government, as well as completing appropriate secondary roads and winter trails; to continue to support and facilitate the expansion of Labrador's resource industries, including hydro developments, and of the low-level military-training activities which are so vital to Happy Valley-Goose Bay; to work with aboriginal peoples in Labrador to ensure their input into Government policy decisions that particularly affect them; to support aboriginal peoples in formulating their own economic development strategies; and to continue to work with aboriginal peoples and the Federal Government to accelerate the settlement of land claims and the establishment of agreed levels of self-government.

A Cooperative Approach

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have indicated that they believe all orders of government have a responsibility to contribute to economic development and that partnership among the federal, provincial and municipal governments is essential to future economic growth. It is counterproductive for one order of government to address economic problems in isolation from the others. There has to be a full, cooperative effort involving all orders of government, as well as the private sector and others with particular interests.

The public recognizes that governments do not have unlimited financial resources and that closer harmonization of programs and policies is thus required to avoid duplication and overlap.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador views this strategic economic plan as a foundation on which all orders of government can actively cooperate to build an economy which is productive and competitive and to restore the confidence which is so necessary to allow Newfoundland and Labrador to contribute positively to the economy of our nation.

-srbp-

Chapter Four (1)

Patricia Anne Cowan, 1943 -2006

I don't recall when I first met Pat Cowan. It was most likely April 20, 1989 at Hotel Newfoundland when she joined her fellow newly-elected Liberal members of the House of Assembly to celebrate their victory.

What I will always remember will be her cheerfulness, her positive disposition and her passionate commitment to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. News of her passing today hit hard, much as it would when a member of the family dies. I haven't spoken to Pat in a few years but memories are as strong as they ever were.

Born in Ontario, Pat came to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1974 to teach. She was a school principal after 1980, elected to the executive of the Newfoundland Teachers' Association (NTA) in 1983 and served as the NTA's first woman president from 1987 to 1989. Cowan served as Minister of Employment and Labour Relations in the first Wells administration.

Others have remembered her commitment to saving greyhounds from being euthanised after their racing careers were over. God save us all if that is all people remember of a truly remarkable woman. While it is too easy to remember the dim-bulbs and the charlatans who infest public life in our province, Pat Cowan was a person who reminded us of the ability and compassion that is more common among public figures than the nay-sayers out there would admit.

In late 1994, Pat was appointed chair of a committee of the House of Assembly - the Select Committee in Childrens' Interests - to examine issues relating to children and youth of Newfoundland and Labrador. It's report, LISTENing & ACTing: A Plan for Child, Youth and Community Empowerment, recommended the creation of a child, youth and family secretariat within government and a child and youth advocate reporting to the legislature.

The work of that committee never went very far after the election of Brian Tobin but Pat did serve as a consultant on development of the strategic social plan consultation paper in 1996.

Pat's efforts on behalf of children and the young people of our province were rewarded with the election of Roger Grimes as leader of the Liberal party and Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001.

The work Pat completed along with Gerald Smith and Harvey Hodder, the other members of the committee, should be her legacy. It reflects not merely her lifelong concern for young people, but also of the commitment to the whole community in which she lived and to the province which became her home.

As the committee put it: "If society chooses to view a child with problems in isolation, then society has chosen to treat a symptom, not the root cause of the problem."

STATEMENT OF VALUES & PRINCIPLES

* We recognize children as human beings having their own rights and responsibilities;

* Children should have adequate access to the resources necessary for a healthy development;

* All children belong with families and need enduring relationships with adults. Children are uniquely dependent on their families for their survival, nurturing and development. This dependence implies that a child-centred approach is necessarily a family-centred approach;

* Bringing up children cannot be seen merely as a private matter, and therefore costs (financial and otherwise) of children should be shared between the family and society;

* Family/professional collaborations and partnerships are key to a child welfare system that is proactive, preventative and facilitative;

* The interdependence of social and economic development requires an integration of social and economic policies. Specifically, children should have a right to participate in the life and decision-making of society, directly or indirectly according to the child's age and development. (Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Social Workers, viii-ix).

The tragedy of Pat's death is that is is far too soon. She did so much good in her time on this Earth and while illness sometimes slowed her, she undoubtedly had more to accomplish. Those of us who knew her can be grateful for the blessing that came out of just being around Pat. Her family can be comforted knowing that she will not be forgotten; she did far more than most to make her world better than it was.

