Come by Chance and the Politics of Inertia #nlpoli

Is *this* the real El Dorado?

More than six months after they shut it down, the company that owns the Come by Chance oil refinery wants to sell it.

 And they want provincial taxpayers to pay.

According to Saltwire, “Glen Nolan, president of the United Steel Workers Local 9316 union, said that in recent conference calls officials of the province’s energy department indicated Silverpeak had floated” the idea that the provincial government would pay to keep the plant in hot idle mode.  

Between 150 and 175 workers have been laid off from the facility since February.  Another 60 or so are working to keep the plant ready to run.   

A deal with Irving – reported by Canadian Press and others as a done deal in late May – came apart for reasons that aren’t clear.

So while they are trying to sell the refinery Silverpeak wants the provincial government to pay to keep the refinery idled in a state where it could get back into production very quickly.  The alternative will be to mothball the refinery and lay off the remaining workers at the refinery.

The only company interested in buying the refinery – Origin International – doesn’t want to run it as a refinery.  But that hasn’t stopped the provincial government from talking it up and for representatives of the union at Come by Chance from being excited at the prospect.

It’s hard to imagine the provincial government won’t put up the cash.

Change versus more of the same: Summer 2020 edition #nlpoli

Link to video

Spring 1994.

At the point Clyde Wells spoke to the graduating class of Memorial University’s business school that year, the administration he led had already started getting government spending under control and transforming the economy.  Wells goes through all of that with the class, why government was undertaking the changes, and what he hoped would be the outcome. 

Give the speech a listen.  It’s only 38 minutes and it is striking on a few levels.  First of all, think of the last time you heard a Premier speak to an audience in Newfoundland and Labrador this calmly, rationally, and with as much detail.  This is not a speech of clever quips or turns of phrase.  This is basic information.

The challenge of change #nlpoli

Change is hard.

 It's even harder when no one wants to change.

Our Former
Dear Premier

Some people outside the Liberal Party have been obsessed lately with the leadership contest currently going on.  They seem to think that one person can make all the difference in how the provincial government will tackle its considerable financial problems.

Well, the belief that the Premier is the strong man or woman responsible for everything is part of our post-Confederation political culture. The strongman myth – a local version of the Latin American caudillo or the Soviet/Russian personality cults - has only grown in strength since 2003 despite the ample evidence it simply isn’t true.  There are many factors that determine what the government does and those will affect the choices the next premier and the administration he leads will make.

Rather than look at the individuals who might wind up as Premier next month, let’s take a look at those other factors.

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.

-srbp-

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.  

 

John Crosbie #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Left to Right:  Bill Doody,  Brian Peckford, John Crosbie, Jane Crosbie,
and Beth Crosbie at the 1983 federal PC leadership convention

The outpouring of praise in memory of John Crosbie, who died on Thursday, has been such a flood of cliché and, in some cases, fiction that it does a disservice to the memory of one of the most significant political figures from Newfoundland and Labrador in the 20^th century.

Remarks by Edward Roberts,  Joe Clark, and Brian Mulroney were closer to the truth of the man than most. Roberts once noted that Crosbie wanted to be leader of anything he was ever involved with, starting with the Boy Scouts. Certainly, that is a testament to Crosbie’s ambition and determination, but in his interview last week, Roberts spoke plainly of Crosbie’s considerable intellectual talents that went with his ambition and determination.  

Likewise, Clark spoke of the respect that public servants and cabinet colleagues in Ottawa had for Crosbie both for his ability and for the professional way he dealt with them.  The politicians understood that Crosbie would be tough to deal with when he wanted to get his way, but they understood that Crosbie never failed to deploy the same fierceness in defence of the team when attacked from outside. The bureaucrats appreciated someone who understood their briefs, especially in portfolios like finance.

