Introducing Premier Dunderdale: patronage and the Public Tender Act

The Williams administration had a rough time in 2006. 

On the heels of a massive spending scandal in the House of Assembly, word broke that one of Danny Williams’ patronage appointees had run afoul of the province’s Public Tender Act.

As the minister responsible for the agency where the problem took place, it was up to Kathy Dunderdale to explain it to the legislature and the public.  Kathy had some difficulty getting the full story out the first time.  She eventually told it a few days later but by that time, it was fairly obvious Dunderdale had misled the House.

In order to avoid making a very bad situation even worse, Danny Williams ordered his House leader to shut the House of Assembly earlier than planned.

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Oh for God’s sake, just get a room #nlpoli

If you want to read a strongly worded condemnation of a provincial politician, take a gander at the Telegram’s editorial on Yvonne Jones from Tuesday’s paper.

Jones told the provincial government last week that her vote in the House of Assembly on Muskrat Falls was up for sale. Word got around the province pretty quickly.  And the Telegram dutifully pointed out that Jones’ pork-barrelling was from another time, a time perhaps best left behind.

The editorial tuts the appropriate tuts at Jones’ style of retail politics, but there are a few other points the Telegram didn’t make about the episode that are worth laying out.

Patronage, pure and simple

Take out a piece of paper and a pencil and it wouldn’t take you very long to write down the names of men and women from the private or public sector who are qualified by their experience to take on the job of vice-chair at the federal-provincial agency that regulates the offshore industry.

Limit the list to just women and you’d still have a fair number of very capable people.

Elizabeth Matthews  - Danny Williams’ former communications director  - wouldn’t be on the list anywhere.

She wouldn’t be left out of consideration because she isn’t smart or capable in her own right.  It’s just that she lacks the experience necessary for the job.

It’s that simple.

By proposing to appoint the unqualified Matthews as vice chair of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, Kathy Dunderdale has shown exactly the same tendency to propose unqualified people for very important jobs her patron had.  Andy Wells, the former mayor of St. John’s is perhaps the best example of that. 

However, Andy Wells is surely not the only example of an appointment that left many people scratching their heads in bewilderment or – as again with the Matthews appointment – setting teeth on edge in the province’s oil industry. They might have understood appointing Danny Williams’  former chief of staff who is also looking for a new gig now that Williams has left politics.  At least, Brian Crawley had work experience in the industry on the Hibernia project.  For the past couple of weeks though, the movers and shakers in the local oil patch are shaking their heads at the sort of appointment one might find in some banana republic rather than in a Canadian jurisdiction that aspires to be among the world leaders in regulating a complex industry.

Conservatives are trotting out the idea that Matthews will somehow change the communications practices at the board because of her work experience.  The board already has a competent and experience public relations practitioner, for one thing and Matthews certainly isn’t needed for that.  What’s more important to realise in that regard is that, as others have pointed out, Matthews helped to create and sustain one of the most secretive political machines in the province’s history. 

What both the provincial [and] federal governments ought to have done in this case is what the position warrants:  an open competition in which the successful candidate is appointed based on merit.  That’s how such a senior position ought to be filled.  That’s how they filled the chairman’s job a few years.  The process wound up a mess [in that case] simply because Danny Williams intervened to try and foist his blatantly unqualified whim onto a process that was supposed to be driven by merit. Just because the law says appointments like this are made by cabinet does not mean that they must be handed out as patronage plums.

Merit ought to count for much more that it does with the current provincial administration.

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*   Corrections in square brackets

The secret of life in Newfoundland and Labrador

The secret of life and comedy is timing.

In this case, the secret of life in Newfoundland and Labrador would be the curious coincidence in timing of a conference to discuss ways of getting more women involved in the oil and gas industry with the leak that the provincial government passed over qualified female candidates in the industry for a job at the offshore regulatory board in favour of pure patronage.

As much as this sort of old-fashion pork may be the nature of life under the provincial Conservatives, it isn’t very funny.

What it does make clear, though, is that anyone hoping to increase the number of women involved in the province’s offshore industry is going to have a long way to go.

First you’ve got to get rid of these very old, very backward ideas about patronage and entitlements and get government to make appointments based on merit first.

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Worshipping at the Trough

Patronage politics of the worst old-fashioned sort is alive and well in Newfoundland and Labrador.