The world is a poorer place today, but Heaven is undoubtedly richer by far from Pat's being there.

Change and Challenge: Chapter One - The Changes

The Changes

In the fall of 1990, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador began the process of developing a strategic economic plan for the Province. This planning process involved three phases. During the first phase, government departments and agencies reviewed their activities, assessed the economy's strengths and weaknesses, and identified threats and opportunities within our existing resource industries as well as in our other strategic industries.

Further research and analysis concerning various sectors of the economy were undertaken during Phase 2, and a public consultation paper was published to give the people of the Province an opportunity to have a say in the vision, guiding principles and actions that have become the strategic economic plan. The Advisory Council on the Economy (ACE), an independent advisory group comprising representatives from business, labour and other groups, co-ordinated the release of nearly 11,000 copies of the consultation paper, and in the fall of 1991, public consultations were held in 16 locations across the Province.

Altogether, the public consultation process resulted in 15 public meetings, 15 meetings for formal presentations, 5 regional round tables, a provincial round table, and the submission of 261 written briefs. Government also held meetings with industry groups, and several submitted reports. A final report on the results of the consultation process was prepared by ACE and published in April 1992.

This process provided some sobering insights into the challenges the Province's economy must face and established that there is a broad consensus for change. Most people now realize that government spending is becoming increasingly limited, and that there must be less dependence on government transfers. Most also recognize that working together to establish a competitive economy is the key to strengthening our economic and social fabric.

Some of the fundamental changes that people said they wanted to see are:

• A change within people. There is a need for a renewed sense of pride, self-reliance and entrepreneurship. We must be outward-looking, enterprising and innovative, and to help bring about this change in attitude we will have to be better educated. During the consultation process, most people agreed that education is essential to our economic development.
• A change within governments. Governments (both politicians and the bureaucracy) must focus on long-term economic development and planning, while still responding to short-term problems and needs. Government programs and services must place a greater emphasis on the quality of the services provided and on the client. Changes in education, taxation and income security systems are also considered critical to our economic development.
• A change in relationships. To facilitate the necessary changes in the economy, new partnerships must be formed among governments, business, labour, academia and community groups. In particular, better co-ordination between the federal and provincial governments in the delivery of business and economic development programs is needed to eliminate duplication and to prevent confusion for those who use them.
  

The final phase - implementation, monitoring and evaluation -begins with the release of this strategic economic plan. The plan will be monitored and evaluated as it is put into effect, to ensure that it is working and that it is responding to new challenges and opportunities. Throughout this process, Government will continue to encourage public participation and to seek the advice of business, labour, academia, community groups and individuals throughout the Province.

-srbp-

Chapter Two - The Challenges

The value of education

Talk about putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

The provincial government thinks innovation is about how much money it spends on something. Take this quote from Danny Williams as being just one of many:

That is an area [innovation] we are now moving in. It is a very, very important area that we have to address and this government is committed to putting that money into that research. That is why the experience that I had yesterday was an incredible experience, but it goes to show the importance of using those monies in the proper areas so that we can prepare for the future at a time when the oil and gas is gone.

That event, incidentally happened actually two days before he made those remarks.  The province’s new research and development corporation announced $775,000 in funding for different research projects.

This emphasis on cash is not surprising. The crowd currently running the place seem to think that everything can be reduced to how much money government spends. 

But as good as it is to fund research and development, when it comes to innovation, education is the key.
When you look at education in the province, though, you don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Reading and writing is a challenge.

Almost half the adult population of Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a literacy level that would allow them to “function well in Canadian society.”

Basic math skills are an even bigger problem.

Almost two out of every three adult Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don’t have the skill with numbers and mathematics – they call it numeracy – to function well in Canadian society.

Numeracy is actually a far greater problem because it involves not just an ability to add, subtract, multiple and divide.  Numeracy also involves logic and reasoning, probability, and statistics.  That's basically the ability to solve problems using  - for example - an }if this, then that" way of thinking.

The only place worse off than this one?  Nunavut.  New Brunswick is tied with Newfoundland and Labrador with low numeracy and literacy levels among adults.

