The New Colonialists #nlpoli

The New Colonialists
don't look like the old ones

The last day of September is known as Orange Shirt Day.

It is a day to remember residential schools for Indigenous people, which, as the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in its final report, “were a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”

Across Newfoundland and Labrador, schools featured special events to tell the story of residential schools in Canada. CBC Newfoundland and Labrador ran two stories, one of which was written by a young journalist from Labrador whose grandmothers attended a residential school. His first sentence is both evocative and typical of the emotion that accompanies stories of residential schools.

“For years, the Lockwood School in Cartwright housed Indigenous children taken from their homes all in the name of "killing the Indian within the child."

Another of these “localizer” pieces – ones that give a local angle to a national or international story – explained that “[r]residential schools were established by the Canadian government in the 1800s, with a guiding policy that has been called ‘aggressive assimilation.’ The federal government sought to teach Indigenous children English and have them adopt Christianity and Canadian customs, and pass that — rather than Indigenous culture — down to their children.”  That one was written by a journalist from northern Ontario now living in St. John’s.

In 2017,  CBC reported on Justin Trudeau’s apology to Indigenous people in Labrador for the treatment they received in residential schools.   The CBC story at the time explained that “[b]etween 1949 and 1979, thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities to attend five residential schools that were run by the International Grenfell Association or Moravians.”

There’s only one problem with these stories: they aren’t about residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador.

These stories about Canadian residential schools are imposed on something different, namely the schools in Newfoundland and Labrador, without acknowledging the meaningful difference.

The two are distinctly different.

STI rates in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli

Saskatoon Health Region released a report on July 18 on the rates of sexually transmitted infections in the city in 2013. 

A CBC report earlier this week quoted the deputy regional health officer as saying that social media was having an impact on the rates of syphilis in the city. 

"We do know that meet-ups using social media has led to an increase in these types of infections, and even outbreaks of syphilis, in other parts of the country," Julie Kryzanowski, the region's deputy medical health officer, told CBC News Monday.

That’s actually a follow-on from a similar story in April in which Kryzanowski’s predecessor said that the regional health authority had interviewed some of the patients who reported they “were using certain social media sites to meet sex partners.”

So that got your humble e-scribbler wondering about STI rates in this province.

Paying Attention to Details #nlpoli

Gabriella Sabau is an economics professor at Memorial University's Grenfell campus out in Corner Brook.

Sabau thinks Muskrat Falls is wonderful idea for three reasons.

For one thing, it’s green.  For another thing, the electricity rates for consumers are supposedly low.

And for a third thing, "there will eventually be affordable power that will help attract business and investment." 

Sabau noted the overall cost, though:

“The initial cost of the infrastructure is really high and those initial costs need to be paid up front,” she said.

Hmmm.

Paid up front.

And "eventually" the power will be affordable for consumers.

As it seems, Professor Sabau doesn't know much about Muskrat Falls.  If she did, the economics professor would know that the project costs won't be paid up front. In fact, the project financing is deliberately set up to push the costs off to the distant future.

And it is consumers in the province who will be passing those costs later rather than sooner.  “Eventually” will be a long time for consumers.

On the affordability thing, Sabau will evidently be quite happy.  Business will find the power eminently affordable up front. Because consumers are paying all the costs plus profit, business and export customers get a gigantic deal right at the beginning.

"Eventually" comes quickly for them.   In fact you could say that businesses and export customers will get the huge benefit  immediately.

And those consumers for whom “eventually” really means eventually?  Well, they won’t likely see profit from their considerable investment during the current century.

"Eventually" for the people paying the bills really will be "eventually" as in some undefined point in the far distant, almost incomprehensibly far away future.

You really have to love economists who pay attention before they offer opinions.

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The NDP and Regressive Social Policy: education #nlpoli

those who are interested in education policy and the current election campaign will be fascinated by a chunk of one conversation that broke out on Twitter Sunday. 

Two of the participants were Mark Watton, former Liberal candidate in the Humber West by-election earlier this year and Brad Evoy, a New Democratic Party supporter and former vice president (academic0 of the Grenfell campus Student Union in Corner Brook.

They were discussing NDP policy that would make post-secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador free to any students.

This is an edited version of the conversation, but one that tries to preserves both the flow of the exchange and the thrust of Evoy’s position.  Evoy starts off on accessibility and then morphs into a wider argument:.

Watton:  Just because something costs money, doesn't mean it is inaccessible. …a viable investment i.e. one which individuals, as well as the state, can make.

Evoy:  That's mighty well and easy for you to say, Mr. Watton, but it is not so for many NLers.

Watton:  on what basis do you make that statement?

Evoy:  Again, individual investment should not prohibit what is best for our common good. …Aside from knowing those who suffer under debt loads and turn away from PSE due to cost? … So there is some with the ability to be affluent, that doesn't mean all can….Question now, would you even dare suggest the same for Primary and Secondary Education… As in our society some level of PSE is now as needed just as well as those, in many fields…would it not be better to remove personal wealth from the equation all together? … Is it not more equitable for students to be judged on their merit and pay tax when…...they are all established well enough to do so? That's the idea here….Some form of PSE is quickly becoming an employment baseline...... in many professions. We require skilled persons in our economy.

Watton:  so if something is an employment baseline the state should pay for it for everyone?

Evoy:  Aren't we already doing so from the period when high school was exactly that? …And, again, it's a baseline for many professions and some won't have the academics…

Free or low tuition has been a popular idea for decades.  The arguments in favour f it usually centre on accessibility for people from lower income families.

The only problem for people who make accessibility their foundation is that there isn’t any substantial evidence to support the claim about accessibility and free tuition.

Take a recent study from Ireland as typical.  Kevin Denny of the Institute for Fiscal Studies released a paper in may that looked at the impact of the Irish government policy that wiped out tuition fees in 1996. His conclusion is that eliminating tuition fees had no effect on university attendance by students from lower income families.

What did it do?

The only obvious effect of the policy was to provide a windfall gain to middle-class parents who no longer had to pay fees. [p. 14]

In a footnote Denny indicates there is some reason to believe that these families wound up shipping their children to private schools.  that would likely have had the effect of improving their academic performance which further disadvantaged children from lower income families in the competition to enter university.

Overall, while the numbers of students from low incomes went up after 1996, so too did the number of students from other  family income levels.  The effect was such that the proportions of students in university did not change significantly for the better with the elimination of tuition fees.

Flip back up to Evoy’s comments for a second and look at this bit:

would it not be better to remove personal wealth from the equation all together? … Is it not more equitable for students to be judged on their merit and pay tax when…...they are all established well enough to do so?

