In all important aspects of national politics, guile, compromise and a subtle kind of blackmail decided their course and determined their alliances. They appeared to discount all political or social ideologies, save nationalism. For the mass of the people the words Tory and Grit, Conservative and Liberal, referred neither to political ideologies nor to administrative techniques. They were regarded only as meaningless labels, affixed to alternatives whicb permitted the auctioneering of one's support; they had no more meaning than bleu or rouge, which eventually replaced them in popular speech. [They] on the whole never voted for political or economic ideologies, but only for the man or group which stood for their ethnic rights...
In such a mental climate, sound democratic politics could hardly be expected to prevail, even in strictly provincial or local affairs where racial issues were not involved....
Being competitive globally involves education, job skills, infrastructure, innovation, technology and regulation. It is an integrated package. Competitiveness is the result of a political philosophy that sets the balance between government and the private sector.
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Competitiveness, jobs and national prosperity need to be the principal ballot questions for the next federal election. Whoever can best ensure our quality of life through economic growth deserves to govern. We have the priorities backwards. Other issues such as government accountability, lowering the GST and same-sex marriage rights are secondary to making Canada competitive for the future. Without that, there won't be money for anything else.
They should be the major ballot questions in Newfoundland and Labrador this October.
Chevron is devoting about 39 percent of its exploration and development budget to North America, which includes the gulf as well as projects in Alaska and the waters off Newfoundland. But the company also is betting heavily on offshore oil and gas fields near Angola, Australia and Thailand. About 25 percent of the company's exploration money goes to Africa, 19 percent to Asia and the Pacific.________________________________
Those areas all show great promise. They're also open to foreign investment. Much of the world isn't, at least not on terms Chevron and other international oil companies might like. Governments from Venezuela to Newfoundland have become more assertive about the deals they're willing to make with Big Oil, often demanding control over joint ventures and a far higher cut of the profit than they used to. National oil companies, such as Saudi Aramco or the National Iranian Oil Co., control the vast majority of the world's reserves, and they see less reason to seek Chevron's help in developing their resources.
Since Confederation, Canadians have been hampered by an inter-provincial distrust of the power of free markets to produce economic and social benefits.There's a similar idea in this study by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
As a result, federalism has evolved into an inefficient system of provincial and municipal enclaves of economic autonomy. Provincial economic independence has created an interprovincial trading system that hampers productivity through barriers that curb the flow of goods and services.
These have impeded Canada's evolution from a middle to a modern power.
Canada cannot hope to compete globally when we have the kind of barriers to internal trade we have now.
When he said anybody, Danny literally meant he'd take on anybody not acting in the best interests of Newfoundland and Labrador. [h/t to Offal News]
Find the latest entry here, which morphs quickly into a discussion about the high percentage of people leaving the province who hold university degrees and other specialized training. The chart, above, is from a slide presentation done in the mid 1990s. Note that university degree-holders have consistently been the largest proportion of migrants from Newfoundland and Labrador since the mid 1970s at least.
Kevin Kennedy, right [Photo: Canadian Forces Combat Camera] is among the six soldiers killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.
Update: A second soldier from Newfoundland and Labrador has been identified among the six dead in Afghanistan.
A look at Newfoundland's history through a local lens explains why Mr. Williams' attacks on big business and Ottawa play so well around the kitchen tables of Gander and Corner Brook. Dragged into Confederation by the narrowest margin, the formerly independent colony has been rewarded with collapsed cod stocks, a hydro deal that virtually donates electricity to Quebec (which resells it to Americans for a tidy profit), two generations of talented young people decamping for work in Alberta and elsewhere, and the largest per capita debt and highest unemployment in Canada.
Cynics outside the province might suggest Newfoundlanders had something to do with bad economic planning, but locally, says Mr. [John] Crosbie, the feeling is "we're always being outsmarted and done in by mainlanders."Since this piece was written by a mainlander, he can be forgiven for assuming every single person on what the Post calls The Rock - a word destined to join the other "n" word on the list of banned ethnic slurs - buys into the nationalist mythology on which the latest caudillo thrives.
