Strategic Social Plan (1995) – Social Profile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Next:  Demographic Change and Challenge

Strategic Social Plan (1995) - Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Next:  Background – Social Profile

Strategic Social Plan (1995) - Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

[original signed by]

Clyde K. Wells

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To come:  “Introduction and Background”

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

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

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

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

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

It never returned.

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

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

Significant Digits – health care edition

In 1995, the provincial government spent slightly less than a billion dollars on health care. 

That was 26.4% of the provincial budget that year.

In 2010, a mere 15 years later, the provincial government is spending roughly 43% of the budget (not including capital works) on health care. 

That figure drops slightly – to 38% - if you add capital spending but that's only because of the disproportionate amount of spending on capital works not related to health care. 

In 2008, the provincial government spent 43% of the budget on health care.

That’s on par with spending in Quebec, for example, but the rate of change has been much greater in Newfoundland and Labrador than it has been in Quebec. Health care spending in Newfoundland and Labrador has doubled since 2003; in Quebec, health care spending grew 33% between 2003 and 2007.

Wait.

It gets better.

With health care spending at about $2.7 billion, that works out to be the equivalent of 12% of the value of all goods and services produced in the province  - the gross domestic product or GDP - in 2009.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the Untied States spent 16% of its 2007 gross domestic product on health care.  That’s the most recent year for which the OECD supplies statistics online.

Canada as a whole spent 10% of its GDP on health care.  That was slightly behind Germany and around the same amount as Austria and France. But the majority of countries in the comparison of Europe and North America spent less than 10% of GDP on health care.

Just to be sure, in 1995, Newfoundland and Labrador spent about 10% of its GDP on health spending.  

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Incidentally, those 1995 figures are from the Strategic Social Plan consultation paper.  It was supposed to have been released in early 1996 but circumstances prevented that from happening. Since copies are scarce – they were rounded up and shredded on orders from on high – your humble e-scribbler will scan his and start posting it very shortly.

The Dead Parrot of Graduate Studies

“This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker.

This is a late parrot. 

It's a stiff. 

Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed him to the perch he’d be pushing up the daisies.  

Its metabolic processes are of interest only to historians. 

It's hopped the twig. 

It's shuffled off this mortal coil. 

It's run down the curtain and joined the Choir Invisible! 

This.... is an ex-parrot.”

One could pity Noreen Golfman, Ph.d.

Theoretically, that is.

One could  - entirely in the abstract, mind you - actually manage to find some measure of sympathy for the good professor as she copes with the crisis besetting her academic charge, the School of Graduate Studies at Memorial University.

But that sympathy could only exist in the absence of the facts.

You see the university administration froze the grad studies budget for new students.  Starting this fall new graduate students won’t get any fellowship cash from the university.  According to Golfman, about half the university’s masters and doctoral students rely on the estimated $12,000 to $15,000 to help pay for their studies.

Grad Studies is facing a budget shortfall of about $2.0 million a year.  Supposedly the shortfall is the result of a 60% increase in enrolment within the past year.

Note the word:  enrolment.

That is slightly different from the words that appear in the Telegram story on the mess where the word “application” is used. A 60% increase in applications wouldn’t matter since those applications could be turned down in the absence of funds.

A problem exists because someone – maybe Noreen Golfman as dean of graduate studies – or some group of someones allowed enrolment to increase at such an insane rate in a single year.

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. 

As an aside:  what are the odds, incidentally, that Golfman didn’t make this decision all by her lonesome?

The implications are far more serious for the university than the mere inconvenience to a few thousand students. 

"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."

You can tell Golfman understands the magnitude of the shag up because she has been bullshitting so heavily in the Telegram and to other media like the CBC:

“We will get control of our budget and hope to move forward with more support, but we couldn't in conscience go forward at the growth rate we are without knowing if we've got the money to do it.”

As Golfman knows, though, she and her colleagues did "go forward at the growth rate” knowing that they didn’t have the cash.  There isn't any indication anywhere that the funding levels were cut, tightened or otherwise altered until after the enrolment part of this fiscal fiasco.  Make no mistake, though: if there is a mess,  Golfman made it.

That isn't what you will see her acknowledge anywhere, though.  Nowhere does the bullshit about this flow more heavily than on Golfman’s own weekly blog Postcards from the edge. 

Golfman tries blaming the media for the current flap:

A freeze by any other name would not be a freeze. That’s of course why the media love to use the word: it signals exactly what freezes are, an act that seizes everything up.

She tries a minor play for sympathy:

“Forgive me, but I am somewhat preoccupied with the word freeze right now…”.

She tries to obfuscate by relying on the extracts from the Standard Book of Bureaucratic Bullshit:

Our staggering growth in the last couple of years has outrun our more limited capacity to support it, and so we are doing some intense focusing on how best to move ahead while staying committed to both the university’s Strategic Plan and the many students who are currently in our programs and require reasonable, long-term funding through the healthy front ends of their programs.