The effect of free tuition is the opposite, according to Denny.  It doesn’t take personal wealth out of the equation.  Rather, free tuition delivers a windfall to those who could already afford to send their children to university or who can afford it moreso than those on low incomes.

Incidentally, you can find similar conclusions to Denny’s work in other studies.  A 1990 paper by Benjamin Levin titled  “Tuition fees and university accessibility” noted that university students in Canada tended to be from families where one or both parents had university degrees.  University graduates earned, on average considerably more than non-graduates.  As such, free tuition would tend to provide a disproportionate advantage to those who were better able to pay for education anyway.

That’s without considering that the cost of a university education in this province is already unconnected to the actual cost of the education.  This is especially true in medicine and the other professions where incomes are higher and the ability to repay substantial loans would be much better than say a typical Arts graduate. 

And the other thing these studies have in common is that they found that other factors  - besides tuition fees - affect access to post-secondary education.

If accessibility is the goal, there are other ways to deal with it.  Levin argued that targeted programs were a better way to go.  Means tested grants, for example, or changing the ratio of student loans and grants based on student financial circumstances would help to ensure that students from low income families would not be disadvantaged because of fees.  In the professions, governments can do more of what they do now with a variety of cash incentives as well as provide means-tested grants.

What’s most interesting about the New Democrats and free tuition is the ease with which they have adopted what is essentially a regressive social policy. 

While New Democrats like Evoy talk about accessibility and how the party represents “ordinary” Canadians,  their solution is a blunt tax cut or subsidy approach that appears to be better suited to Conservatives. That’s especially striking in the case of free university tuition where research shows that eliminating fees doesn’t improve accessibility. 

It does, however, provide financial advantage to people who are already better able to pay tuition or people who would be better able to pay in their future career.

The NDP.

Not Tommy Douglas’ socially progressive party any more.

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On missing the point

Mark Watton has been leading the charge against sections of the province’s election laws that allow people to vote when there is no election.

On the face of it, the idea is bizarre.

You’d think it is obviously bizarre.

And yet a political science professor at Grenfell in Corner Brook managed to miss the point entirely in a recent interview with The Western Star:

Meanwhile, Mario Levesque, a political science professor at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, agrees it is a necessity which adds to the democratic process. However, he also says there are adjustments required to address issues around voting prior to the nomination of candidates.

“That is kind of an irritant, but is difficult to address,” the professor said. “It is pretty difficult for all political parties to have candidates in all the ridings two months before the actual election, and sometimes it is three weeks before an election date before a party has a candidate in that riding.”

For starters, Levesque confuses the idea of having allowance for people to vote who might be away from the district or the province on polling day with the idea that they could vote when there is no election.

His comment about parties having candidates in place also isn’t an issue.  Unless a candidate meets the conditions set out in the provincial Elections Act, he or she simply isn’t a candidate. And those are the rules that actually don’t put candidates in place until after the election writ is issued. 

Even then, the candidates are not finally – legally – in place until a week or so before voting day.

Seems ludicrous, then to put it mildly, that people are given ballots to vote two months or so before a likely election date.

This is not really the kind of stuff that should tax people’s faculties. In Levesque’s case, he obviously understands how things work, he just mixes them up.

He also skips over the fairly obvious point that the balloting system affects both voters and those seeking office alike.  The best illustration of that recently would be the case of John Baird.  He originally planned to run for the Liberals.  Then Baird walked away from the Liberal Party  and plans to run as an unaffiliated candidate.

That means that under the law as it stands right now, all those people who want to vote for John Baird can’t. And anybody in a situation like that who had cast a vote for the party because the system didn’t let them vote any other way would be – in effect – disenfranchised if they cast a ballot a couple of months before voting day and before their man switched parties.

Then there’s the scenario that Watton spelled out in the Western Star article.  What happens if an election in a particular district comes down to a difference in vote totals that is smaller than the number of special ballots cast upwards of two months earlier.  That is, people voted one way based on assumptions at the time but then would have voted another way later on.

You see there is a reason why voting takes place on a single day and in the case of advance polls, not much before that one day.  Absentee ballots are handled differently but the process often involves mailing the ballot back.  As long as it is postmarked no later than the actual voting day, the vote can be legally counted even if the mail system stakes a week or more to get the ballot to the voting officials.

Special balloting In Newfoundland and Labrador actually ends well in advance of polling day and not long after the last day for nominating candidates under the election law.  In other words, the system in this province pushes absentees away from voting for individual candidates and forces them to make choices before everyone else and before they actually have a chance to weigh fully what choices they actually have.

Absentee ballots aren’t a bad idea.  In fact, they are a very good idea since they enfranchise people.

The problem comes with the peculiar way the law is written in Newfoundland and Labrador.  That could be fixed with a few simple changes.  Those changes would be easy to make, just as easy in fact as the original changes were made that created the mess in the first place.

The problem is that the politicians aren’t interested in changing the system. 

And why should they?

It favours the people who already have the jobs.

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Tom Rideout: the audio version

The former Premier who left Danny Williams’ cabinet in a huff and under fire from the Old Man himself had a chat with some students at Memorial University’s Corner Brook campus (formerly Grenfell College),

He apparently had a few choice observations, as CBC lifted out for the morning  newscast on Tuesday.  For example, Rideout warned that not much will happen on the fishery  - even though it needs to be done – simply because there’s an election on the way.  Rideout also said something along the lines that the current - or any administration for that matter - administration shouldn’t get a sweep of the House after the next election because that wouldn’t be good for the province.

For the record, here’s a link to podcast of Tom’s interview with CBC radio’s western Morning Show Monday morning: 

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/nlwcmornshow_20101018_39763.mp3

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Inaccurately accurate university enrolment trends

This past week, CBC Radio’s Morning Show interviewed Reeta Tremblay, Memorial University vice president (academic) about a Statistics Canada report on university enrolment for the period 2005-06 to 2008-09.

They did the interview – as host Jeff Gilhooley said in the introduction – based on CBC’s belief that enrolment was  going up.

Now where they got that idea is a mystery since the Statistics Canada figures – taken directly from enrolment figures at the province’s only university – have shown the trending consistently in every annual report they’ve delivered for the past three or four years. The trend is unmistakeable:  enrolment at Memorial University declined in the period.

In fact, the trending was so clear and undeniable that some of us wondered how the two foreign experts who delivered the report on Grenfell autonomy could have possible come up with their bullshit ideas about increasing enrolment when the trends (and the potential student population) were headed downward).