Spend any time publicly criticising the current administration and its policies and at some point, you are bound to hear from the Premier's personal supporters.It makes you want to laugh at those critics. Passiveness in politics will get you nowhere. Williams is taking a much-needed strong stand, simply put. Those who are complaining, for the most part, seem to be those who want Williams to shut up and go away, accept the deal offered after the contract. Complain as they may, I doubt it will faze him one bit.Wangersky responds in his own column in words that speak eloquently for themselves:
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It makes you want to laugh at those critics. Passiveness in politics will get you nowhere. Williams is taking a much-needed strong stand, simply put. Those who are complaining, for the most part, seem to be those who want Williams to shut up and go away, accept the deal offered after the contract. Complain as they may, I doubt it will faze him one bit.
When it comes to premiers and prime ministers, I just don’t know who’s right at this point.The Telegram's editorial this week praises economist Wade Locke for putting some factual information in the public view. More information is always good when looking at complex issues. More, accurate information promotes discussion which usually leads to a sensible decision.
I honestly don’t know what’s right, and I’m pretty much sure that my grasp of the issue isn’t that much different from the 90 per cent of the people who have already made up their minds.
Now, I’m leery of bandwagons, especially the patriotic kind. Patriotism sells T-shirts and suppresses free thought.
I like to make up my own mind, and I don’t like the mindset that believes I should have my ideological windows smashed out for daring to not toe the provincial line.
So, what do I think?
I suspect, at this point, that Premier Williams may well have the clearest case — that he’s right in maintaining that a promise was broken.
At the same time, you have to ask yourself if it isn’t a mug’s game to believe the promise could be kept in the first place.
There is, more than anything else, the real politik [sic]of the situation.
This is a complicated little tangle: could a promise like the one Harper made ever, ever make its way through a minority government, tucked into a minority budget? Only the Bloc Quebecois supported the Conservative budget — would a promise made, and a government defeated, have served us any better than an equalization scheme that will apparently still give us more money than the restructured Atlantic Accord was going to?
Those are interesting questions, and ones that it is hard to find answers for — it’s easy enough if you just want to decide to back one side in the argument, but there has to be more to picking a side than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. That’s akin to voting for a particular party in an election because your father always voted for that party.
That Premier at that time, of course, liked it better when everybody just fell in line behind him. He, too, disliked criticism and his supporters made his displeasure clear in a variety of ways. The Premier at that time made it plain too, how much he hated his critics, telling a media scrum that the Telegram had been taken over by a gang of illiterates.
Following the end, Gushue reportedly told his team not to give up. Korab reminded his skip not to give up, either.A few weeks ago, rumours abounded that Danny Williams' crew was pitching the idea that Gushue should run for the Williams' party in the next provincial general election.
The two bantered back and forth with Korab calling Gushue a hypocrite.
All I’m saying, Korab apparently told his skip, is you’re telling us not to quit. I’m telling you not to quit.
Korab said Gushue then said something — he won’t say what it was— “snarky”.
“I said, ‘Brad, come here. Let’s talk about this.’ I said, in an assertive way if you want to call it that, ‘You say stuff like that to us all the time and it’s the first time I’ve ever said anything to you about it.’”
For the next couple of days, the two didn’t speak. Korab was waiting for an apology.
“But no, I was in the wrong for this because I had made a personal attack on him, which wasn’t the case,” Korab said.
In a scathing letter to Innovation, Trade and Rural Development Minister Trevor Taylor this week, auditor general John Noseworthy says his office still has not been provided with all necessary information.Good thing Danny's gone on vacation.
Noseworthy said he has identified documentation that has not been turned over by the government, and as a result, “it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to have any confidence in this process.”
The backers of a new refinery on the Newfoundland coast say the US$4.6-billion project will likely only succeed if a large international oil player steps up as a partner.From the Financial Post.
(h/t to Donny, via e-mail, whoever you are)
Walter Noel, left, is a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister and a former federal Liberal candidate.This report was commissioned by the Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening our Place in Canada to provide information regarding the economic, fiscal and other benefits to Canada and to Newfoundland and Labrador of the province’s presence in the federation.
In 1949, Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada to secure a brighter economic future for itself – and its new country. In the ensuing half century, Newfoundland and Labrador has certainly become wealthier but has struggled to keep pace economically with the rest of the country and with its trading partners. Perhaps unfairly, the province has too often been characterized as a place with no jobs and dependent upon the transfer payments it became entitled to upon Confederation.
A region’s growth involves at least four kinds of external relationships: (i) trade, or the import and export of goods and services; (ii) migration of people, both in their capacity as consumers and in their capacity as workers; (iii) interregional “migration” of other production factors, notably investment capital; and (iv) the national government’s revenue collection and expenditure in the region. This report examines the current state and evolution of each of these external relationships and in doing so provides information to help assess the benefits to Newfoundland and Labrador from the Canadian economic union.