There is a mysteriously capitalised pair of phrases that seem as if they were cut and pasted whole from someone’s hastily typed notes on how to torque the whole shite-pile:

NOT SUCH A BIG DEAL, REALLY. IT’S CALLED GOOD FISCAL MANAGEMENT.

She tries to blame the media – slow news week – and then turns the whole thing into a commentary on “how basic communication works in our society”:

In a world of tweets and twerps, you know just how quickly the facts can be distorted. Just put a few nouns and verbs out there and watch how suddenly the message gets transformed into something quite different from its original meaning and context.

Ah yes, the ever popular “I was misquoted”, not by the usual culprits the news media but by the faceless crowds on facebook and other social media.

Golfman only accepts responsibility for a poor choice of words:  “I admit the memo used the phrase ‘temporary freeze,’ and if I had my time back I’d trade the word in for something softer, like ‘temporary hold’ on fellowship support for new, incoming students.” 

However in her bass-ackwards version her mistake was for telling things as they were – it really is a freeze – rather than employ the sort of mind-numbing drivel one used to find in news releases from Eastern Health about breast cancer testing.

And of course, Golfman would be remiss if she didn’t resort to the old academic stand-by, the supposed ignorance of those who have not been exposed to the rarefied intellectual environment of the average graduate school:

The whole world of graduate studies, as is the domain of research, is also a bit mystifying to the general public who, if they haven’t done a graduate degree, understandably find the whole notion of giving students money to study a little odd.

Only someone with the unadulterated arrogance to believe that could also try the extensive line of sheer foolishness Golfman has been peddling the past day or so in an effort to deflect attention from the rather obviously unsound fiscal management that led to this fiasco in the first place.

Golfman, of course, is the only one who has been avoiding facts, let alone distorting them. Her efforts to massage the message have been so amateurish, so lame, so pathetic that anyone with the IQ of a cup of warm spit – let alone the crowd at the university – could see what is actually going on.

The only thing Golfman succeeds at doing is giving the people of Newfoundland and Labrador a textbook example of how to bungle.   If she didn’t cause the problem in the first place – and she shouldn’t be off the hook for that one yet -  then she has certainly buggered the response to the crisis. 

But what is perhaps the most unforgivable sin in a string of Golfman’s unforgiveables is her mangling of the sacred canon of Monty Python:

(I am starting to feel like John Cleese defending his not-so-dead parrot, but I digress, again.)

Fans of the show will appreciate that while Golfman may like to think she’s playing Cleese’s part, she’s auditioning  - rather badly - to replace Michael Palin.  Cleese was the customer who;d be sold a bill of goods.  Michael Palin was the shopkeeper who tried every manner of deflection and bullshit to dodge responsibility for the fraud.

Oh yes, and the parrot was, unmistakably, and without question, dead.

One can only hope someone in the university administration will step in, like The Colonel, and put an end to Golfman’s miserable efforts at sketch comedy before more damage is done to the university.

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Norwegian Blue bonus:

The audio of the dead parrot sketch from the Live at Drury Lane album.  Those with a penchant for trivia and other things will note the sketch originally appeared in a Python episode titled “Full frontal nudity”. [dead link deleted]

Revised 27 April 2017 to correct typos,  clarify sentences,  and to advise that,  after the Grad Studies Fiasco, Golfman won a lovely promotion.

If only they’d read their briefing materials…

While health minister Jerome Kennedy busily backs off decisions he took only a few weeks ago on health care, there is something obviously haphazard and chaotic about the way the current administration is approaching virtually everything they do.

Your humble e-scribbler has noted this before in other policy areas. Equalization is the most obvious subject and, as it turned out, that was a post that was extremely popular.

But in the case of health care, word of the on-again and possibly off-again review of some services makes one want to turn back the clock to 2002.

That’s the year a provincial government with no cash to speak of - and certainly far less than the billion dollar surpluses Jerome! and his buddies have turned up – laid down a simple set of practical guides to health care delivery across the province.

Healthier Together (2002) was touted as a strategic health plan for Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s still available on the health department website. Read together Along with regional profiles produced the following year, you get a very good picture of the health issues in each part of the province and the solutions needed.

If you want to get a sense of how the document could help the government of today, take a look at the section on the organization of the health care regional authorities:

Newfoundland and Labrador is a large geographic area with a highly dispersed population where regions often have different circumstances and needs. This is partly the reason why the province has 14 health care boards.

It is not possible to compare the diversity of this province to the relative uniformity of Winnipeg or Edmonton, where populations which exceed that of Newfoundland and Labrador are serviced by a single health authority. However, if the number of health boards in this province create barriers to proper patient care, then re-examination is needed.

One of the problems both the Premier and the current health minister pointed to was a lack of accurate information they had when making decisions.

Well, the 2002 approach affirmed that decision-making authority on delivery of service belonged to the regions, not to people far removed from where the service was delivered. It also noted that the number of boards allowed gave a system that could take into account the local issues that could get lost in a larger system.