Turns out, those of us who questioned their report were right since even the Old Man himself had to abandon his 2007 election commitment in light of the facts.

But that’s another story.

The crowd at CBC must have been a bit surprised that Reeta Tremblay didn’t actually dispute the Statistics Canada numbers.  The CBC web story has a lede saying Tremblay contradicted Statistics Canada but the fact is she didn’t.  Tremblay just said that the more recent figure for 2009/10 would show a small increase in enrolment.

What Tremblay did do, though, is give credit to aggressive recruiting both at the graduate and undergraduate level for the change in direction. Where to begin untangling that foolishness?

Well, firstly, Tremblay might want to credit the recession with the uptick.  Once the rest of us see the full set of numbers, it might confirm a usual trend, namely that some people who get laid off go back to school. If there is an uptick in Memorial’s enrolment, the recession might have helped a wee bit.

Secondly, and more importantly, that increase in graduate enrolment actually is a mess in and of itself, as Reeta well knows.

Bond Papers readers will recall the sorry tale last March of grad studies dean Noreen Golfman trying desperately to paint lipstick on the pig of a problem she has with fellowships for her academic charges.

Beginning in the fall of 2010 – a period neither Reeta nor the crowd at Stats Can yet has figures for – new grad students won’t be getting any financial help from the university in the form of fellowships valued at $12,000 to $15,000.

The won’t be getting the cash because the senior administration at the university  - including coughreetacough – were forced to freeze the budget on financial assistance to masters and doctoral students in order to cope with a $2.0 million shortfall in the budget for that financial aid.

The budget is short because someone or some group of someones allowed grad school enrolment to balloon by 60% in a single year.  Interestingly that balloon came in the year Reeta cited as one that shows the university enrolment is up. 

But anyway, as your humble e-scribbler put it in March,

Freezing spending is not, as Golfman claimed, “sending the right signal about being fiscally responsible.” Rather it sends a signal that someone or some group of someones was so utterly incompetent that they let the situation develop in the first place. The university administration had to freeze the thing in place or face catastrophe.

Now this isn’t a big issue because you read it here.  It’s a big issue.  It’s such a big issue that…well… let’s let the head of the university professors association tell you, as he told people back in March:

"It means that it will be very difficult to attract graduate students to the university this coming year because when you're a graduate student you apply to different universities and see who is going to offer you the best package," [faculty association president Ross] Klein says. "It affects the stature of the university because the graduate programs are one of the things that raise the stature."

So while the issue about enrolment trends at the province’s only university may show an uptick in 2009/10, we do know that one of the causes for that increase produced a corresponding freeze in financial support for graduate students.

That is a much bigger story than the one CBC had.

And, in case, you missed it, the deeper story is a tale of managerial incompetence, not the rosy yarn of super-effective recruiting that the academic vice-president offered up to Jeff Gilhooley one morning last week.

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Massive cost overruns, delays now normal for provincial government?

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, you really didn’t hear very often about a provincial government construction project in Newfoundland and Labrador going for almost double the original cost estimate.

You’d hear stuff about other places, like say one involving a nuclear power plant in New Brunswick. Or there might be one involving transportation – always a rat’s nest of problems – like say the streetcar line in Toronto or another light rail one in Ottawa.

That was then, as they say.

This is now, where the provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador seems to have a huge problem with construction projects of all kinds.

The latest is the health centre in western Labrador.

Promised originally as a juicy bit of pork for the January 2007 by-election, the project seems stuck like an excavator in winter snow. Other than that, not much has happened.

Not much except watching the cost estimates balloon like an embolism.  According to The Aurora, what was once estimated to cost about $56 million is now estimated to be in the range of $90 million.

That number will get bigger almost certainly.  And at some point, as in Lewisporte and Flower’s Cove, there will have to be an intervention to reduce the sorts of health stuff that happens in the health care centre so that the construction costs don’t go completely off the charts.  

The Aurora report says provincial government officials put the cost spiral down to a construction boom in briefing notes prepared for health minister Jerome Kennedy last fall.

Okay.

Theoretically, that could be the case. There’s just so much construction going on in the province right now that everything is at a premium.  Boom times and all that.  At least, so the idea goes.

There are a couple of problems with that notion. 

First of all, this is a recession and Newfoundland and Labrador hasn’t escaped the recession at all.  Far from it.  Even the provincial government is forecast a huge drop in the value of goods and service sin the province.  Everything is down from oil to newsprint to minerals. 

And if you look around, like say in Alberta, you can see what happens in a recession.  Like most places in the developed world, and even in an Alberta which is still chugging along well ahead of other provinces in economic activity,  a recession in Alberta means costs are dropping. Businesses – like Total SA and Conoco  - are actually increasing their spending on oil sands development because of costs that are as much as 40% less than they were in 2008.

That Labrador health centre is already estimated to cost 40% more than first forecast, incidentally. That’s pretty much on par with what happened to the one in Lewisporte.

So it doesn’t really make a lot of sense – at first blush – that Newfoundland and Labrador in a recession would see costs go up while everywhere else – like Alberta – costs are dropping.

Second, the sort of delays and cost over-runs for the Labrador west hospital is typical of the pattern of delays on provincial government construction projects – upwards of three and four years in some cases – and massive cost over-runs (40% is the half of it) people in this province have seen for the past five or six years. It didn’t just start.  And it isn’t confined to hospitals.

On delays, we have things like a 2004 court security law that still isn’t in effect. There’s a 2006 law creating a health research ethics board that still isn’t in place.  From 2007, there’s a major piece of legal work and a centrepiece – supposedly – of the Tory big blue plan called the sustainable development act.  Three years and not so much as a peep.

Let us not forget three years on Grenfell to deliver nothing that couldn’t have been done without all the fuss and the promises when the idea was first announced.

Nor can we ignore the land claims deal with the Innu on the Lower Churchill that happened and then unhappened.  Now it roams the Earth periodically cropping up in some news story in which it claims to be alive.  The reality is that it is undead, trapped by internal political wrangles within the Innu community in a world between life and death.

In the background, there is the program review, a response to a supposed budget crisis in 2004 the premier gave to Ross Reid.  No one knows what happened to it.   similar initiative – a 2006 economic program review – likewise disappeared.  The guy looking after it went back to Memorial in 2008.  What is Doug House doing these days?

On the construction front, there are cases like the sports centre slash conference hall in St. Anthony that doubled in price before the provincial government cut the whole thing down to a size that would fit inside the ballooned budget.  Two years after it was first announced, there was much less for way more.