VOCM posted a story online within the past 24 hours (hopefully it won’t be disappeared too soon) that makes it pretty clear:

A cabinet minister is unapologetic for the rash of pre-election spending announcements coming from the government. The MHA for Grand Bank, Darin King, announced some money for health care recently. There has been a steady stream of news releases, most announcing money that had already been allocated in the budget, over the past several months.

On VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms, King said he is dedicated to bringing in as much money as he can to his district.

Where patronage thrives, paternalism can’t be too far away.

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Executive Politics and Muskrat Falls #nlpoli

In this series, we are not concerned with whether or not the Muskrat Falls project is good or bad. That is a separate issue.

Nor are we presenting information you shouldn’t already have.  Very little of what you will read should come as a surprise, especially if you  read SRBP regularly.

Rather this series is an effort to develop some explanations about why the provincial government’s energy company has been working on the Lower Churchill Project continuously for 15 years and yet has produced nothing.

The Year of Living Dubiously #nlpoli

Conflict of interest is great thing to deal when there is a chance of stopping it or dealing with it, not six or seven years later.

Back in 2006, conflict of interest was all the rage.

Noting the problems with conflict of interest wasn’t.

High-Value Delivery #nlpoli

Two cabinet ministers trekked up the Southern Shore on Wednesday to hand over a cheque for some government cash to a local group of seniors.

Of course, they dragged their political staff with them.

The value of the cheque was $2,000.

Traffic without patronage, Feb 28 to Mar 3

1. HMV
2. Provgov pollster seeds ground for bad news
3. A cheaper, green alternative to Muskrat Falls
4. MOU PIFO
5. Are city councillors paid enough?
6. Patronage, pure and simple
7. CB city council by-election down to five
8. Birds of a Conservative feather
9. Court docket now online
10. 35% unsure of Dunderdale

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Reforming the way government works #nlpoli

Conservative and New Democrat goons are fapping themselves into a frenzy on Twitter over Bern Coffey's appointment as Clerk of the Executive Council.  Qualifications don't matter, they would have it.  Bern Coffey's appointment is partisan just because Coffey is a Liberal and therefore it is bad.  No Liberals should be appointed to anything.

Derpy Conservative David Brazil dismissed Coffey in an interview with NTV News because Coffey has no connection to the provincial public service. He's an "outsider" supposedly. The facts are irrelevant: Coffey spent a couple of decades as a highly successful Crown prosecutor before he set out on his own about 16 years ago.

Dipper boss Earle McCurdy thinks Coffey is "lacking the right qualifications" although McCurdy had no idea what the right qualifications would be other than, say, not being Liberal.

For his part,  Premier Dwight Ball told NTV that Coffey's job will now involve "challenging" the province's public servants so that the government has the best information possible when making decisions.

Such is the shallow nature of provincial politics these days.  Even Dwight Ball's comments don't accurately reflect what is going on.

The Fragile Economy: addictions management #nlpoli

The provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador spends more per person on delivering services for most things than does any other provincial government in the country.

Health care is the one the Premier highlighted a couple of weeks ago.  There are others.

This is not something new.  Here’s a snippet from a post in 2009 back when Paul Oram lit the issue up from inside the current administration.  Note, though, that the quote highlights the situation three years earlier:

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.”

The reason for all this spending and the generally high cost of government in this province is simple:  government spending is all about paternalism, patronage and pork. 

Note that the largest employer in Grand Falls-Windsor these days is the local hospital.  The town is also a centre for government services and, as in Stephenville, the major provincial government response to the mill closure was to push in more public service jobs.

Public spending is all about jobs.

The problem with public spending is that it is easy to get hooked on it.  Not surprisingly, a recent post at the Monkey Cage went with the title “The Narcotic of Government Dependency”.  It’s a pretty concise discussion of the issue from the American perspective with plenty of interesting links.  Follow the links and you’ll find plenty of stimulating stuff. 

Canadians might find it especially interesting to see reference to David Frum’s assessment of the inherent contradiction in conservative arguments.  While they rave and rant against public spending on a ideological basis, on a practical basis, American conservative constituencies are also among the biggest beneficiaries of federal government programs.

