Category Archives: Politics

Sep 05 2014
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Education, Politics

Hey teacher, don’t keep those kids at home

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If Ontario’s government hopes to maintain public support for its new full-day kindergarten (FDK) program, it had better abandon its inexplicably dismissive attitude about the regime’s evident growing pains.

News reports this week suggest that the province’s ministry of education has been flooded, in recent months, with complaints by both parents and educators about bloated class sizes and the noise, disruption and confusion this caused in several schools last academic year.

In at least once instance, as many as 40 tykes were crowded into a room. Documents obtained by the Globe and Mail through a freedom-of-information request indicate that “about 640 kindergarten classrooms, or eight per cent of those that introduced the (full-day) program had more than 30 children. . .according to a confidential briefing note to the minister in January.”

Moreover, the Globe reported, “Martha Hradowy, who represents early childhood education workers at Windsor’s Greater Essex County District School Board, said the situation has become so dire that some schools have created learning areas for full-day kindergarten students, which hold about 100 children. Classrooms are divided into four separate corners.”

This is exactly the kind of bad press no government should want as it implements the final phase of an FDK soft launch to all schools in the province. And yet, so far, the ministry’s response has been decidedly tepid.

Noting that daycares in the province are required, by law, to maintain a one-to-eight caregiver-child ratio and that pre-school primary programs must limit class sizes to no more than 23 kids, government officials blithely allowed that, at present, there is no comparable cap for FDK, only a requirement that school boards preserve an average class size of 26 throughout the system. 

Certain Ontarian editorialists of my acquaintance are, no doubt, itching to get busy scribbling their provocative nonsense in response to this new, so-called crisis in public education. “Ontario’s kids crammed into classrooms like sardines in a can”, “Ontario’s schools turning into factory farms”, “Ontario’s kindergartners pay the price for nanny-state meddling,” the headlines will scream.

The overcrowding, these pundits will write, proves that Ontario is nowhere near ready to assume the responsibilities of providing efficient full-day kindergarten; indeed, that such a monumental task is probably beyond the administrative and fiscal capabilities of any province in this country.

They will then use the point to segue into an entirely separate, if equally specious, argument: that there is no credible proof that FDK or, indeed, any form of early childhood education provides lasting social, psychological or educational benefits to kids; and that those youngsters who do evince advanced interpersonal and academic skills as a result of their exposure to such programs lose these advantages over their more classically schooled peers by the end of Grade One.

The arguments that it can’t be done and that it’s not necessary, anyway, have dogged the discussion about publicly sponsored and subsidized child care and early education for decades.

But it’s only been within the last 50 years when rigorous research and empirical evidence have shown that state investments in these programs have generated multipliers (in the reduction of public costs related to poverty, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, crime, illiteracy, innumeracy, and mental illness) worth billions of dollars a year in countries that have had the perspicacity to spend the money accordingly.

And the suggestion that all kids eventually even each other out, regardless of their early childhood education backgrounds (or lack, thereof), is hardly a resonant reason for abandoning such programs.

Who would want his enriched, curious, empathetic kid suddenly leavened in grade school by the lower common denominators in his midst?

Isn’t the better idea to raise everyone’s standards by providing a commonly accessible, superior system of play-based, pre-school education that’s integrated seamlessly into the higher grades where meritorious principles (team-playing, integrity, love of learning) may continue to flourish?

The growing pains the Ontario government’s FDK program now suffer are serious, but they are perhaps predictable and, more importantly, eminently fixable.

Now is no time for officialdom to take them lightly.

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Sep 03 2014
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Democracy, Politics

Taming our free-market beasts one election at a time

Ever since the financial meltdown of 2008, economic thinkers have wondered whether the free market thirsty for oil and nostalgic for the good, old, bad, old days of easy profit could ever learn from the errors of its rapacious ways.

After all, in the shadow of that calamity, the rich did, indeed, get richer, the poor did, indeed, get poorer, and the middle class became almost mythological throughout much of North America.

Even more maddening, perhaps, is the certainty that many of the very institutions that played key roles in engineering (or, at least, ushering) the near-collapse of the global economy have been bolstered, rehabilitated and otherwise rewarded with public money – money that is now no longer available to pay for the necessities of civilized life, such as rational, affordable health care and higher education.

All of which is reason enough for public intellectuals, such as French economist Thomas Piketty, to conclude that capitalism is, at its core, breathtakingly Nietzschean. In  the introduction to his best-selling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the professor at the Paris School of Economics, states that “Modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have made it possible to avoid the Marxist apocalypse but have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality – or in any case not as much as one might have imagined in the optimistic decades following World War II.”

Why? Mr. Piketty explains: “When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.”

Still, he’s not entirely without hope. “There are nevertheless ways democracy can regain control over capitalism and ensure that the general interest takes precedence over private interests, while preserving economic openness and avoiding protectionist and nationalist reactions,” he writes.