We also can’t forget the aquaculture centre in St. Alban’s.  Two years later the thing is just starting to get underway  - we were originally told it would actually be finished by now - for 71% more than the original estimate.

Ferries. Schools. Hospitals.  Roads. You name it and the thing has been announced - in some cases many, many times - the costs have skyrocketed and there’s not a sign of anything tangible.  As noted here last winter, about half the economic stimulus projects the provincial government announced consisted of projects that had been announced, some of them as long ago as 2005.

Massive cost overruns and inordinate delays seem to be the norm in the provincial government these days.

The interesting question is why that is so.

We can be pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with just the normal cost of doing business. The pattern started before costs really skyrocketed and it affects things besides construction work.

And it really doesn’t have anything to do with outdated ceremonies and rules.  One of the things Tory supporters in this province should point out is that all the time the current administration doesn’t spend in the legislature gives it more time to get things done.  These guys are much more efficient than other administrations, so the talking point would go. 

Notice that they don’t say that sort of thing, though.  Despite having a legislature that sits about half the number of days it sat two decades ago, the usual complaint lately is about all the distractions. 

Nor can there be any complaint about requirements to have the legislature approve things.  The Fishery Products Act amendments a couple of years ago gave cabinet the right to make decisions on its own without reference to the legislature ever again. That follows a pattern in other bills where the decision on when laws come into force is left entirely to cabinet. 

Call it a sort of low-rent rule by decree, the idea behind this approach is that things can be done more quickly if all it takes for is a cabinet conference call and then a quick printing of The Gazette. No messy debates in public.  No question period.  Just a nice clean agreement behind closed doors.  Job done.

Except it hasn’t seemed to work that way.

Now this is the sort of thing we old political science types call “interesting” or “curious”.  It goes to the heart of what we love:  how government works in practice. 

The theory is fine.  All the bumpf from the departmental bumpf factories keeps the news media full.  And some people think they can change the budget by going to a consultation session.  People who are genuinely interested in this sort of thing, though, love trying to figure out how things actually get done.

In the case of the current provincial administration, those types have got their work cut out for them.  The current crowd should be performing much more efficiently and effectively than they actually are.  Put another way, they should be accomplishing things on par with what - as their polls show -  people think they are doing.

So how come they aren’t?

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Kremlinology 15: as warm and fuzzy as your old blankie

Last fall was rough on the provincial Conservatives.

Back to back resignations followed by the by-election loss in the Straits and the strong Liberal vote in Terra Nova.  That’s old news to Bond Papers readers.

Things are rough for the Conservatives in Corner Brook as well.

Between the push-back over the Grenfell mess and the possibility that the Kruger mill may shut its doors permanently, there are plenty of reasons for provincial Conservatives to be sweating the possibility of a strong anti-Tory hum on the Humber.

You can tell things are rough because the Premier took the time to head to Corner Brook last week for a party fundraiser – a point the conventional media neglected to point out - encouraged the Kruger unions to give the company whatever it needs to save the mill and pick a fight with people who had pissed him off:  He took a shot at Grenfell principal Holly Pike and others. 

The local paper – The Western Star – warned him about the problems before the speech and then spanked him publicly for his attack on Pike after the speech.

That last bit is a sure sign of how bad things are for the Tories.  What they said was nothing strong at all, but in a province where  - since 2003 - the conventional media like to serve warm milk and cookies editorially, a couple of simple declaratory sentences can come across like  a cross between the 95 Theses and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

The real sign of the troubled times in Tory circles is the remarkable change in tone.  Suddenly ‘stachless health minister Jerome Kennedy took the trouble to call an open line show this week when it isn’t polling season and nothing is exploding.

He talked at length about the changes he wants to bring after the budget is over.  Kennedy wants to start travelling around the province, talking to the great unwashed masses in their own native habitat. He wants to get real opinions from real people on things the government could be and should be doing.  

We are not talking complete farce here.  Kennedy spoke in calm tones and used language about including people.  A lesson he learned in the by-elections, so Kennedy said.

That’s right in line with another sign, namely a recent tour by several cabinet ministers of towns along the coast of Labrador.  Even Tommy Hedderson took the time to get out of St. John’s and visit real people in real towns.  Hedderson you may recall was the guy who – during the Straits by-election – talked about how wonderful it was to get back into that part of the province for the first time since 2001.  Yes, the fisheries minister hadn’t been able to visit a district with fish troubles until his Leader dragged him along to go save the Leader from political embarrassment.

And let’s not forget the funding announcements.  Before Christmas it was the new hospital for Corner Brook which – we now learn – may well be a tertiary care centre to rival the one in Sin Jawns.  There is money for Grenfell, the bags of which was something the Premier duly noted as he pointed how some people were insufficiently grateful for his generosity.

One of the Labrador ferries will be relocating to Corner Brook, at least for the winter at least for now.

Now there’s Terry French heading to Corner Brook to make an announcement on funding for the provincial government’s arts centres. That’s on top of the money French already announced for the local stadium.  This was not, the finance minister would assure us, a sign that budget allocations have already been made for 2010.

These sorts of things may be old hat everywhere else in the civilised world but in this province since 2003, they are almost unheard of.  Until now, the whole business of keeping in tune consisted of letting cabinet ministers work from an office set up wherever in the province they happened to live.  And even then, the main duty of the ministers-at-home was to keep an eye on dissent and make sure everyone stayed in line. Think hard hat and shovel and road paving in Labrador if you want a classic example of the cabinet minister without a real portfolio.

Now undoubtedly some wag will point out that Jerome! is just angling to replace The Boss.  Shave the ‘stache, they will say and they are right.

But that doesn’t mean that the cabinet as a whole might not also be working along with Jerome to change their collective political fortunes.  While The Boss is busy tilting at hydro towers in New Brunswick, the guys who actually will be running for re-election in 2011 might be noticing they don’t have much time to shift the whole tone and approach of the administration.

Angry just doesn’t work all the time in politics, as any experienced politician and political scientist will tell you. People grow weary. And when the anger is directed inward, when people get smashed in the head for just having an opinion, it doesn’t take too long before people start to look for an alternative to the anger ball.

That’s one of the big lessons from last fall, if you really are clued in about provincial politics. Things started to shift.

And when the shift started, the local Tories seem to have decided to make a shift of their own.

Coming on like a warm, fuzzy blankie seems to be aimed at making sure that whatever alternative people move toward, it will still be blue.

Just a blue without all the anger in it.