Just think about it for a second:  half the workforce of the province lacks the ability to function adequately in modern society. It’s not their fault, mind you, and it certainly doesn’t mean they are stupid.  These figures tell you that the province’s education system failed them, not just in the past but in the present day.

The problem, you see, isn’t confined to adults. Student literacy is about the same as the adult scores, while student numeracy is nothing to write home about either. 

Now on the other hand, the drop-out rate has plummeted in the past 20 years. But as CBC Radio noted late last December, high school graduates in the eastern part of the province are more likely to graduate with a general pass than with the results needed to carry on to university or trades training.

You can see the consequences in the completion and participation rates. University participation is among the best in the country even if the completion rate is one of the worst. College and trade school education has a relatively low participation rate but a decent completion level.

It’s not like the connection between education and prosperity isn’t well known.  The 1992 Strategic Economic Plan included a section specifically on education reform. The premise was simple enough:

Education is the key to economic development. Studies have shown conclusively that skills, qualifications, innovation and the adaptability of individuals are critical determinants of economic performance and the success of enterprises.

The 1995 Strategic Social Plan, while never implemented, included significant reforms in our education system.

The answer to the education problem in the province is not merely about spending money, as much as the Premier likes to talk about how much cash winds up going out the door.  Nor is the answer found in issuing nonsensical news releases that claim the education department scored a goal when it didn’t.

The first step is to realise there is a problem.

And with half the work force unable to function adequately in modern society, there’s a pretty big problem going unrecognized.

- srbp-

The Emergency Response Disaster #nlpoli

Communities on the northeast Avalon recovered relatively quickly from the worst blizzard in the province’s recorded history. However, the recovery in the City of St. John’s was slower than that of the neighbouring municipalities.  Both the mayor and one media commentator have placed responsibility for this on the provincial government and out-of-date legislation.  However, the actual problems in the recovery in St. John’s stemmed from the City’s approach to recovery operations. Other issues that have not gained significant public notice persisted because of the province’s failure to intervene.

The General Situation

Residents of the northeast Avalon came through the largest blizzard in the province’s recorded history with relatively few fatalities and virtually no reported incidents of significant damage to property or infrastructure.  That is remarkable in itself given the storm and a smaller snowfall that followed on its dropped more than  100 centimetres on parts of the region and wind gusts hit between 1305 and 150 kilometres an hour during the peak of the blizzard. 

Of the roughly 250,000 affected by the storm, only about 10% - 27,000  - lost power during the storm and the bulk of those had their power restored within 48 hours of the last snow flake. This contrasts with 2014 when a series of events knocked out power to a significant portion of the island for several days. 

Two avalanches reported publicly damaged houses and caused people to leave their homes but without injury.  This is in contrast to a relatively minor blizzard in 1959 that caused an avalanche that The Battery in St John’s that killed nine people.

Municipalities in the region had cleared at least passable cuts on all streets within 48 to 72 hours after the storm subsided on Saturday and by Tuesday all major municipalities had begun to lift their states of emergency to one degree or another. The provincial government had also cleared the major highways to the city within two days of the storm.

The Power of Bureaucracy

One of the first initiatives of the new Williams administration, back in 2004, was to turn the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information (NLCHI) into a Crown corporation.  Not surprisingly, it was a hold-over from the previous administration.

That capped a decade of evolution for the organization in fine bureaucratic fashion.

Now people who know might think NLCHI started in 1996 under the Tobin administration and they'd be partly right.  Tobin's cabinet put a new name on an offshoot of an earlier task force established originally to look at developing a way of sharing and consolidating health information among health care providers across the province. 

Before that - if memory serves - there had also been a technical committee of the computer guys that looked at computerizing records and creating a common set of records for the hospitals in the St. John's area.  Some may recall that in the early 1990s, hospitals in the province were run as individual sites.  Records from one weren't readily available at another and there was no common way of sharing records simply and easily using the marvels of what was then a new technology - the Internet.

If you take a look at the recommendations of NLCHI's immediate predecessor (follow the Tobin link above) and the ideas will sound very familiar. Aside from making fuzzy recommendations on how everyone needed to work together happily, the Health System Information Task Force recommended a raft of ideas from the creation of a new "unique identifier", or health card number, for residents of the province to development a provincial information technology plan.