Fiscal Benefits
This report finds that the federal government’s net spending in the province has not been a major factor in the overall national fiscal position. Newfoundland and Labrador’s size meant that more populous provinces receive substantially larger sums of federal money and have a larger impact on the federal government’s overall fiscal position.
Federal spending in Newfoundland and Labrador has declined over the last few years. In fact federal spending in Newfoundland and Labrador as a share of spending throughout the country has fallen 0.5% over the last decade – the largest decline of any province – while over the same period Ontario and British Columbia have seen their share of Federal spending rise.
Trade Benefits
The rest of Canada has and continues to benefit from the economic union by exporting goods and services to Newfoundland and Labrador. Companies in Ontario and Quebec have benefi ted the most from trade with Newfoundland and Labrador. While consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador have benefited from lower prices for imported goods and services since Confederation, it is only now that Newfoundland and Labrador businesses are starting to see a significant increase in their benefit from the domestic market.
Investment in the development of the province’s major oil projects will continue to support high levels of imports for a few years. The production from these projects will, however, start to generate substantial export revenue and help push the trade balance towards a surplus position.
Labour Benefits
People from Newfoundland and Labrador can be found across the country making significant contributions to their local economy. This study estimated that for every 10 current residents in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are 4 people born in the province that are now living elsewhere in Canada. By moving to fill jobs required in the rest of Canada, the Newfoundland and Labrador labour force has acted to reduce labour market disruptions caused by labour shortages in other provinces. The current study estimates that a flow of workers to other provinces the amount of which is equal in size to the number of people born in Newfoundland and Labrador but now resident in other provinces would reduce competitiveness and economic
performance leading to a $1.1 billion reduction in the federal government surplus. The latter amount is equal to about 40% of the current federal deficit in the province.
The loss of these people has, however, been at best a mixed blessing to Newfoundland and Labrador. The loss of productive workers and their associated demand depresses economic activity – but it does reduce competition for jobs for those that remain.
Natural Resource Benefits
For the last forty years investment capital has been concentrated in the development of the province’s natural resources. While these projects have brought jobs and income there are lingering questions about whether the province receives an appropriate return on its natural resource wealth.
The impact of the Churchill Falls hydro-electric power contract with Hydro Quebec is significant. The loss in real provincial GDP (1997 dollars) was estimated to be between $1,500 and $3,000 a person each year throughout the 1990s and – even at the lower end of the range – would be enough to pull Newfoundland and Labrador ahead of both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in terms of per capita GDP. The benefits to Quebec’s economy have been equally large – supporting the development of a powerful manufacturing sector and providing windfall gains on their electricity exports. The situation has, up to now, stalled the development of hydro-electric resources that would reduce Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels and help us meet our greenhouse gas emissions targets.
The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador appears to collect, at best, a modest return on its natural resource assets.
• The high costs of development and exploration mean that the province collects about one eighth the revenue per barrel of oil that Alberta does. This low revenue rate, combined with a comparatively short lifespan for the projects, means that Newfoundland and Labrador will not benefit from this resource to the same extent that the other oil producing provinces have.
• Provincial revenues from other mining activity are similar to those in other provinces. The more critical issue for this sector is to process the minerals locally. The recent agreement on development at Voisey’s Bay should help the province benefi t in a more significant way from this resource.
• Provincial revenues from the forestry sector are the second lowest in the country. The benefit from this resource appears to accrue to the owners of the province’s pulp and paper mills.
Appropriate natural resources policies are extremely hard to define. Ideally, the province should capture a larger share of the economic rent from its natural resources to help ensure a more prosperous future. The analysis in this report, although limited in scope, would appear to support a review of the province’s natural resources policies.
Other Benefits
Confederation brought a host of other benefits to Canada. The new province helped “complete” the country from coast to coast to coast. While politically Confederation prevented Newfoundland and Labrador from slipping into the United States orbit it has not inhibited the province’s strategic importance to continental defence. By adding 406,000 square kilometres of land to the country, Canada gained a wealth of natural resources and dramatically extended its coastline. As a result, the adoption of the 200 nautical mile limit allowed Canada to add 1,826,000 square kilometers of offshore waters to its territory with access to all the riches of the Atlantic Ocean. This physical enlargement also provided a new shipping outlet on the Atlantic sea lanes with St. John’s harbour and Gander airport is an important waypoint for
international flights.