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Push back on Grenfell

Things are not good in Corner Brook if the local daily the Western Star is making this strong a statement about the Premier’s recent  - and just the latest -  public attack on someone within the province:

The premier’s comments are unprofessional, misleading and irresponsible. He owes the residents of Western Newfoundland and Labrador, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College and especially Holly Pike an apology.

You’d have to be living here for the past seven years to realise just exactly how strong these words really are.

The fact they come from the newspaper serving the Premier’s district makes them stand out even more.

And the fact that they are in public, in print, just makes the old chin hit the old floor all the harder.

Alex Marland take note.

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Of Cukes and Unis

Truly, things are very strange when the guy who backed a second university for the province  - despite evidence at the time of declining enrolment – laces into critics who don’t like the much less ambitious version of “Grenfell autonomy” announced by the provincial government before Christmas.

For Former Williams administration employee Alex Marland, Premier Danny Williams attack on people inside the province must come as a complete shock. Anger isn’t always for reform, Alex. 

But the most bizarre part of the Premier’s speech in Corner Brook on Thursday was the comparison between Grenfell College and the Sprung greenhouse fiasco over two decades ago.

“With the situation of declining enrolment, we want to make sure we don’t launch this initiative and it fails and Grenfell becomes the Sprung (Greenhouse) of the west coast,” said Williams.

For those who don’t know, Sprung was the disastrous decision that spelled the end of Brian Peckford’s third administration.

Now Sprung didn’t fail because its proponents failed to support the government decision and prove the idea could work.

Sprung failed because it was doomed from the start.  Senior provincial government officials warned against the magnificent claims of the proponents, claims like growing more cucumbers in a hydroponic greenhouse in Newfoundland than could be grown with the near perpetual sunlight of a city near the Equator.

Unfortunately for the provincial treasury, that is for taxpayers, the politicians involved ignored the sound advice they got from people who warned of problems with the whole scheme and instead poured cash into the project.

In the Grenfell case, there is no sign any government officials voiced objections.  Others, like your humble e-scribbler and a bunch of people at Memorial University did point out that – among other things – the whole scheme the provincial government endorsed (the Premier included) was built on a model that needed Grenfell enrolment to double in 10 years.

One of those people – one Eddie Campbell – paid a price for speaking his mind.  That mess over finding a new president for the university led to a second major crisis for the university on top of the Grenfell one, both of which were driven entirely by politicians around the cabinet table.

And as for enrolment at Grenfell, it hasn’t been working its way to double in a decade.  Far from it.  Enrolment has been sliding steadily downward but not from lack of effort by the good people at Grenfell.  Rather, there just aren’t the students or prospective students to fill the seats.

They also endorsed the whole idea based on little more, apparently, than a rather lightweight assessment of the whole idea of Uni Two concept. That study was bought and paid for by the politicians, not by the proponents of the project.  And the study would also have figured out the enrolment problem since the signs were there at the time. 

The consultants would have figured that out if they had actually bothered to look at the issue.  Odd that they didn’t give it a thought, given that enrolment – students – is one of the big things that would drive a university’s success in the first place. 

All in all, it seems to have been a very odd first speech in the New Year for the Premier in his district.  It’s not odd that he chose the occasion to pick a fight with people or react negatively to anything less than an outpouring of unending support and devotion.  What’s odd is that the Premier linked his own decision with one of the singularly worst decisions taken by any administration in recent times, bar none.

This speech and all its implications might wind up having some not so pleasant consequences.

Meanwhile, for those who are interested in the Sprung fiasco, just scan down the right side and check out the series of posts linked there on Great Gambols with Public Money.  If that doesn’t work, just type that phrase into the search box up there on the top right.

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The die is cast aside

“The die is cast!”

That’s what then-education minister Joan Burke said back in 2007 when the current provincial administration unveiled its plan to give Sir Wilfred Grenfell College something called “autonomy” from Memorial University. 

She was arrogantly dismissing concerns raised about the feasibility of creating a second university in the province.

Burke even used the word “independent” in a news release in 2007 - “Grenfell College is about to gain independence…” – something she predicted would happen in 2008. 

Well, in 2009, none of the promises came true.

And you can tell none of the promises came true because the announcement was made by Darrin King, the education minister, and not Danny Williams, the premier behind the whole drive.

You can also tell there’s nothing to get excited about because the release is gigantic – 13 paragraphs – and there are no fewer than five media contacts.  The way these things usually go, the less positive news there is, the more names are listed as media contacts.

Under the proposed approach, Grenfell will lose its separate and proud identity, becoming instead something to be called Memorial University  - Corner Brook.

It also won’t get a separate president or senate, as recommended by two consultants hired in 2005 to look at the whole idea of Grenfell “autonomy”.  Their Option 1A was the one supposedly on the books to be implemented.

Instead, the current senior official – named the Principal – will continue to be called the Principal and will report directly to the President of Memorial.  And there will be a separate budget presented to government through Memorial University in St. John’s.

Whoopee ding.

The whole thing looks suspiciously like the consultant’s Option 2A  but without the administrative clout of having a separate president for the new university at Corner Brook.

And what were the disadvantages noted for that by the consultants, you may ask?

• common Senate reduces Grenfell’s academic autonomy and
  development potential;
• little change from current unsatisfactory situation.

That’s right.  The consultant’s considered that the approach government ultimately  would actually reduce Grenfell’s autonomy and offer little change from the status quo.

Looks like the die for Grenfell autonomy Joan Burke talked about wound up getting cast alright, cast aside.

Expect lots of negative reaction to this as the magnitude of the broken promise starts to sink in for people in Corner Brook.

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Constant motion = more delays and nothing new

In the perpetual shuffle process that is the provincial cabinet and senior public service under Danny Williams, three more changes took place on Friday.

Terry French, a parliamentary secretary and by-election organizer finally got his reward of a the extra salary that comes for sitting at the cabinet table.  He’s the last of the crowd elected before 2003 to get the extra.

Tom Hedderson evidently did such a miserable job in fisheries that he has been relieved of that purgatory and given the patronage portfolio.  Meanwhile, Clyde Jackman must be wondering who he pissed off to get fisheries from Tom Hedderson.

All in all, this turned out to be a set of appointments of such monumental nothingness that it makes one wonder why it took the Premier two whole months to figure out what to do.

You may recall that these shuffles were the cascading effect of Trevor Taylor’s departure  - which the Premier knew of before it happened and could therefore plan to handle – and the resignation of Paul Oram.  he lashed a few people into temporary jobs to get over the immediate hump, then lashed up a few more to cope with Diane Whelan’s illness.