It's that last one that's particularly interesting in light of revelations on Thursday about Eastern Health's woefully inadequate information management system. CBC's Here and Now obtained a copy of a briefing note prepared for the current health minister last November.  The briefing note detailed, among other things, the inadequate computer systems at Eastern Health that forced officials to review patient files one by one, by hand, to try and determine  how many patients had been affected by the breast cancer scandal.  They couldn't even use an electronic search function, apparently.

Look at the NLCHI site and you'll see a pile of buzzwords, chief among them the stuff that comes in the "vision" paragraph.  Heaven knows that in the "strategic" planning craze of the late 1990s  - it is still with us today - every organization had to have a vision statement and a mission statement:

The Centre's vision is the improved health and well-being of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador by making quality health information available to the public, health professionals, government, regional integrated health authorities, and other people and organizations. Working closely with these stakeholders, the Centre is responsible for the development and management of a province-wide Health Information Network (HIN). This is a tool to help achieve the best possible health for every person in the province. The HIN will help improve health by allowing health professionals to electronically share information with other health professionals. The Centre will support decision-making, planning, and research with reliable statistics and applied health research.

There have been plenty of studies and conferences but, as one may infer from the Eastern Health briefing note, there has been plenty of planning and visioning but not a heck of a lot of concrete action. There's a hefty-sized board overseeing CHI and there is a staff which now comprises about 60 people. There are a bunch of projects that are in various stages of development but aside from the diagnostic imaging project for radiology, most seem to be conceptual or otherwise not focused on the most straightforward and pragmatic approach to delivering service needed at the front-end of acute health care.

In short, the original technical committee looking to figuring out how to wire together computers and find common software standards has morphed into a bureaucracy that continues to grow apace. Participants in the ongoing CHI project will no doubt disagree strongly, but the evidence speaks pretty clearly for itself.

After discussing a unique health identifier to replace the medical care commission number, that idea was scrapped in favour of keeping the MCP number in place.  If memory serves, that study alone took three years before winding up back where it started.

The other major project which is well underway is a $15 million program to replace the existing computer systems in private sector pharmacies with a single, publicly owned one.  Doctors  - the people who actually write prescriptions and the people with primary responsibility for co-ordinating patient care - will only get access to the system in the third phase:

Phase I of the project will include the integration of the province's approximately 180 retail pharmacies and provide a viewer into the emergency departments of acute care facilities; Phase II will include integration with hospital pharmacy systems; and Phase III will provide electronic prescribing capabilities to physicians and other prescribers.

One of the issues identified in the 1995 Strategic Social Plan (approved for release in December 1995 but killed by the Tobin administration in 1996) centred on the implications of growing health care spending driven by, among other things the demographic changes taking place in the province.  Initiatives like health care re-organization in the early 1990s were intended to deliver needed health care as efficiently and effectively as possible.  It was about doing the most possible with a given amount of money, recognizing that the inertia of bureaucracy the doing the same things over and over simply couldn't be sustained.

Look at it this way:  within a decade, the change identified as necessary in 1995 hadn't taken place. In fact, the goal had been abandoned, by degrees.  In 1994 health care consumed about 25% of the provincial budget annually. Even allowing for the re-organization of health and community services, health still consumed 25% of the annual budget five years later. By 2003, that figure was up to 30% and in 2007, health care consumed 32% of the budget. 

One of the reasons for that growth has been the steady retreat from simple, pragmatic approaches toward ones that are demonstrably bureaucratic in nature.  The empire built in CHI is one example.  The 2004/2005 re-organization of health care administration is another. 

Sure the treasury has grown fat over the past five years compared to the leaner times of the 1990s and so some will justify the increased spending on that basis.  People with a vested interest in the system as it has grown will be the first to tell you of all the wonders they've achieved for all the extra money. They'll also tell you that there isn't enough money to meet all the needs, but more must be added, perhaps for more officials to plan and co-ordinate and produce vision statements.

But ask the people flipping through files - electronic or paper - by hand and you might get a different response.

We don't need to ask patients if "the system" works. 

We've been hearing from some of them this week.

Such is the power of bureaucracy.

-srbp-