Now in this province, the local conservatives don’t really have an ideological basis to argue against public spending. They aren’t really caught in that trap.  But it is interesting to notice the gap between their self-image of being fiscally conservative, debt- fighting wunderkind and the reality of running up the biggest debt load in the province’s history and wanting to jack it higher.  Plus they’ve increased dependence on government spending and increased the public service to an unprecedented size.

looked at from that perspective, Kathy Dunderdale’s recent speech about the need to tighten public spending wasn’t so much about putting the province on some kind of methadone program for patronage junkies so you could get ‘em off the junk.  It seems more likely to have been about another type of addictions management, more like “b’ys we gotta lay off the pipe for a while and just do the oxys and some percs”.

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Screw you. Screw me?

There's childish and pissy.

Then there's the Prime Minister's reaction to having one of his nominees rejected by a parliamentary committee.

When the committee rejected his nominee to head the public appointments commission, Stephen Harper scrapped the commission.

As CanWest reported:

Later in the day, Harper abandoned the commission, which was supposed to establish a process to reduce patronage in government appointments by more widely advertising openings and setting merit-based criteria for selecting appointees. Harper said he disbanded the commission because he didn'’t expect other people to step forward to take the commission job for which Morgan was rejected.

He added the government now would proceed with appointments "in the traditional manner."

The traditional matter would be, of course, the sort of patronage that the PM and his colleagues in the Conservative party railed against when someone else doled out political largesse.

So much for sticking with the election platform.

Norm Doyle: oily untruth-meister spins more falsehoods

In an interview with CBC Radio's Geoff Gilhooley on 19 July, Norm Doyle told a story of being called by someone Norm identified as a lobbyist for the oil industry to make the claim that Andy Wells wasn't wanted by the industry as chair of the offshore board.

There are a couple of obvious pieces of nonsense in this entire Doyle interview:

1. Why the hell would anyone call Norm Doyle about anything to do with the offshore? He has NO influence over anything, let alone who sits on the offshore board.

I think Norm is telling a giant fib. A nose-puller. A falsehood.

A Gurmant Grewal.

Gee, likes that's the first time he's done that in recent months.

2. Doyle talks about having a strong chair as the solution for getting more from the offshore from the industry.

Norm has NO idea what he is talking about.

The Board doesn't do that job - Danny does.

3. The industry isn't the enemy here.

What Danny, Norm and da byes are up to is yet another example of misdirection.

They are picking a fight with the oil industry even though the oil industry has nothing to do with who runs the regulatory Board.

Nothing.

Not a sausage.

They want you to ignore Danny's efforts at political interference by getting angry at someone else.

4. Norm accuses the PM of having patronage on his mind.

Again, let's distract from an obvious case of political interference by accusing the feds of the very misdeed the province is doing.

The point is, Norm, - if you actually had a clue about anything - you know full well the process Danny is busily scuttling is designed to keep patronage out of appointments as well as keeping unqualified people out of key jobs.

Let the Accord work as it is supposed to work.

5. It will be Hibernia the Sequel: make-work and no royalties.

Underneath this all, with the way Danny and Norm talk, all I can hear is Brian Peckford talking about forcing the oil companies into building a gravity based structure for Hibernia.

Refineries. More benefits from oil.

We have heard the same sad song before.

The only people who pay for it are people like you and me.

We actually get less from the offshore than if we had not let political games trump the best interests of the province.

Now I want to know why Norm is joining Danny Williams in playing political games with the offshore.

Why is Norm Doyle telling yet more oily untruths?

Rule Number 3?

Remember this one?

Rule Number One: The Boss is always right.
Rule Number Two: If the Boss is wrong, see Rule Number One.

Right now, you should have a look at a CBC Radio story today on the departure of the secretary of treasury board a month before the budget comes down. Florence Delaney has resigned in what is described by CBC Radio as a difference of opinion with the Premier over budget priorities.

Incidentally, the official government news release, issued at 3:00 pm today, goes into a whole raft of other things. There is the appointment of a new assistant deputy minister who brings bags of potential with him. There is the appointment of Len Simms to a patronage job as head of the housing corporation - why not just absorb the corporation into something else as a cost cutting measure? It is hard to fight the drive to note that there are very few former Peckford cabinet ministers who are still alive who haven't received a patronage job in the new administration. (Yes I know, three are in Ottawa; one is reputedly sitting as a Liberal to boot.)

Then there is also an inexplicable game of musical chairs involving the deputy ministers of transportation and works and municipal and provincial affairs. Almost at the last bit, there are some confirmations of assistant deputy ministers (ADM) who have been "acting" until now.