Well, after all that time, the Premier didn’t do very much for all the cogitating he supposedly wanted to do. Perhaps he was too busy trying to figure out how many of his personal political staff could crowd into the backrooms of Sandy Collins’ campaign headquarters to make sure Sandy won the by-election in Terra Nova. The answer:  all of ‘em. 

All this comes on the eve of what will be a shortened fall session of  a provincial legislature with the ignominious distinction of sitting annually for fewer days than Tom Rideout was Premier back in 1989.

Very little legislation is likely to come forward.  There is plenty that is missing in action:  Grenfell autonomy, whistleblower protection, midwives.

As noted here before, the seemingly perpetual micro shuffles coupled with a few other things seem to produce a government which cannot actually do very much. 

They talk a lot about doing stuff but produce very little of substance.

And when they do produce something worthwhile, like say an act to provide for sustainable economic development, they don’t proclaim the thing.  Two years and not a peep on it.

Even a strategy on how to keep young people from,leaving the province to find work took 18 months, cost untold thousands and ended up with some really obvious ideas.

The first one was:  “create jobs”.

No wonder people sometimes wonder if your humble e-scribbler makes this stuff up.

Would but that were true.

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66 at 6 in 2

Once it was a million dollars, but heck if there was only a half a million there are better things to do with it than give it to Rolls-Royce or any other company that could get along without it and still create jobs in Mount Pearl.

And heck, I wouldn’t be pumping cash into getting more women to have babies. 

I’d put the money into looking after the ones we have and are having. Your humble e-scribbler would support breast feeding in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s good, preventive health care.

It helps change attitudes toward women way better than being crude and beating the crap out of Randy Simms for something he didn’t say.

There is a campaign apparently, as this story from The Aurora notes.

"We are launching this campaign in Labrador-City Wabush to highlight the success this region has had in promoting breastfeeding," Ms. Murphy Goodridge said during the launch. "Labrador-Grenfell Health is the first regional health authority in the province to implement a comprehensive regional breastfeeding policy based on international standards. Breastfeeding rates throughout Labrador have always been higher than the rest of the province, so I am here to recognize Labrador-Grenfell Health employees and their community partners on their tremendous success and to encourage them to continue to strive to improve breastfeeding rates. Other areas of the province are looking to replicate your success."

According to the article the province-wide initiation rate is a mere 64%.  That’s up a mere 1.3% since 2006. The old article had an old link to the Breastfeeding Coalition:  here’s the new one.

And initiation isn’t the telling factor.  Three years ago only 11% of mothers who started breast-feeding were still breast-feeding six months later. Women aren’t sticking with it. The rate by 2008 was a mere 12%.  That’s basically no change.

Whatever the ponderous government agencies have been doing ain’t enough.  Maybe we need to free-up the people actually running the programs and get a lot of that health care bureaucracy and stodgie government-ish thinking get out of the way.

And lookit, nothing would work to start our children out healthier than to encourage breastfeeding.

The BFC has a campaign to boost breastfeeding but frankly a few posters ain’t gonna do the job.  The campaign needs to have a much higher profile.  For one thing, there could be a group of prominent local someones in addition to all the other stuff outlined in the BFC strategic plan to help reinforce the message about breastfeeding.

And rather than just talk about the need for supportive environments, people need to start initiating action.  There needs to be a concerted effort to make the workplace more tit-friendly, for example.  There needs to be a much wider effort to make more parts of society accepting of breastfeeding.

So there’s an idea.

Rather than kick Randy Simms in ‘nads for something someone misheard or deliberately misrepresented, maybe someone could have done something positive like asked him about the City of Mount Pearl’s breast-feeding policy. 

Are women councillors who are breastfeeding their children able to do so during a council meeting or a committee meeting? 

What about the provincial government?

Was Charlene Johnson able to get her little one to latch on while Danny was in full rant around the cabinet table?   Not ideal for the digestion, admittedly, but still,  you get the point.

And what was all that with her having to get back to work a mere month after giving birth supposedly – and the emphasis is on supposedly – because there was no maternity leave policy in the House of Assembly?

Pish-posh.

Talk about your unfriendly work environment for women.  Now I may have missed it but I don’t recall anyone from PACSW championing that cause at that time.  There’s one for the government appointed pseudo-bureaucrats to tackle.

But there’s an example of simple issue that directly affects the ability of women to get involved and/or stay involved in many more aspects of life outside the family once they start having children.

Simple.

Practical.

Effective.

And everyone wins in so many ways.

People in Newfoundland and Labrador need to get involved in an effort to dramatically increase the breastfeeding rates in this province.

What’s been going on already is great but it isn’t enough.  Clearly.  Not enough.

So on this thanksgiving weekend, let’s applaud the efforts of the provincial Breastfeeding Coalition.  Let’s applaud Labrador West with the highest initiation rate – 75% – in the whole province.

But let’s recognise that that 75% is still 15% below the national average.

And we need to get some kind of “66 at 6 in 2” drive going to ensure that  within two years, we have 66% of mothers in the province still breastfeeding their infants six months after giving birth.

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Some ideas for 66 at 6 in 2

-  A better website.  It’s do-able and younger families are more likely to use the Internet for information.  The current one is buried away and it doesn’t have the kind of simple stuff you’ll find elsewhere.  A good example of a BF supportive site:  the US government one.  There are lots of others.

-  Paul Daly’s shot is great but there is a need to use a much more aggressive approach with messages tailored to different audiences.  And for mercy sakes don’t post the poster as a pdf.   You can get some ideas from this approach mapped out by students in the UK.

-  Nothing work better at changing attitudes and behaviour than making it clear that the dominant attitude has shifted.  People openly supporting breastfeeding – highlighted by some prominent locals – would start the ball rolling.

-  And just do it.  Nothing will work better than having the women who are breastfeeding just doing it.

The Yiddish of Newfoundland Politics: the chutzpah of monkey-tossing

According to CBC, health minister Jerome Kennedy is saying the by-election in the Straits is bringing to light issues and concerns about health care.

Kennedy says this like he never heard of the issues and concerns before.

But it’s the job of the elected member and his political staff – in this case former cabinet minister Trevor Taylor and his constituency assistant Rick Pelley – to make sure the issues and concerns were known by people like Kennedy.

So basically, Kennedy is saying that Pelley – now the Tory candidate – wasn’t doing his job before now.

Nope.

Kennedy and his boss may have decided to chop health service as part of the budget process but the fact people didn’t like that is really something he never heard tell of before.