Finally, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have not only contributed economically to the success of the rest of the country but have also enriched the culture of the nation through the work of its writers, artists, performers and politicians. The province also enriches our history as the site of the first European settlers in North America.
This report has explored some of the dimensions of the Canadian economic union and
Newfoundland and Labrador’s relationship with it. In 1949, a small economy became part of a larger economy. This action entailed the creation of a customs union for the movement of goods, services and capital; the removal of barriers to labour movement; and the reduction of non tariff barriers. The process of adjustment to these changes has defined economic development in the province since Confederation. With the tumultuous decade of the 1990s behind it, Newfoundland and Labrador can now look forward to a period of sustained growth. The process of adjustment and integration is still ongoing and the policy choices made in St. John’s, Ottawa and the other provincial capitals will help determine how the benefits of the economic union affect the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Maybe it's an age thing, but when this headline popped up on the screen, your humble e-scribbler thought it was a bit odd for the tongue that walks like a man to be upset about car seats.
In the first try at crunching the numbers, Memorial University economist Wade Locke -- one of the province's leading experts on offshore revenue deals -- has found if Newfoundland were to stick with the Atlantic Accord and the old equalization formula until 2020, it would receive $18.5 billion in combined revenues.While the 100% exclusion might be better, if it is politically impossible, then it really doesn't exist.
But if the province follows an optimal strategy -- where it would leave the accord in 2009 and opt into a formula where a fiscal cap is implemented and 50 per cent of non-renewable natural resource revenues are included -- it would receive $24.1 billion, Locke said.
"If there doesn't happen to be a job for someone in St. John's in an engineering firm, that's unfortunate. I'm not happy with that. But there has to be some price paid in the short term," [Premier Danny Williams] said.
If three quarters of the people who were reported on happen to be Tory, then — if that was the case and there was some negativity — there then it would be disproportionate to the Tories," Williams said.Even though the problems in the House started after 1997 (by the AG's own reports), Danny Williams wants to use a whole bunch of other members of the House, mostly Liberal, to try and counterbalance what happened over the past decade.
"If we do this over the complete period of time, it's a fair representation, because it's all relative."
"If people are going to decide on what's right or wrong in regards of what [incumbents] did was appropriate or inappropriate, then they are in a position to measure what went on before and what went on with other governments, and what the standard was," Williams said.That assumes that what voters see is a complete record, let alone one that is relevant to the goings-on in the House over the past decade.
The Premier also agrees that for now there is no cap on the Atlantic Accord. But the province will be forced in the near future to take the same alternative as Nova Scotia was forced to take in their budget last week which results in a cap on its accord revenues.What the Premier didn't say is that he's referring to the point when the provincial government goes off Equalization, i.e. becomes a so-called "have" province.
The Premier also pointed out that contrary to some commentaries recently Newfoundland and Labrador in fact contributes greatly to the Canadian federation, in particular as it relates to natural resource revenue.Note the conditional language; the federal government "could take in."
“Over the life of our three existing offshore oil projects, projections indicate the federal government could take in approximately $20 billion on those projects, and several billions of dollars on the Voisey’s Bay project,” added Premier Williams. “These are just two examples of the contributions our province make to this federation; contributions which greatly assist the federal government in delivering important programs and services to the Canadian people.”
Federal member of parliament Bill Matthews (Lib., Random-Burin-St. George's) announced on Tuesday he will wind up his 25 year career in politics when the writ is dropped for the next federal election.
Canada's special operations unit, JTF 2, has trained for security incidents involving offshore oil rigs. [Photo: Department of National Defence]
Figure 1, above, compares the government "take" across several jurisdictions. Locke defines the government "take" as government revenues divided by net cash flows.
Figure 2, above, shows the change in government "take" as oil prices increase per barrel. Note where Newfoundland and Labrador falls in relations to the other jurisdictions, including Alberta.
Figure 3, above, compares net cash flows among the two orders of governments and the companies.
You know people have the right to vote anyway they want and sure we right now as a government feel that he [we?] would really like to see Stephen Harper gone but the fact of the matter is the people will vote, its their voice that will vote and it's the same here. [Emphasis added]
But what's happening is you're being influenced by the PMO spin. I mean, you know, the Prime Minister's Office has a huge, huge communications network and, so, you know, this is where the letters to the Globe and Mail are coming from and all of that and they'll, they'll fight that.