Then lastly there is news that a treasury board ADM will oversee the budget process through the end of the fiscal year. That's all there is.

Now back to the story:

Public servants don't usually toss their teddy in the corner over minor issues or "differences of opinion".

Senior public servants don't usually get demoted unless they have really screwed up badly. In the ordinary course of things, unless Ms. Delaney had flat-out, blatantly refused to follow cabinet direction on the budget there really wouldn't be much cause to shift her to a new job; cause that is, unless there was a larger reorganization of assignments among the deputy ministers.

If Delaney refused direction then it would be cause to demand her resignation or simply fire her for insubordination.

Inherent in the job of being a senior public servant or a senior political staffer is the responsibility - the duty - to state considered opinions forcefully, even if those opinions run contrary to what The Boss wants. Bosses should tolerate some dissent for the health of the government and the decision-making process.

Once the decision gets made, then it is the duty of said staffer or public servant to carry out the orders, irrespective of their own views. Voluntary resignation is something that happens only in the most extreme circumstances, that is, "extreme" in the ordinary workings of government.

That's why this story is likely to unfold in interesting ways over the next 24 hours.

The last paragraph of the CBC story is a bit of a joke, by the way. Premiers are not in the habit of requesting people to do something. "Request" is a polite way of putting it. It suggests one can refuse with impunity: "No thanks, I kinda like it here and my office has a nice view." Uh huh. Sure.

The truth is that the premier assigns people to jobs and from the looks of it, that is what was done here.

For some reason, Ms. Delaney decided to exercise her option under Rule Three: Hand in your resignation.

Therein lies the real story: why did she go?

In closing, here's a poser:

Trivia question: Name the last deputy minister of the provincial government who resigned voluntarily in similar circumstances?

Answer: Truthfully, I can't think of anyone, although, undoubtedly, there have been. Any faithful readers who can come up with a verifiable answer will win my eternal gratitude.

Here we go again #nlpoli

Few people who pay attention to public life in this province will forget the abuse the provincial government  - particularly former Premier Danny Williams  - heaped upon Max Ruelokke for having the temerity to be a better candidate to head the offshore regulatory board than the guy the premier wanted to stuff in the job.

Ruelokke had to sue the provincial government to force them to do what the law directed.

So detestable was the provincial government’s – i.e. Danny’s  - behaviour that the judge who heard the case stated in his decision:

Having considered the above, I find that the conduct of the Respondent (in relation to the Applicant) has been callous and “reprehensible” and is deserving of “reproof and rebuke”.  Accordingly, I will exercise my discretion and award the Applicant his solicitor and own client costs.

We may be headed for the same mess again.

A rose by any other name would still stink to high heavens

Pity Clayton Forsey.

He’s the Conservative member of the provincial legislature from the district of Exploits. Like many of his colleagues, he visited a town in his district recently and handed out a cheque from the provincial government as a “donation” toward the town’s up-coming tourism festival.

The regional weekly newspaper covered the event and described it this way:

Denise Chippett is the chairperson of the Come Home Year committee. She said the celebrations was enjoyable for all; what also helped were substantial donations from Exploits MHA Clayton Forsey and the town's volunteer fire department.

This week the Telegram picked up that line and started poking into it. The story appeared in the Saturday edition this weekend but sadly it isn’t available on line. The Telegram noted that Chief Justice Derek Green’s report into the House of Assembly spending scandal recommended that members of the legislature not make “donations” from their constituency allowances or with other government money.  If they did so out of their own pockets,  the politician is supposed to make it clear where the money came from.

Forsey is clearly bothered by the Telegram’s questions and, as the Saturday quotes him,  Forsey is quick to distance himself from that scandal.  The money is from a government department, Forsey says.  There’s a small fund in the municipal affairs department to help out with anniversary celebrations, as in this case.

"I've always presented cheques on behalf of departments. Ministers
don't always get out to these districts," Forsey said.

Of course you have to pity Forsey on two counts.  On the the first, he is merely getting nailed publicly for what his fellow government caucus members do on a regular basis.  As Forsey says, he “always” hands out government cheques. it isn’t really fair that he gets singled out in this way.

On the second, you have to pity Forsey for not appreciating that what he and his Tory buds are doing is exactly what the House of Assembly mess was really all about;  they are just using a different means to get there. You see, the main problem with the spending scandal was not that a few fellows defrauded the Crown, although that was bad enough.  The allowances system that existed in the House between 1996 and 2006 allowed individual members to engage in the old political practice of doling out goodies to constituents.