By contrast, Rex Murphy, so long removed from Newfoundland and Labrador physically and mentally that his writings on the province are a unique brand of safari journalism, gave the National Post his trademark overwrought prose.  He appears, as well, to have used an equally overwrought imagination to cover over the considerable gaps in his memory of what actually happened now almost a half century ago.  

The one thing Murphy got unmistakably right is to credit Jane Crosbie for her role in John’s political career.  Not to eulogise her before her time but Jane is as much the political force, and understood as such, as John ever was. People in Newfoundland and Labrador today who claim they want to get more women involved in politics – many of them people who know nothing of politics in the province and care even less about it – would do well to spend some time talking to Jane Crosbie and others like her. To say that “Jane was every bit his equal” may well sell Jane short, although the crucial part is that “the only difference [between the two] being she chose the off-stage role.”

The Slaughterhouse Five #nlpoli

Coupled with comparable high rates of staff changes in the senior ranks of the public service,  unprecedented staff turn-over in a critical part of Premier Dwight Ball's office raises questions that need to be addressed.

Premier Dwight Ball has entered the history books.

He has chewed up more communications directors than any Premier since 1972.

Word from the Confederation Building is that Erin Sulley, right, who left community television for the communications business only last October, is now the Premier’s Director of Communications.  It's the most senior political communications job in the provincial government

Sulley was host of Out of the Fog just before joining Ball's staff last fall in the media relations role. In what was a pretty clear conflict of interest, she also started writing a column for the Telegram at the same time.

First Wells ministry, 05 May 1989 #nlpoli

May 5, 1989 was a Friday. 

It only took the couple of weeks between the election on April 20 that year and May 5 for the government to change hands between political parties for only the second time since Confederation.  The House met before the end of the month was out and before that first session ended,  the province had a new budget.

Clyde Wells was the fifth Premier after Confederation.  He was preceded by Joe Smallwood,  Frank Moores, Brian Peckford, and Tom Rideout.  

In the first 40 years after confederation,  we had five Premiers.  Since 1999 - that is, in less than 20 years - we have had eight Premiers.  Dwight Ball is number 13 in the line, the majority of whom since 1999 have served for four years or less.  We might have a fourteenth, depending on how events turn out.

The habit after 2003 has been for a majority party elected in the fall to wait upwards of six months before opening the legislature.  The initial excuse was that there was a work to do in getting ready for the House.  In 2007 and 2011,  the government was re-elected and did the same thing.  

This is the official portrait of the cabinet sworn in May 1989 by Lieutenant Governor Jim McGrath.  The photo is courtesy of Rex Gibbons, who you can see standing on the extreme left. The photographer was Don Lane.

It was a relatively small cabinet at 15. The cabinets immediately before it had had upwards of 23 members. It was also a fairly well-educated cabinet: three of the people around the table had doctoral degrees (two in education and one in geology). There were a couple of lawyers, some teachers, business owners, and folks like Walter Carter who had spent all of his working life in elected public service.

Most of them carried on in cabinet for a while after or in the House and later still went back to their old careers or took on new adventures. Five of the members of that cabinet have passed away since.

The ministry consisted of:

Standing (left to right)

• Rex Gibbons, Mines and Energy
• Eric Gullage,  Municipal and Provincial Affairs
• Walter Carter, Fisheries 
• Chuck Furey, Development  (after 1992 - Industry, Trade, and Technology)
• Dave Gilbert,  Works, Services, and Transportation
• Jim Kelland,  Environment 
• Paul Dicks,  Justice,  Attorney General
• Chris Decker,  Health
• Herb Kitchen,  Finance

Seated (left to right)

• Graham Flight,  Forestry and Agriculture
• Patt Cowan,  Employment and Labour Relations
• Clyde Wells,  Premier,  Intergovernmental Affairs
• His Honour, James McGrath,  Lieutenant Governor
• Winston Baker,  President of the Executive Council,  President of Treasury Board
• John Efford,  Social Services
• Phil Warren,  Education

-srbp-

Corrected name of Furey's portfolio, 09 May 2018)

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.