The rest of his tome is essentially a 577-page set-up for a series of recommendations for savagely curtailing the savagery of capitalism, itself.

But, at least one Nobel Prize-winning economist thinks that while his colleague “is right about the severity of the problem, he is not completely right about its cause – and how  to fix it.”

In an article that appears in this month’s Harper’s magazine, Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute, argues, in effect, that the fault is not so much in the social and political systems and institutions we erect but in ourselves for failing to keep them healthy and honest.

“There is no such thing as a ‘purely’ capitalist system,” he writes. “We have always had a mixed economy, relying on the government for investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.” Indeed, he pointedly adds, “the most innovative and successful industries in the U.S. economy (tech and biotech) rest on foundations provided by government research.”

His bottom line is that “a well-functioning economy requires a balance between the public and private sectors, with essential public investments and an adequately funded system of social protection.”

Of course, that notion has been out of style for nearly 35 years. Both Reagan and Thatcher revolutions, which marked the ascendence of neo-conservative cultural warriors and their fellow travellers on Wall Street, made puppy chow out of the once cherished and credible proposition that good governments play a legitimate role in curbing the excesses that turbulent competition is bound to produce.

Still, had such creatures (good governments) existed prior to the financial crisis, there’s every reason to believe that the awe-inspiring income inequalities, joblessness, consumer debt, and fiscal malaise entrenched in public institutions of every variety would not so bedevil us today.

It is even conceivable that elected officials would ply their trade with a certain decorum and circumspection, knowing that the voters they woo do not, in fact, find all politicians utterly loathsome.

As New Brunswick heads ever closer to an election that many pundits have predicted will be conspicuous for its failure to inspire much confidence in any political party, we mustn’t forget that democratic governments are the only protections we have against the predations of the marketplace.

When we don’t respect our public institutions and refuse to care for them, they will weaken, dissolve and vanish.

Then, dear citizen, enjoy facing the free market in all its rapacious glory.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics

Accounting for pricey election promises

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How toothless are New Brunswick’s booked rules to force political parties, in campaign mode, to explain exactly how they will make good on their spending promises? Indeed, how opaque is the Conservative machine’s commitment to transparency?

The provincial Liberals want to know and have been demanding answers since late June when the Tory-inspired Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act came into effect. At that time, the Grits issued a statement, under their leader Brian Gallant’s imprimatur.

“It’s clear that this government is focused solely on spending announcements to help their election campaign, and not on growing our economy or creating jobs,” he said. “It’s ridiculous and unacceptable. This government is burying election promises in government announcements so they can avoid their own transparency legislation that requires all promises to be costed in election platforms,” said Gallant.

Last week, the Liberals were at it again, charging that the Conservatives have made $433 million worth of spending promises without independently costing out those announcements. They even unveiled a spreadsheet that, they say, accurately reflects the dollar value of each Tory vow between June 24 and August 20.

In contrast, insisted Liberal Dieppe candidate Roger Melanson, “We are being transparent and accountable. I think the outgoing premier who set out the rules in this legislation should follow the same rules.”

For their part, the Tories aren’t talking. In June, however, then-Finance Minister Blaine Higgs told the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, “If they (Liberals) know something that has been promised or announced that’s not in their budget, well, then they should tell me because I don’t know about it. . .Anything during the election process will then be identified as either new money or budgeted money. It will have to be costed if it is new money.”

To which Mr. Melanson retorted, “If that’s the case, it means they were using taxpayers’ money. . .to try to buy their votes.”

There is, of course, more than a healthy dose of political posturing on both sides of the issue. But the bottom line is that all of this is largely beside the point.

To begin with, the Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Act is a fundamentally silly piece of legislation. It mandates that political parties assign dollar values to their campaign promises and threatens to strip them of their tax-funded operating allowances if they don’t. But it says nothing about the fact that when the provincial government is flat broke, putting price tags on election promises is utterly meaningless.

The Act also enshrines the following, as yet, unachievable priorities: “Annual balanced budgets on or before the end of the first fiscal period;con or before the end of the first fiscal period, the Province’s net debt for a fiscal year will be less than the net debt for the preceding fiscal year; on or before the end of the first fiscal period, a net debt-to-GDP ratio that is at or below 35 per cent; and after March 31, 2017, quarterly fiscal updates will include a statement of the actual expenses and revenue to the end of the quarter to which the update relates.”

And the penalty for failing to meet these objectives is a walk to the metaphorical woodshed unless, of course, the following contingency applies: “The Minister may recommend to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council that the applicability of sections 6, 9 and 10 be suspended for any fiscal year if the Minister is of the opinion that an economic or financial crisis has occurred that makes it unreasonable for those sections to apply in that fiscal year. . .On the recommendation of the Minister, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may issue an order that sections 6, 9 and 10 do not apply in the fiscal year set out in the order.”