In his report, Green calls it “treating – providing food, drink or entertainment for the purpose of influencing a decision to vote or not to vote.”  That’s not exactly what this is, but the idea is related to the term more people know:  “patronage”.

As George Perlin described it nearly 40 years ago, “the dominant factor in Newfoundland politics has been the use of public resources to make personal allocations or allocations which can be perceived in personal terms….” The objective of this exercise is to connect the politician personally with the distribution of government benefits and garner political support in the process.

Consider that in this example, Forsey holds no government office and therefore has no right to hand out a cheque for government funds in preference to anyone else. Do opposition politicians get the same consideration?  Doubtful.  It’s more likely that a backbencher from the majority party caucus would carry the cheque.

In truth, the money did need to come in a cheque at all.  These days, the money could just as easily have come in a bank transfer from the department to the town.  Nor was there any need for a politician to have anything to do with it.  After all, as Forsey explains, there is a small fund available to any town holding some sort of anniversary celebration.  All the town had to do was fill out a form and wait for the bureaucrats to process it. The same thing should happen no matter where the town is, that is, no matter the political stripe of the person sitting in the legislature for that district.

But there’d be no political value in that, hence Forsey and his colleagues carry right on in the fine old tradition of pork.

The real value – the political value  - of the whole set-up, after all,  can be easily seen in the comment the chairperson of the anniversary committee gave to the paper.  It tied the money to Forsey.  And as Forsey noted he does this sort of thing all the time. Of course he does; so do his colleagues.  The money comes from municipal affairs or from the tourism, culture and recreation department where a bunch of small grant programs keep Tory politicians busy with cheque presentations.

There is absolutely no difference in what Forsey and his colleagues are doing and what virtually all of his predecessors  - leave the convicted criminals out - did with their constituency allowances between 1996 and 2006. All that happened in 2007 was that the pork-barrelling and patronage became the exclusive domain of the majority party in the legislature.

And in the end, that wasn’t really much of a change at all.

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The Transformation #nlpoli

Provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador have a political philosophy that is equal parts Machiavelli,  Kafka, and the Three Stooges.

For the first few years they seemed to be constantly plotting and manoevring, always one step ahead of their opponents at home and abroad. 

Those days are gone, now, replaced by a surreal landscape of bizarre shapes and hideous shadows.

The Conservatives have already admitted to their continuing financial mismanagement of the province.  They admitted in 2009 that what they spend of the public’s money every year is unsustainable. They continue to spend like that even though the public cannot afford it.

Yet these same profligates attack their political enemies with the accusations that the opponents are financially irresponsible.  These same bankrupts defend recent cuts to education by pointing to their previous spending which they have admitted is unaffordable and which is the reason for the cuts.  They censor public documents and at one and the same time, crown themselves most open government the province has ever seen.

This heady mixture now comes to slapstick comedy, courtesy of Trevor Taylor.

More pork posts

The only thing that really comes out of a pledge to have the provincial government try to take on some sort of international role is more plum pork patronage appointments.

-srbp-

Dunderdale blunders again: did NALCOR lobbyists give wrong funding figures to fed’s watchdog?

Information provided on the federal lobbyist registry about lobbyists hired by the provincial energy corporation is wrong to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Plus it is also for something other than what the lobbyists are registered to lobby about.

That’s according to Kathy Dunderdale, the province’s natural resources minister.  Presumably, the information was supplied to the federal registry by the lobbyists when they registered.

The province’s natural resources minister claims that the figure $960,000 listed on a federal lobbyist registry entry as cash received by the client for government funds isn’t for fees paid to the lobbyists. 

Dunderdale issued a news release today to refute opposition claims that the provincial energy corporation was dropping almost a million bucks a year on lobbyists while at the same time the provincial government was dropping another bundle to pay for Our Man in a Blue Line Cab who is supposed to be the province’s point man for all things in Ottawa.

Dunderdale says the figure on the federal lobbyist registry was:

…funding received by Nalcor from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for three specific projects related to the Northern Strategic Plan, a rate subsidy for isolated and remote communities powered by diesel, and energy-related studies for the Department of Natural Resources – all unrelated to Summa. The fact that this was not a payment to Summa was evident from the website of the Office of Commissioner of Lobbying, but was misreported by the Opposition.