But when you turn to the section on where services would be located, there’s a simple model for health care that could work very easily today. After all, this thing was drafted only seven years and and, as it notes, the health care system currently in place goes back 20 and more years:

Primary health care sites will be the common denominator of service for the whole province. These sites will provide a cluster or network of basic services, plus public health and social services consistent with the mandates of the health and community service boards. Each site will serve a defined geographical region designed to ensure the right number of health professionals to service the population. For example, a minimum of five family physicians will be needed in a primary service site so that coverage can be provided 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. Therefore, a region should contain no less than 6,000 people and the site should be located so that 95 per cent of the population within that region are within 60 minutes driving time to the site. Depending on the geographic shape of a region or the remoteness of some communities, additional facilities may be located outside the main primary health care site to be serviced by a small complement of staff or by providers who make routine visits to the area.

Doesn’t that sound just a wee bit like Lewisporte?

All this makes you wonder if the turn-over at the senior levels in the current administration has served to rob the government of much-needed corporate memory, the kind of memory that would serve a cabinet well in tough economic times.

That turn-over didn’t come as a result of retirements and normal job changes-over. Rather there seems to be some other force at work producing a parade of ministers in some departments and the ping-ponging of others (finance and justice) while at the public service level there is an equally high level of change. All of it must surely make it very hard to implement a coherent and sustained set of policies over time.

And when people making decisions don’t have a clue about what happened relatively recently or when it is official policy to denigrate everything that occurred before October 2003, it makes the job of running government all that much more difficult.

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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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Confederation 60: Federalism and the Newfoundlanders

The 60th anniversary of Confederation in 1949 is gaining a fair bit of attention but not nearly as much as it should.

The noisy minority

The one feature of the reporting and commentary seems to be the list of grievances, complaints and problems.  Now to be sure, this comes from a relatively small group of people to be found largely in St. John’s. They are the progeny of the crowd who, for their own reasons, have never gotten over losing the two referenda in 1948 that led to Confederation.

For the past 60 years this relatively small band has thrived on the belief that the whole thing was a plot and that all the ills of Newfoundland and Labrador can be placed squarely at the feet of “Canadians” and Confederation. They have thrived on the belief but not on the fact of the matters, and that is definitely not from lack of trying. 

There are three other reasons why they are such a small number, however, than the fact that they haven’t turned up evidence to back their claims.  There is a reason why the majority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians do not give any support to their pseudo-separatist cause.

First, theirs is a negative message.  Not only does it claim this place is a mess, a claim that is hard to sustain for any length of time, it places blame for the mess squarely at the feet of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians for being too stunned – in the local meaning of the word – to look after their own affairs.

You’ll find no less an authority than Mary Walsh delivering just such a judgement in Hard rock and water, a fantasy film a few years ago that compared Newfoundland and Iceland. Most of the crowd that flocked to the showings of the film in St. John’s likely didn’t hear that part but it’s there if you listen. This is not to say Walsh is one of that small band, but her judgment is the logical conclusion one must come to from listening to the litany of grievances.

You’ll see the same thing in comments by the current Premier delivered in jest admittedly to a crowd of writers for Macleans back in 2004. The transcript is online, but here’s a synopsis from that first link along with the facetious view of the whole interview:

Understand that the editor’s question came after the Premier volunteered the opinion that the House of Assembly was “unproductive” and joked that if he had his way he would probably never call it in session. D’oh! That question came after the Macleans crowd asked the Premier why the provincial deficit was so big. His response was mismanagement over the past 10 years. There was a lengthy bit about the Stunnel; two sentences on the fishery. D’oh! The last question had the Premier calling for a seal cull. D’oh! The Premier made some misstatements of fact, for good measure (D’oh!) and a couple of big ideas got a handful of words, without explanation. D’oh! Take the whole interview and you have a bunch of poor, laughing drunks, complaining about having no money, who apparently can’t manage their own affairs, and yet who want to build grandiose megaprojects and kill seals.

There is a corollary to this that is worth mentioning in passing.  The story they tell is of a hard-done-by crowd victimised by the outside world and constantly needing a hand-out. it’s a cliche, of course, and one that they rightly find insulting but it is the essence of the story they tell.

Secondly, their message is almost invariably nothing more than a photocopy of something from somewhere else.  Masters of our own house, the constant airing of grievances, the list of demands, and the idea of getting into Confederation are all ideas advanced by the nationalist/separatist movement in Quebec. They are nothing more than a variation on the hand-me-down political ideas of copying the Irish or Icelandic models.  They don’t resonate with people who have a substantively different understanding of the world than Quebeckers, Icelanders or the Irish.

Thirdly, and flowing from that, their message has no vision for the future, no substantive way of correcting the pattern of behaviour they claim is responsible for the mess.  They do not speak to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador about their future in a way that people can actually relate to.