So, then, do we not now endure an “economic or financial crisis” in this province? Or what would we call a $12-billion debt and $500-million annual deficit?

Transparency and accountability are functions of money management. First comes the money. Then comes the management.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics, Society

What is the measure of true leadership?

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If New Brunswick’s economic morass demonstrates anything it is that, as the province careens from one predictable trauma to another, true leadership is becoming as rare as snow in Sudan.

Worse, perhaps, than genuine ignorance, virtually everyone saw this wall of debt from a distance – the current government, previous ones, pundits, political scientists, my Great Aunt Minnie – and those who had the authority and tools to knock it down, instead, laid more brick and mortar.

Some years ago, during the depth of the financial crisis that, overnight, wiped out trillions of dollars in private equity, the sad spectacle of Alan Greenspan – the once mighty head of the U.S. Federal Reserve – admitting to a Congressional Committee that his once unshakeable faith in the planet’s economic order had been thoroughly undermined in just a few, short weeks was shocking, indeed.

Now, we almost expect our leaders and heros to reliably fail us. Across North America and Europe, unemployment remain stubbornly high, the income gap between the rich and the rest continues to widen, consumer debt is at an all-time high. The tent-angry 99 per cent have folded up their makeshift cities and gone home.

In fact, as bobble-headed experts inform us from their studio couches on TV the economic diseases which afflict us are so complex, so systemic, so globally entrenched that it’s unlikely any policy, of any so-called leader, can accurately prescribe a cure. So, the thinking goes, why bother even trying?

All of which cuts to the core of our current problem: A growing distrust not only of our existing cohort of movers and shakers, but of the leadership principle, itself. 

Unlike every other malignancy that’s spread through our ailing economy, this fretful cynicism forecasts the early death of our various bodies politic, if only because we now need a calibre of leadership we haven’t seen in decades: Talented men and women in all professions and vocations stepping forward and risking their reputations in the sea of scorn that’s sweeping the planet; tough-minded, innovative, perspicacious individuals charting newer, smarter, more sustainable courses for businesses, governments, schools, and universities in the years ahead.

And yet, the question is not so much who emerges to fill these roles, but how society regains its confidence in new leaders – the confidence to recognize those who are the real deals, and those who are the carnival barkers. Given how wrong almost everyone has been about almost everything over the past decade, it’s a brutally tough assignment; but it’s not impossible.

What, in fact, makes a true leader? Is it vision, passion, discipline, persistence? Is it strength, courage, loyalty, rhetorical flourish? These are all important traits. But while these qualities may be necessary for enlightened, trustworthy leadership, they are not necessarily sufficient.

Consider, for example, a man who “persistently” pursues short-term profits at the expense of long-term revenues. Or a women who “courageously” champions a policy, program or technology despite the fact that her competitors are manifestly more successful performing the same functions. Are these the leaders we need, or do they represent too much of what we already have in the boardrooms of the world’s Burger Kings and Tim Hortons?

In fact, the true measure of leadership on the precariously uneven playing field of the modern era will be knowledge, understanding, responsibility, and cooperation.

Knowledge of the way this province’s finances really work. Understanding of the means to achieve a productive balance between free enterprise principles and regulatory protections. Responsibility for getting to the truth of the threats – sooner rather than later – that would injure our collective hopes, expectations and livelihoods.

And cooperation – always cooperation – not partisan hatcheting.

The notion that any man or woman owns the right to break the world as long as he or she is strong enough or smart enough to get away with it should have died along with the careers of Alan Greenspan and all his other Ayn Rand-loving ilk. 

Now, in this New Brunswick election cycle, we must look to ourselves for the leadership we seek, and become the heroes of our own lives.

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Sep 03 2014
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Politics, Science

The unscientific methods of Canada’s politicos

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Despite claims of mounting evidence to the contrary, Canadians are, indeed, a scientifically minded folk after all. Or perhaps we only wish we were in the face the awful truth about our patently dunderheaded ways.

In either case, a special panel of the Council of Canadian Academies is trenchant in its most recent findings on the subject. Having interviewed hundreds of people and reviewed trunk loads of data and “peer-reviewed literature”, the organization has produced what it boasts is the “clearest picture of Canada’s science culture and science culture support system in 25 years.”

In response to the question, “What is the state of Canada’s science culture?”, the panel concluded, that “Canadians have positive attitudes towards science and technology and low levels of reservations about science compared with citizens of other countries.”

What’s more, “Canadians exhibit a high level of engagement with science and technology relative to citizens of other countries; the level of science knowledge (in Canada) is on a par with or above citizens of other countries for which data are available” and “Canada’s performance on indicators of science and technology skills development is variable compared with other OECD countries.”