And so it took a by-election for Kennedy and his boss to  discover  - oh my Gawd, they’re upset? - that their decision to cut health service Flower’s Cove might cause a bit of consternation for the people in the area.

That’s chutzpah for you.

A result of a  financial decision Trevor and Rick didn’t make is actually is Rick and Trevor’s fault. And no one mentioned this local anger to Trevor before.

Didn’t he read the letter from Labrador-Grenfell?

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Uncomfortable thoughts

One of the little stories that seemed to sail past most people was a report that three of the province’s four regional health authorities will finish the year with balanced budgets.

"The light bill goes up, the phone bill goes up, the oil bill goes up — that type thing," said Western Health finance committee member Tom O'Brien. "We submitted that to the government and [government] approved our budget with those inflationary numbers in it. So we'll have a balanced budget for 2009-2010.

The only one that wouldn’t is Eastern Health but given some of the issues involved, that’s understandable.

But Labrador-Grenfell,  Western and Central expect to balance their books by year end.

Last spring, Labrador-Grenfell Health estimated it would end its fiscal year with a $2-million deficit, but officials said Wednesday that's no longer the case.

"We have had a greater success in recruiting staff, with a greater number of nurses on staff that actually cuts down on our cost of providing services," CEO Boyd Rowe said. "When we don't have adequate numbers of staff, we end up paying a considerable amount of overtime."

How odd then that earlier this month health minister Paul Oram announced that government had decided to cut laboratory and x-ray service in Flower’s Cove and Lewisporte. he claimed the government needed to save money and that the cuts had been recommended by the health authorities involved.

Sure those two ideas were among dozens tossed out by all four regional health authorities back in February as possible cuts when they were asked  - hypothetically – what they could do to balance their budgets if they got funding frozen at 2008 levels.

But if the books are balanced the cuts weren’t necessary.

And if there was a problem with the government health budget generally, then surely it would have made more sense to do some serious thinking and announce a wide range of options with the new budget in the spring.  There was no rush to chop in September if things were okay and certainly there’d be no reason to cut only two.

That’s what one would expect from a government that generally practices sound financial management based on a genuinely strategic approach. That was the logical implication when Oram acknowledged what many have known for some time, namely that the current administration has been spending wildly, spending public money in a way that – in Oram’s word was “unsustainable.”

Such a government would not engage in seemingly capricious, apparently ill-considered and curious, bizarre cuts that seem to bear no connection to anything. Heck they aren’t even connected to a review of laboratory and x-ray service which isn’t even completed yet.

Such decisions would seem driven by something other than sound reasoning, logic, and a firm grasp of the whole picture.  They’d seem panicky.  They’d seem irrational, perchance even stupid given the political fall-out that’s resulted across the northern coast of Newfoundland.

And it would seem even more irrational, capricious, certainly foolishly stubborn  and – yes maybe even stupid – to persist in the irrational and apparently unnecessary cuts on those two communities once the backlash started  and the overall financial picture was shown to be something other than dire.

Events of the past couple of weeks make you wonder what is really going on inside the provincial government.  What is the real story behind the Flower’s Cove and Lewisporte cuts.

Was there more to Trevor’s departure than meets the eye? Was there something to be found in his comment to Randy Simms the other morning that we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?  Taylor was known to speak bluntly and he certainly never spouted the “we are living in a bubble” rhetoric.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the good people of Newfoundland and Labrador would look on another administration and wonder what was going on.  Things sometimes didn’t make sense. 

The good people would stare in bewilderment since the leader was known to be a political mastermind.  Surely there had to be some Mensa answer they would rationalize, an idea incomprehensible to mere mortals as to why such bizarre things were occurring. 

Even went things looked insane they figured there had to be a plan behind it all. No one had to tell them that at a board of trade speech;  they knew it already.

Yet, despite their faith, they remained perplexed.

Uneasy.

Unsettled.

Disquieted.

Your humble e-scribbler would suggest to these people that they think about the issue again, and about their conclusion, with one tiny difference:

Merely look on events without the assumption that there was some inscrutable genius at work.

Then look again at the conclusion they reached.

Invariably, inevitably, predictably, at the point they reached a conclusion once again – devoid of the assumed secret and unknown brilliance – their faces turned ashen.

And they would go very quiet.

Quiet isn’t a word you’d use these days in some parts of Newfoundland and Labrador, is it?  Places where the Great Tory Revolution supposedly started.

That must be a very uncomfortable thought for some people.

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Unsound financial management, the stunning Oram admission

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

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

Note the date.

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

That is not just Paul Oram’s word.

His remarks were approved at the highest level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is exactly the situation Paul Oram described today.

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

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

This is about something much more significant.

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

Go back further than 2006.

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

Point Two:  Fail to plan;  plan to fail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Missing in Action: The Great Corner Brook University

The short history of a curious idea.

2007:  Promise to grant Sir Wilfred Grenfell College “more autonomy” regardless of cost implications among other things.

2008:   Promise legislation by fall;  fail to deliver.  Make (up) excuses.

2009:  Still no legislation.  Dodge hard questions.

Maybe a problem with finding students – something your humble e-scribbler noted as a major deficiency in the original consultants’ report – is another reason for the inexplicable delay in the whole Grenfell autonomy “piece.”

There is no analysis of the possible student market.  This is a critical shortcoming since the report authors recommend doubling the size of the student population in short order, from a current enrolment of about 1,150 (not including 200 nursing students) to about 2,000.

In any event, just add Grenfell “autonomy’ as another government initiative on the MIA list.

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Freedom from information: lack of briefing notes for minister called “bizarre” by senior government official

An unnamed senior public sector manager has termed a move by government to eliminate briefing notes for ministers “bizarre”.

The official is quoted in a post by Telegram blogger Geoff Meeker.  The unidentified official spoke only on condition of anonymity.

“I don't think it's possible to keep up to speed without a briefing book,” said the person, who has worked at some of the highest levels of the public service.

“It will make it very difficult to understand, in retrospect, why certain decisions were made - very dangerous for the staff who must execute them and very problematic if one needs to retrace and do a course-correction on something that's gone off the rails. Without briefing books, corporate memory is very much reduced and future government decisions rendered more difficult.”

The comment came after another Telegram story (not online) in which Joan Burke, government house leader and minister of a newly created child, youth and family services department, said that she had received no briefing notes when taking over her new portfolio. Burke told the Telegram’s Rob Antle that

“I didn’t want to be handed a binder with 500 to 1,000 sheets of paper to try to determine what’s important and what’s not, and what’s current and what I need on my radar.”