The time before Confederation is within the memory of people living today.  Even those of us first generation Canadians can recall how far we have come since the 1960s but except for those inculcated with what John Crosbie once called townie bullshit talk, our experience of the world is not driven by innate insecurity and feelings of inadequacy, individually or collectively.

And what’s more, the second generation Canadians now in adulthood do not recall the days of self-imposed insecurity.  Theirs is a world where it is perfectly natural for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to be judged on their own individual merits. They are able to go anywhere in the world and succeed and, with few exceptions, they do.  Theirs is a world much larger than what can be seen from the nearest headland.  The revolution between the ears of the people of this place happened a long while ago.

The rolling of thunder

Confederation came quietly in 1949 but the reverberations from it continue to shake Newfoundland and Labrador.

The most obvious change after April 1, 1949 that most people saw was a change in their individual financial standing.  Not only did Canadian social welfare programs start to flow, but prices dropped throughout the former country as protectionist tariffs disappeared. Traveling to Canada no longer required a passport and leaving Newfoundland to work on the mainland no longer meant traveling to a foreign land. The walls that had once served to hold Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in came down immediately.

With Confederation, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians found a financial prosperity they had not known before but they also found a financial security. Economic problems in a town or industry no longer had to mean local disaster and the permanent departure of local residents.

Before Confederation, a community like Stephenville would have assuredly faced disaster. The provincial government, as it turned out, did not need to lift a finger and indeed its meagre efforts to respond to the closure did not spell doom for the community.  Residents who used to work at the paper mill found work easily elsewhere in Canada and could continue to live in their homes. It may not be ideal and indeed we may take it for granted but the experience in Stephenville in 2005 stands in stark contrast to the experience of communities in Newfoundland in the century and more beforehand.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government also benefitted as well from the strategic financial depth provided by Confederation.  Government had the room to explore and to make mistakes in economic development – like the chocolate factories and rubber boot plants and cucumber hothouses – without the fear such mistakes would translate almost instantly into suffering for ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. 

Confederation gave the provincial government a wealth of cash in addition to its own modest surplus from the Commission.  Schools, roads and hospitals came as a direct consequence.

The most profound change that came with Confederation, though, was the restoration throughout Newfoundland and Labrador of responsible government. That one change gave individuals in the province – Labradorians for the first time ever – the direct responsibility to elect the people who would represent them not only in the provincial legislature but in the national parliament as well.  No longer confined to dealing with only local affairs or with issues directly related to Newfoundland and Labrador, the people of the province could have a hand in shaping the policies of a country with much wider influence globally and much wider responsibilities than they had known before.

The path ahead

Newfoundland and Labrador today enjoys a measure of individual and collective prosperity earlier generations could only dream of. All is not perfect, but it is immeasurably better than it might have been.

It is immeasurably better because we have – individually and collectively – been able to apply ourselves to making it better.  We have made mistakes and learned from them and we have also enjoyed great success.  The current prosperity comes entirely from policies followed by successive governments in the 1980s and 1990s that are denigrated as give-aways only by the ignorant or the self-interested.

The broader foundation of economic success grew out of policies which took advantage of the move toward a global economy and free trade. The 1992 Strategic Economic Plan, which remains in place to a great extent, grew out of the ideas of two projects of public consultation, one in the 1980s and the other to develop the plan itself.  These were meaningful consultations in which many people had a direct impact on what the final documents said.

As we mark this anniversary it is worth considering the three fundamental changes needed to implement the 1992 SEP.  Those three changes are important because they are fundamentally related to the changes that began in 1949:

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

As we mark this 60th anniversary of Confederation, it is worth considering the extent to which current government policies fail to continue those changes.  It is worth noting that in the endless wars with outsiders, there has been a steady rebuilding of the walls and barriers we have worked so hard to tear down.  We worked to tear them down because they served only to restrict us.

It is worth noting that genuine pride, innovation and self-reliance can be stifled by a late-night telephone call and by the relentless personal attacks that come from merely dissenting from official views. By choking off healthy debate about public policy issues within Newfoundland and Labrador, by strangling any alternative views we serve only to return this place to self-defeating isolation.

Confederation gave Newfoundlanders and Labradorians the tools and opportunities to make for themselves a better place in the world. In 1949, we became once more masters of our own destiny and masters of our own house.

On this 60th anniversary of Confederation, we must be mindful of how far we have come and at the same time, be aware that if we are to continue to grow and prosper we must safeguard the foundation on which our current prosperity is built.

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5 years and counting: still no sustainable development act

A 2003 Provincial Conservative election promise  - to ensure that economic development and the environment were in sync  - remains unfilled five years after the Provincial Conservatives took power and two years after the law was passed by the province’s legislature.

The province’s Sustainable Development Act, passed by the legislature in early 2007, has not been proclaimed and is therefore not law.

In the meantime, the provincial government’s energy corporation is proceeding with development of the Lower Churchill, including a plan to sling high-voltage power lines through a UNESCO World Heritage site.