Okay. 

So that’s exactly what your humble e-scribbler did.

Right off, here’s one entry for the lobbying firm and here’s a picture of the section of the website where the figures are presented.

The same information is the same as the entry for another lobbyist from the same firm currently working the same file.  Here’s the bottom of the second lobbyist entry which -  incidentally -  is identical to the first:

The information on that financial line is supposed to be government funding received by the client, in this case NALCOR Energy.  You can confirm that by checking the guide provided by the lobbyist registry:

• Source and amount of any government funding provided to the client, as well as information indicating if the client is expecting to receive public funding; and…

Now if Kathy Dunderdale is right, that figure of $960,000 is related to something other than the Lower Churchill and it also isn’t related to the lobbying firm, Summa Strategies.

So why is it there?

Really good question.

Unfortunately, Dunderdale didn’t answer it in her news release.

If that wasn’t bad enough,  the lobbyist entry is about the Lower Churchill and the client is identified as NALCOR Energy, the holding company that includes all the provincial government’s energy holdings.

Under those circumstances, the entry should include  - at the very least - the hundreds of millions paid in the past two years by the provincial government to purchase oil stakes and other money transferred from the provincial government to fatten NALCOR up financially.

Dunderdale didn’t offer any explanation of that in her news release either.

This wouldn’t be the first time Kathy Dunderdale blundered badly on a matter within her portfolio.

In 2006 Dunderdale  was embroiled in controversy over a patronage appointee who violated the province’s public tender act. Dunderdale made repeated statements about the issue some of which contradicted other statements.  in the end, the government was forced to close the legislature early to avoid further embarrassment.

In 2008, Dunderdale said the provincial government was considering a law suit against Quebec and Ottawa over the 1969 Churchill Falls contract.  She later claimed she “misspoke”, a line she maintains to this date despite evidence the government has been considering some form of legal ploy on the contract for some time.

In September, 2009, Dunderdale gave wrong information about the failure of talks with Rhode Island on a potential sale of Lower Churchill power. She said “that they did not have the capacity to negotiate a long-term power purchase agreement with Nalcor on behalf of the Province. Nor were they able, in their Legislature, to do the regulatory changes that were required in order to wheel electricity into the state.”

According to the Rhode Island governor’s office:

As far as we can determine, there is no legislative hold up here in Rhode Island, it is more of a question of cost.  While the power generation is inexpensive, the cost of transmission adds to the final price. The possibility of purchasing power is still alive….

The salvation for Dunderdale in this case is that she scored a minor victory on what the cash was really about.

Unfortunately Dunderdale put the government’s lobbyists in an even deeper spot over the amount they apparently did report to the federal lobbyist registry.

Ouch!

-srbp-

Political Foote Ball #nlpoli

Since 2003, the legislature has become more about political theatre than the public interest.  This past sitting of the House proves how much that is so.

Public discussion of policy issues in Newfoundland and Labrador takes place inside an echo chamber. It tends to stay inside arbitrary, artificial boundaries.  Participants  ride their hobby horses and ignore or try to shout down anything that contradicts their assumptions. often comments are not about what is actually going on.  They emphasise the trivial and superficial – the spats with Gerry Byrne and Tom Osborne – and ignore the  far more serious. Much of what they do is absurd:  they chase Chris Mitchelmore, knowing that Dwight Ball actually made the decision. 

Only the Premier can approve appointments
to the senior public service. 

You see them a lot.

New releases from the provincial government announcing changes to the senior public service in the province.  New people taking jobs.  People being moved from one job to another. A handful of retirements or people who left, implicitly to take up another job.

In October 2018, for example,  there was an announcement of a new appointment as associate secretary to cabinet for communications. There’s no mention of what happened to the person who used to have that job,  although the release for that earlier appointment came in January 2016.

The senior public service includes deputy ministers, associate and assistant deputy ministers, and executive directors.

There were 56 changes at that level in 2016, 60 in 2017, and only 16 in 2018. 

They don’t issue news releases for every one, any more.  Dwight Ball stopped announcing any appointments below the rank of deputy minister.  The high number of changes in the senior public service under Kathy Dunderdale became a major issue and an easy way to stop people finding out about the changes was to simply stop announcing some of them.

Fortunately for openness, transparency, and accountability, there’s a database online of orders-in-council that anyone can search.  Those are the legal documents that make each senior executive appointments official.