As Meeker points out, Burke’s attitude may have little to do with what she described as her desire to get down to work.

Burke was embroiled in a controversy last year over the hiring of a new president for Memorial University.  Details of the minister’s involvement became embarrassing when the Liberal opposition office obtained copies of government records through the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and provided them to local media.

The documents including e-mails and briefing notes that included questions for Burke to use during her screening interviews with the two finalists selected by the university’s hiring process.  Burke rejected both candidates.

Briefing notes have also proved embarrassing for other cabinet ministers.

A note prepared for Burke’s successor in November 2008 on financial implications of “autonomy” for Grenfell College from Memorial University, another controversial policy from Burke’s tenure in education, was virtually completed deleted before being released under the province’s open records laws.  While promised two years ago, there is still no sign of the enabling legislation.

During the Cameron inquiry into the hormone receptor scandal, health minister Ross Wiseman stated under oath that he had not read briefing notes on the issue when he took over the portfolio.  As CBC reported,

… Wiseman said he did not have the opportunity to read briefing notes about the cancer testing after he was sworn in as health minister, because he was busy tackling other pressing issues and preparing for the annual budget.

Opposition politicians have also claimed that ministers apparently no longer receive briefing notes to use in preparation for the House of Assembly.

Meeker’s public sector manager also described some of the concerns about the new policy which would see the elimination of any paper trail of documents and backgrounders for ministers. 

“Without briefing documents, the public can never really know what grounds decisions were made on - cutting the foundation out from under transparency and accountability, not to mention history - how will future generations understand the story of this government and this time without primary research sources?

“This puts a great burden on senior and mid-level public officials to keep good records in their own briefing books and black books. These would be accessible under ATIPP, but that leaves the paper trail with the officials, not the Minister. And if they don't keep good records, well - we all heard during the Cameron inquiry how difficult it is for these busy, busy people [cabinet ministers and political staff] to recall details from 6 or 12 months ago.”

That last point is particularly cogent:  at one point during the inquiry, an exasperated commissioner Justice Margaret Cameron commented that many of the witnesses seemed to have difficulty recalling anything at all. 

The premier's chief of staff, Brian Crawley, was sent an e-mail in July, 2005 that warned of a major story about to break involving breast cancer testing mistakes.

But Crawley testified he can't remember getting the e-mail or even talking to anyone in the premier's office — including the premier — about it.

"I really don't remember anything about those early days at all," he said.

Judge Margaret Cameron asked Crawley whether he remembered any of the events of July and he responded, "No."

"You don't remember seeing anything about this until the story broke in the Independent [Newfoundland & Labrador Independent newspaper] and you don't even really remember reading the Independent story," she said.

Crawley was not alone and that exchange prompted an angry premier Danny Williams to criticise Cameron over the remark, as cbc.ca/nl reported:

When Crawley answered one question about what he would have done in a situation, Cameron replied, "Well, I'm getting a lot of that, 'This is what I would've done,' but nobody ever remembers seemingly having done much."

On Friday, Williams fired back.

"I have to say I was disappointed. I was disappointed as I watched Madame Justice Cameron show disdain for a professional witness who was before her, giving testimony, honestly, forthright, under oath, to the best of his or her ability," Williams told reporters.

Meeker’s post and the comments by the unnamed official echo concerns identified in Donald Savoie’s recent book on the erosion of accountability at White hall and in Ottawa.

In Court government: the collapse of accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom, Savoie documents a similar practice of eliminating briefing notes and other official written documents in order to avoid the access to information laws.

In addition to the move to eliminate a paper trail, Savoie also notes concerns among politicians with whistleblower legislation as part of a larger trend away from government openness and internal and external accountability.

Savoie also points to the appearance of unofficial practices within the administration of government that are also designed to avoid disclosure under access to information laws.  For example, one study cited by Savoie found that requests from politicians and the media took longer to process than those from others even though there did not appear to be any particular difference in one request from another.   

Similar efforts by officials to skirt open records laws have already been noted in Newfoundland and Labrador.

For example, officials have invented a concept called non-responsive records to refer to documents which are apparently covered by an access request but which are not  released. One of the Burke e-mails on Memorial University, for example, includes a deletion marked “non-responsive” rather than use the official requirement to cite a specific section of the access law under which a deletion is made.

Perhaps the most notorious example was a claim that records did not exist even though the Premier and other officials acknowledged that they did.

In another case, access to documents was denied on the grounds that the review was ongoing.  The request had not been for a final report but for documents relating to the study and an accounting of its costs.

Officials have also been able to avoid disclosure based on questionable claims about the scope of the request.

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Whadidwetellya?

On Wednesday we warned the government was putting on the push to slam the House closed.

It’s twoo, It’s twoo, as Lily von Schtup would say. Even voice of the cabinet minister is covering it.

The reason:  nurses strike.

If the House is open on Wednesday, nurses will be filling the galleries and the opposition will be hammering away at the provincial government asking all sorts of difficult questions.

Hardly likely the provincial government would want that when their pollster is in the field collecting the quarterly harvest of poll goosing results.

Very embarrassing would it be to have nurses doing even one tenth what the crab crowd did to government in the spring of 2005. 

Not only that but with cracks opening within the government caucus there could be a sorry-assed repeat of the whole Fabian Manning fiasco.  Seriously, people.  If Ray Hunter has to get up from his uncomfortable new pew to refute an accusation he’s been muzzled – and thereby confirm the accusation – then you know there are others who are feeling a tad unsettled trapped between the wishes of their constituents and the diktats that come via blackberry from the Tower.

Ray’s on edge.  Who else? Sullivan maybe and the pressure she must be under from people in central Newfoundland pissed off about Abitibi.

Jim Baker and the crowd in Labrador west?  More bad news coming on Friday, if rumours pan out.

Anyone feeling heat from Corner Brook and the failed Grenfell autonomy thing? Increasing uncertainty about the Kruger mill and one of its machines?

How about townie MHAs?  Or those from the Third City?  Must be hard having all those former mayors in one spot and the guy who goes in to cabinet is the one who can’t speak in whole sentences.

Close the House and let the pollster do his part in poll goosing saga free from all that “counter-spinning negativity”.  The line still brings a chuckle since it starts from the premise that there is “spinning” in the first place that is being countered.  Think of it as a round about confession, like telling Randy Simms that if one wanted to goose polls one would start the week before the pollster goes to the field.  Which of course is exactly what they do.

Anyway, it’s not like someone didn’t tell you what was going on.

-srbp-