That certainly wouldn’t be the popular impression since then-environment minister Clyde Jackman issued a news release in June 2007 that made it sound like the Act was in place:

The sustainable management of the province’s natural resources is now enshrined in the Sustainable Development Act that was passed in the current session of the House of Assembly. Sustainable development will ensure the province’s renewable and non-renewable resources are developed to maximize benefits for the province, while protecting the natural environment so that future generations have the ability to meet their own needs.

The release said more than half a million dollars had been set aside in 2007 to establish the advisory committee that is at the heart of the act.  No legislation, though meant no committee.

The unproclaimed act featured prominently in the Provincial Conservative Party’s 2007 election campaign platform.  The second blue print also made it sound as though the act was in force and work was underway:

Through our new Sustainable Development Act, we will ensure that development proceeds in harmony with our natural environment, securing our greatest natural strengths while promoting eco-friendly enterprise.

…

• enforce the provisions of the Sustainable Development Act regarding the responsible and sustainable development of our natural environment, ensuring that our resource development decisions address the full range of environmental, social and economic values and that workers, environmentalists, industry, communities, aboriginal peoples and others have a say in how our resources are managed. [Emphasis in original]

Without the sustainability act in place, there can be no enforcement of its provisions.

Without the act, there is also no Strategic Environmental Management Plan, even though the provincial government committed to have one in place by 2009.

The SEMP was supposed to be the document that put the commitment to environmentally sustainable economic development into action.

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Number 10 heads for number one

Via Neville Hobson, comes a link to Simon Dickson's post on the new look coming soon to the website of the Prime Minister's office in the United Kingdom.

number10.gov.uk will go from look like many other sites out there to looking like this, right.  There are slightly better quality photos available from the Downing Street Flickr space.

Yes, the Prime Minister's Office uses Flickr.  They use Twitter and the whole gamut of social media.

As you can see from Simon's description the site looks like a blog because they are using WordPress as the platform.  There's a rationale Simon offers, but frankly, anyone using the site will find that the blog approach to layout simply works more efficiently than most other designs when it comes to making the information readily accessible.

The current Number 10 site is good but it has a tendency to be an assault on the eyeballs.  The new version goes for images - like the official stills at Flickr - and in Number 10 TV which is the new centrepiece.  Simon notes that the new video component will not be youtube, although, here again Number 10 has been using the groundbreaking video site for a little over a year. 

On the right of the new layout are two columns of information, mostly conveyed in images, which take you off to other places if you are so inclined.

Compare this, for argument's sake, with any provincial government website.  That's the main government site and from there you can get to all sorts of places. The thing is depressingly out of date in both layout and content and there seems to be no move afoot to change things.  Aside:  it would be nice to be proven wrong on these things, you know. 

Other provincial government sites across the country are not significantly better, although as time passes, the gov.nl site is looking increasingly tired.  Try to find information on the community recreation develop program for example. 

After a considerable trek through the maze of clicks,  you wind up at a page with a single paragraph on it:

Designed to offset the cost of providing recreation and sport/active living programs and leisure services with the Community Recreation Committees in communities of less than 6000 people can apply for financial support. Application forms are available through regional offices.

There's no indication of how long the program's been around, who has gotten it in the past or any of the other sorts of information you might expect to find here either to help demonstrate accountability or to give a clue as to what sorts of projects get the cash.

But here's a poser for you:  which regional office are they talking about?  You see having a pdf here would be marvelously simple.  Better still they could have a form available to submit online.  But they want me to go to a regional office.

Okay.

The recreation division of the department of which recreation is a tiny bit doesn't have regional offices. Well, at least that's how it appears.  Maybe they meant the tourism regional offices.  Doesn't make much sense but maybe that's what they meant.

Try to find clear information on the website as to where those offices are.

Try the Sport Newfoundland and Labrador link on the department services and programs directory.  A logical choice but the link is dead.  It should be sportnl.ca, not sportnf.ca but nobody bothered to change the link.  (Another poser for you:  How long ago did the province's name change?) You'll find a form there for capital grants but there's no way of knowing  - from the website - if this is the same as the development grant where you started your search.

See the point?

The issue here is not one  of look.  It's really about providing information to people in a form and in a way which is most convenient for them.  Having election statistical reports available for view in the Legislative Library is nice but it the model of accountability left from an age when a quill pen was the height of modern technology. 

Accountability is not accomplished by having agencies issue plans which state that the officials responsible for sweeping the floors have established as their strategic goal to sweep floors and that they plan to do it by acquiring brooms and then applying them daily according to the standard broom employment manual recently issued for the amalgamated office of the chief sweeping officer. 

Transparency doesn't come from issuing a report in which the minister responsible for the CSO indicates his extreme pleasure at issuing a report on the strategic sweeping operations, which, incidentally, recounts in entirely  uninformative detail the fact that brooms were employed sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another in order to achieve the miracle of clean floors which have been brought to government buildings through the existence of the OCSO.

Openness is an attitude.