A no-holds-barred review #nlpoli

Bill Rowe started out with a bright future.

Rhodes scholar.

Youngest cabinet minister in the province's history.

Leader of the Liberal party.

And then he imploded in a fireball fuelled by unfettered ego and spectacularly bad judgement.  Knowing they were stolen, Rowe took police reports on a fire investigation involving a provincial cabinet minister and passed them around to every newsroom in town.  Correctly identified as the source of the leaked reports by a judicial enquiry,  Rowe's political career was over.

Dependence and Independence #nlpoli

For those who might be interested,  Tuesday's post on Churchill Falls and Wednesday's post on the road to Muskrat Falls are a summary of a draft on hydro-electricity development that's been in the works for a couple of years now. It was supposed to be the chapter of a book but it got out of control and might be worth turning into a book.

Sometimes you get caught up in the details of things so it's useful to take a step back and look at the broader themes that emerge from your writing.  One that hadn't appeared before now was the consistency that ran from Joe Smallwood in 1949 through Moores and Peckford in the 1970s and 1980s,  Wells and Tobin in the 1990s and finally Roger Grimes.  

Each of their administrations had as its goal the development of the provincial economy to the point that the provincial government would no longer be what Smallwood called a poorhouse. His vision was a "growing prosperous province of independent families."  That's not surprising if you know anything of Smallwood's experience in Newfoundland from the 1920s onward.  He had disagreements with the federal government, the most famous being the 1959 row over Term 29 payments.

Message Control #nlpoli

Memorial University professor Alex Marland has a new book on the market.  Brand Command is about political communications.  Marland interviewed a lot of people and did a lot of research for this very big book that lots of people should read.

One of the big ideas in the book is that politicians these days are very keen on something called message control.  They have a fetish for consistency so that everyone is singing the same things from the same hymn book, as the metaphor goes. It's an old idea and there are many reasons why politicians like to be consistent.  For one thing,  repetition across many means of communication increases the likelihood the message gets through.

On another level, though,  consistent messaging means ultimately that actions match words.  The message of the words must match the message in the action that makes those words real.

In that sense,  message consistency is about credibility and values and trust. Politicians like to tell people what they believe in and  how they will make decisions. Voters don't spend a lot of time thinking about government so they want someone they can trust to make decisions they agree with or can generally trust are the right ones.  When political analysts talk about "connecting with voters"  that's what they are getting at. 

The real connection voters need to see is the one between the words used to make promises with the actions that follows.  That connection makes the words credible 0 literally, believable - the next time there are words about what the politician will do.

Anything that attacks a politician's credibility is bad and when - as in Ball's case - the wounds are all self-inflicted, then you know there is a huge problem.

So why did Dwight Ball fire John Ottenheimer?

The future of the information commissioner #nlpoli

Donovan Molloy will be the new information and privacy commissioner.  He'll do a fine job, to be sure, but there is something about the appointment that seems a waste of the talents of a fellow who has been the director of public prosecutions.

He'd have made a fine judge, but the last time he applied for that position Molloy got screwed over by the guy in charge at the time.  Eventually, the former deputy minister of justice managed to get himself appointed to a seat where - as he well knew - we didn't need a judge at all.  

And about 11 days after that,  the chief suddenly and for no apparent reason quit his job as chief judge. Cabinet replaced him just as quickly and with no reason whatsoever vaulted his wife - the third most junior judge on the provincial bench at the time - to replace him. 

All very odd, if not downright suspicious.  

Molloy would have also made a fine deputy justice minister.  Too late for that now.

A mess in the government access and privacy world #nlpoli

Two recent stories about the province's access to government information and privacy laws.

Both of them are essentially nonsense.

Short version for the new administration:  cock-ups in comms and access to government information helped destroy the Conservatives.  Since you've already got big communications problems, adding screw-ups in ATIPPA to the mix is just no good at all.