The attitude needs a behaviour to make it work.

The behaviour is simply providing information.

To see how dramatic and functional the changes can be, consider the rapid transformation of the  offshore board website.  To most people this site is not at the top of their bookmarks. But,  for the people interested in the offshore, they can now access relevant information in a much easier way than before.  They can do it when it suits their schedule.

The revamp of Number 10's website is a behaviour that tells you the attitude is there to be open and push information into the public domain.  We can argue another time whether what they release is useful or relevant.

It's one more people and more offices should emulate.

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Change and Challenge: Chapter Four - Creating a competitive edge (3)

Income Security Reform

During the past ten to fifteen years the Province's labour force has become strongly dependent on the income security system, particularly unemployment insurance. In many respects the current system is an inappropriate system of income security for a province such as Newfoundland and Labrador. While the Government is committed to ensuring basic income security for all households, our dependence on the present unemployment insurance system must change. As part of its strategic economic plan, the Government is therefore committed to working with the Federal Government to reform the income security system so that it encourages enterprise, education and employment, while continuing to provide basic income support.

It is important to recognize that the dependency on unemployment insurance is a national issue and not just a provincial concern. The Federal Government recently decided that unemployment insurance in Canada would be funded solely from contributions by employers and employees.

Employers and employees in this Province, however, contribute significantly less than the benefits received.

The unemployment insurance system was originally intended to provide temporary income to people seeking alternative employment who had lost their regular jobs in the work force. The system was not designed to provide basic income support, or as supplemental income for short-term, seasonal jobs. The present downturn in the economy has pointed to weaknesses in this system which must be addressed and corrected.

Strategy Statement. The Province will work with the Federal Government to ensure that the inevitable changes to the current income security system are designed so that basic income support is provided to every household, and that weaknesses in the present system are corrected to encourage the economic growth that is needed to reduce dependency on income security itself.

Actions. The Province will direct the Economic Recovery Commission (ERC) to undertake the following action and programs:

18. With support from other provincial agencies and in consultation with community groups, to work with officials from Employment and Immigration Canada to design an alternative income security system that both protects the income needs of Newfoundland and Labrador households and provides strong incentives for work, education and self-employment. The ERC will make recommendations to governments for implementing an alternative to regular
(non-fishermen's) unemployment insurance as a pilot project by 1993.

19. In consultation with other provincial and federal government agencies, the fishermen's union and the private sector, to design and recommend an Industry Stabilization and Insurance Program for Fishermen.

20. In consultation with appropriate federal, provincial and community-based agencies, devise a strategy to ensure that any short-term job creation projects that may be necessary during the interim, until a new system of income security is established, will provide meaningful work to participants and contribute to the long-term economic development of the Province.

21. Establish a Newfoundland and Labrador Conservation Corps which will channel funds into socially useful activities that will both contribute to environmental enhancement and provide valuable work experience and training for its members.

Labour Relations

There is a clear relationship between a positive labour-relations environment and a productive, viable economy. Our society has come to expect and demand certain employment standards to govern the relationship between employer and employee. It is now the challenge of labour, employers and Government to create a workplace and a workforce that is also productive, competitive and responsive to the current economic and social changes and pressures.

The importance of a positive labour-relations climate and the necessary partnership between Government, employers and labour were emphasized during the public consultation process on the development of this strategic economic plan. It was also observed that adversarial labour relations exist in Newfoundland and Labrador and that their existence impedes economic development. Participants in the consultation process suggested that the province can move forward to resolve its economic problems only if Government, employers and labour work cooperatively to address these problems and seek solutions.

Government supports the view that a stable, positive labour-relations climate is essential if we are to attract new investment in the province as well as to ensure a vigorous and competitive environment for existing businesses. A review of recent figures on work disruptions and person days lost because of work stoppages indicates encouraging signs of improvements; the statistics also show that there is no appreciable difference in work stoppages in the public and private sectors.

Because this Province has the highest proportion of unionized workers of all provinces in Canada, the operation of the collective bargaining process is particularly important here. Its flexibility allows it to represent workers' interests better than strict government regulation of the workplace. It also allows for the development of labour contracts appropriate to different workplaces. Too much direct regulation would result in reduced competitiveness and would destroy the appeal of collective bargaining in a system that should be responsive to a variety of needs.

Employers and workers together share the responsibility of creating a viable labour-relations environment; however, there is also an important role for Government. For example, our legislative framework requires government involvement before a strike or lockout can occur. The role of Government in this case is to provide services that can facilitate and encourage better communication between workers and employers. The recent preventive mediation program of Government underscores these important principles, but it is essential that the employers and workers themselves recognize their role and responsibility in the process. Mediation and conciliation may be effective in averting or reducing conflict but cannot help if parties consciously ignore or avoid these services.

A positive commitment by all parties involved is essential to successful labour relations and cannot be legislated or imposed by Government, though it can be encouraged and facilitated. Unions, workers, employers and Government must meet the challenge of continuing to improve labour-relations practices, especially when the economy, the composition of the workforce and the workplace itself are undergoing rapid and fundamental change. Recognition of the need for change provides a unique opportunity for improving the labour-relations climate.

To ensure that we can compete in an ever-expanding global marketplace employees and employers must work together. The challenge is to create a positive labour-relations environment which satisfies the aspirations of workers, minimizes work and family conflict and produces a well-trained and committed work force. Maintaining a balance between competitiveness and employment security must be a shared responsibility of labour, employers and Government. All three must recognize the conflicting pressures of global market forces and a growing demand for fundamental workers' rights and the collective bargaining process.

During the public consultation process, reference was made to the Province's other role as a major employer and the need to review the present policy of having different collective bargaining regimes for public and private sector employees.

Government can make an important contribution to the challenge unions, workers and employers face by increasing services that help the parties work together and by making all employers and employees aware of the importance of their own commitment to improved labour relations. While there is a clear link between a positive labour-relations environment and a productive business environment, it is equally clear that it takes a commitment from all parties to make it work.

Strategy Statement. The Province mil work to develop a stable, positive labour-relations climate to maintain and attract investment to the Province and to ensure a vigorous and competitive environment for economic development. Special emphasis will be placed on the development and use of innovative dispute resolution mechanisms and other workplace practices to minimize disruptions and enhance productivity for the mutual benefit of employers and workers.

Actions. The Province will:

22. Convene, within six months, a joint labour-management consultative committee, with both public- and private-sector representation. This committee will bring labour and management together at the provincial level to develop broad strategies for responding to restructuring and adjustment issues, to investigate and propose appropriate policy and program reforms (including new and innovative methods of dispute resolution), and to review the recommendations of the Background Report on Labour Relations to the Royal
Commission on Employment and Unemployment which are not yet implemented.

23. Appoint a Cabinet committee to address matters involving public-sector labour relations and Government's role as the major employer in the Province.

24. Establish, during the next year, tri-partite committees of employers, employees and Government for each major sector of the economy to develop a better understanding of, and to discuss and advise on, labour matters. These committees will meet regularly with the appropriate Cabinet Ministers to ensure improved communication among the interest groups.

25. In consultation with management and labour, establish a Labour-Relations Education and Research Centre which will develop new skills and strategies for effective collaboration, communication, mediation, arbitration, health and safety planning, grievance procedures, conciliation and collective bargaining. This Centre will be associated with a post-secondary institution which will adopt as its area of specialization the new mandate for labour-relations education.

26. Ensure there is a partnership between business and labour to provide information on the role, importance and mechanisms for positive labour relations at the secondary and post-secondary educational institutions.

27. Allocate additional financial and human resources to the promotion and delivery of the Preventive Mediation Program.

28. Undertake a thorough review of legislation relating to labour relations; consolidating all collective bargaining legislation will be considered.

29. Establish immediately a labour-management cooperation fund to provide cost-shared financial support to projects jointly sponsored by labour and management, such as those related to improved communication, productivity or labour relations.

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Change and Challenge: Chapter 4(4)

Change and Challenge: Chapter Four - Creating a competitive edge (1)

Creating a competitive edge is essential to improving our standard of living. Indeed, as the global economy changes, improved competitiveness will be necessary simply to maintain our present standard of living. To meet the legitimate expectations of our citizens about income, employment and public services, we must sell high value-added, competitively priced, quality goods and services that meet the needs of customers in local, national and international markets. Consequently, we must add value in our existing resource industries, consolidate them, develop new resource opportunities such as offshore oil and gas, and aggressively pursue high value-added opportunities in manufacturing and the services sector.

Government recognizes that it has a responsibility to work with other orders of government, business, labour and academia to create an environment which supports enterprise and economic development. Consequently, support policies will focus on developing the Province's entrepreneurial base; educating and training our labour force; creating a positive labour-relations climate; reforming the income-security system; encouraging product and process innovation; introducing new tax incentives and marketing programs; and providing a quality of government service which attracts investment and welcomes businesses.

Developing the Entrepreneurial Base

Government realizes that to generate wealth, the creativity, imagination and entrepreneurial drive of our people must be nurtured and harnessed. The entrepreneurial base of the Province requires both a balance of domestic and non-resident capital and expertise, and a mixture of small, medium and large enterprises selling goods and services in local, national and international markets.

It must be recognized, however, that we do not yet have an adequate entrepreneurial base. While Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have always been resourceful, our history of trading unprocessed commodities and our protectionist philosophy have restrained the development of the entrepreneurial spirit which is so necessary in these economic times. Because of our focus on selling primary resources, we have only limited expertise in marketing value-added goods and services, particularly in export markets. Consequently, we lack a marketing orientation. Recognition of Newfoundland and Labrador products in national and international markets is, for the most part, non-existent. Further, recent surveys indicate there is very little recognition of Newfoundland and Labrador products even within the Province.