Cabinet documents and no brainers #nlpoli

Years ago,  a couple of enterprising reporters at CBC submitted what was then a request under the Freedom of Information Act for information about entertainment expense allowances for senior bureaucrats and cabinet ministers.

They got the information and aired a story that claimed that, in a time of great restraint,  the government had increased the budget for entertainment. It was a wonderful story that made the government look bad and that raised all sorts of self-righteous indignation about fat-cat politicians and bureaucrats living it up while the poor folks suffered.

Wonderful story.

Just not true.

If we dither, we die. #nlpoli

by Chuck Furey
________________


"Indecision becomes decision with time" someone once said.

The current fiscal nightmare in Newfoundland and Labrador is real.

One only need compare the amount of borrowing in 1933 (34%} to the borrowing today (30%) as a share of spending. The similarity is stark and raw and scary.

Sadness and desperation come to mind as the ghosts of history now stare down the new Ball government. They certainly didn't make this mess but they are now summoned to clean it up.

From a decade of prosperity to $2 billion deficits: What happened?

By Roger Grimes

Reflecting upon becoming the eighth Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador 15 years ago this month, I found myself chatting with a few friends and associates about where the province found itself fiscally at that time, what happened during the next decade, and where we find ourselves today.

During my tenure as Premier, we were a persistent “have not” province with a deficit problem of roughly ten percent. We ran annual deficits of roughly $500 million on a total budget of $4.5 billion. Now, after a decade of unparalleled prosperity and “have” status within the Equalization system, we find ourselves with a twenty-five percent deficit problem comprised of a $2 billion deficit on an $8 billion total annual budget.

The smallest details tell the biggest story #nlpoli

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

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

Wonderful news.

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

Near the bottom of a very big rabbit hole #nlpoli

Thursday was one of those days where you felt like you had dropped down the rabbit hole with Alice.

Or maybe had indulged a bit too heavily in some mind-altering substance.

There was Lorraine Michael on the radio complaining that Muskrat Falls would likely cause environmental problems through the release of methyl mercury.  Let’s be clear:  there is nothing we know about Muskrat Falls today on any subject that wasn’t known when Lorraine endorsed Muskrat Falls. Yet, there is Lorraine trying to make it sound like she never, ever supported this megaproject.

Adios to another one #nlpoli

Clyde Jackman is the latest provincial Conservative to quit politics.

That’s not surprising.  He was supposed to go in 2011 but hung around to make sure the party didn’t have to make an serious changes in people or policies.

Jackman had a few colourful moments during his political career, not the least of which was his stint as fish minister.  He scuttled an historic agreement to reform the fishery. Clyde and his colleagues couldn’t be arsed to spend money on it when they had all their cash tied up in other things.

Then there was the time Clyde and his colleagues couldn’t be arsed to fund an historic commemoration when Clyde was responsible for tourism.

Other than being part of the crowd that added more public debt to the back’s of provincial taxpayers than all the other administrations since Confederation combined,  Clyde Jackman had a relatively tame political career compared to some of his colleagues.

Now Clyde is retiring.  Not surprising really.  In 2011, he barely scraped back into office in a situation where his party didn’t face huge opposition.  Clyde wasn’t alone.  Lots of his colleagues kept their seats by only the thinnest of margins.  it’s only when you look at the numbers that you realise how just close the Conservatives came to losing in 2011. It wouldn’t have taken much,.

Good bye and good luck, Clyde.

Enjoy the grand-kids.

-srbp-

Chainsaw Earle keeps austerity on the table #nlpoli

NDP leader Earle McCurdy called the province’s major open line show on Thursday and by the sounds of things he hasn’t backed off the position that the size of the government’s financial problems will mean more cuts.

Sure he said he was opposed to austerity,  but what Earle did say was that the government will have to cut jobs, lay people off and slash spending to cope with its financial problems. 

Potato, potato, Earle.