The lack of a dynamic and thriving entrepreneurial base also contributes to the perception that Newfoundland and Labrador does not offer attractive investment opportunities, and this makes it difficult to leverage external investment. The Government is determined that these circumstances and the negative attitudes associated with them can and will be changed.

Provincial policy for rural and regional development will be directed towards stimulating the self-reliance and enterprise that have historically characterized social and economic life in rural areas. In addition to emphasising large, technology-based export industries, Government is committed to creating an environment that nurtures and supports all enterprise, including small-scale and home-based initiatives that turn the traditional strengths of the rural and household economies into commercial businesses.

Although the value of household, home-based activities is not included in formal economic measurements, it is significant and these activities will continue to play a vital role in developing a stronger enterprise culture in the market economy, particularly in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. In this regard, Government also recognizes the important role credit unions and producer/worker cooperatives play in fostering social and economic development in rural areas.

For economic development to succeed, we must provide our entrepreneurs with the opportunity to develop their managerial, technical, financial and marketing skills, help them turn good ideas into viable businesses, and promote our Province as a place which welcomes and supports outside investment. We will also recognize and promote our successful firms and entrepreneurs, both within the Province and outside, as part of an overall strategy to enhance the image of the Province. We will introduce our young people to the benefits of entrepreneurship through enterprise education in our secondary and post-secondary systems and we will provide adequate training to aspiring entrepreneurs. Through more co-ordinated Government efforts, we will encourage and support enterprises to seek out and penetrate national and international markets. We will aggressively pursue new investment to ensure that our core resource industries are maintained, especially investment in value-added activities, that new resource opportunities such as oil and gas are developed, that new manufacturing opportunities are pursued - especially those which are marine-related - and that services-sector opportunities, notably in tourism and professional services for export, are developed.

Strategy Statement. The Province will undertake measures to introduce students to the benefits of entrepreneurship; will provide appropriate training to aspiring entrepreneurs; will recognize and promote the success of local enterprises; will promote and assist local enterprises to develop and market their products in national and international markets; and will promote the Province's attractive investment opportunities, supportive investment climate and unsurpassed quality of life.

Actions. To implement this strategy, the Province will:

1. Support entrepreneurship by:

• instituting a Province-wide promotional campaign in support of entrepreneurship and developing an enterprise culture;
• expanding enterprise education throughout the school system;
• encouraging Memorial University, through the Faculty of Business Administration, and the Community Colleges to expand business skills training to entrepreneurs in the Province;
• supporting changes to the income security system, in cooperation with the Federal Government, that will strengthen entrepreneurship; and
• encouraging and supporting the growth of home-based businesses,
  producers' and workers' cooperatives, credit unions and commun­
  ity-based development corporations.

2. Work closely with other orders of government to remove barriers to entrepreneurship, such as changing land-use regulations and the tax system; and implement changes to programs, policies and regulations under its control in order to promote and attract investment for small, medium and large-scale enterprises.

3. Develop and maintain comprehensive data bases on product requirements in various key markets (Canada, U.S., Europe, Asia) and make such data more easily available to the private sector.

4. Develop and deliver, in close cooperation with the private sector, a campaign which establishes the Province nationally and internationally as a supplier of top-quality goods and services, especially its broad range of marine-related and derived products.

5. Establish a Trade Development Council to improve private and public sector capability in international trade and marketing, and to provide advice to Government on trade-related issues.

6. Immediately institute a program to upgrade Government employee skills and knowledge of trade development to facilitate a significant new thrust in trade development services; where possible, Government will use secondments and exchanges to supplement in-house capabilities.

7. Assess its full range of financial support instruments for business to determine if they are inappropriately sustaining industries or enterprises which are not economically viable, and to redirect their use to support the priorities of this strategic plan. Where appropriate, efforts will be made to direct financial assistance programs away from loan guarantees and grants, and toward equity investments which give businesses a better opportunity to succeed.

8. Use its financial assistance programs to ensure that businesses receiving assistance have the necessary management and marketing skills to operate successfully, that quality assurance and control are integral aspects of production, and that productivity through training and upgrading of workers is emphasized.

9. Accelerate programs and activities which facilitate joint ventures, technology licensing, co-manufacturing and other forms of industrial cooperation and investment.

10. Undertake a long-term promotional campaign to educate Canadians about the positive attributes of our Province's economy, work ethic, culture, lifestyle and geography, and to promote the Province's business opportunities in key investment markets in Canada and throughout the world. Government will also improve awareness of Newfoundland and Labrador in key Canadian foreign posts and enlist their pro-active participation in our investment promotion activities.

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Change and Challenge: Chapter 4(2)

Change and Challenge: Chapter Three - Charting the Course

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

A Vision for the Future

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

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

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

Guiding Principles for Economic Development

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

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

A Focus on Strategic Opportunities

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

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

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

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

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

Economic Zones and Regions

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Cooperative Approach

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

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

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

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Chapter Four (1)