All of this may come as a nasty surprise to certain Conservative MPs who have made much mischief in recent years propagating the fiction that all science is, in fact, just a matter of opinion (the corollary being that one opinion is just as valid as any other, because, gosh darn it, we live in a democracy and in a democracy that’s how we roll thank you very much).

Still, if we appear hopefully and outwardly rationale to the trained eyes of the nation, dutifully respectful of logic and the scientific method, how do we explain this report, which appeared on the front page of the Globe and Mail last week: “The fate of one of the federal government’s toughest crime bills is in doubt after the House of Commons sent the wrong version on to the Senate, which debated that version and sent it on to a committee for further study.”

Apparently, the errors in the Senate’s iteration of the bill are so egregious they compromise the very purpose of the proposed legislation, which is to strengthen the rights and representation of victims of major crimes.

How’d this happen? Conservative MP David Sweet, who sponsored the bill, was darned if he knew, but trusted all would be well in the end. “There has been an administrative error that I found out about between the House of Commons and the Senate administration,” the Globe quotes him as saying. “So the legislation that was in the hands of the Senate was not the legislation that passed the House of Commons. Measures are being taken.”

Of course, even in science, mistakes happen. But they don’t generally occur at the most mundane, routine levels of research – activities that are, in this case, analogous to the clerical work that House of Commons staffers undertake to move federal bills forward.

The real outrage against logic, here, may be the assumption that across-the-board job cuts in the public service necessarily results in better efficiency for less cost.

To be fair, though, money is tight everywhere. Just ask Canada’s premiers and territorial leaders, who were meeting in Charlottetown last week to decide, among other things, which menu to order lunch off of, as the subject of interprovincial trade barriers was likely to cause a collective bought of severe indigestion.

Fortunately, taxpayers won’t be on the hook. . .not entirely. As has been widely reported, mostly by the Ottawa Citizen, the premiers have managed to secure a total of $450,000 in private-sector sponsorships from such Canadian corporate heavyweights as the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada ($150,000) and Manulife ($50,000).

Even Unifor and the Canadian Union of Public Employees are in on the act.

The wholly unscientific assumption at the centre of this cogitation is that Canadians will not view the practice of branding with private logos a political meeting convened to pursue the public interest as utterly rank and quite likely undemocratic.

Heck no, said conference host Prince Edward Island Premier Joe Ghiz.

“In my opinion it’s about supporting democracy, it helps save taxpayers’ money,” he told the Charlottetown Guardian last week. “If we’re bringing in people from all over the country, I want to show them a good time.”

Behold, dear reader: critical thinking so very hard at work.

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Aug 27 2014
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Politics, Transportation

Meet the planes, trains and automobile campaigners

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Having temporarily exhausted their rhetoric, for and against, shale gas development, New Brunswick’s front-running political pugilists are, by way of a break between rounds, tucking into an issue about which they can both agree. Sort of.

As Conservative Leader David Alward announced his intention to craft a comprehensive port strategy for Saint John and Belledune, Liberal Leader Brian Gallant introduced an ambitious, $900-million, six-year program to refurbish roads, highways and other “strategic infrastructure” across the province.

“One of the best ways to (create jobs). . .is through stimulus in the short term, like making strategic investments in our roads and bridges,” Mr. Gallant said this week. “We have a comprehensive plan to create jobs in the near term, medium term and long term.”

He keeps saying that and he may even believe it. Still, infrastructure spending is that least sexy of all campaign issues; that it invariably comes with what seems like a staggering price tag usually spells disaster for the candidate who embraces it.

True to form, Mr. Alward and NDP Leader Dominic Cardy were ready at the pounce.

“We don’t have any money,” Mr. Cardy said simply, when asked for his opinion. “You can’t keep talking about spending billions of dollars we don’t have. . .$88,000 is the preliminary costing we got on this particular announcement. This is the worst of old-style politics. They was we create jobs is by educating workers, not hiring people onto the government payroll.”

Not to be outdone for timely displays of righteous indignation, Mr. Alward said, “Every cent that he (Mr. Gallant) is talking about investing going forward and increasing means money is going to have to be borrowed because the revenues are not there. Wheat he is doing is saddling taxpayers today, New Brunswickers today, but very importantly, he’s saddling future generations with huge debt that is not sustainable.”

Should Mr. Gallant prevail next month, and ride gloriously into Fredericton, it will, indeed, be fascinating to watch the young premier make good on his spending promises, given the province’s $500-million annual deficit and $12-billion debt. Maybe he can pull it off without waving any red flags at international bond-rating agencies.

All the same, the voter is always best served when he or she is in possession of real numbers, if only estimates, to consider.

What, in contrast, are we to make of Mr. Alward’s plan to get strategic with the province’s ports? Apparently, the Tory leader insists, it will “help unlock New Brunswick’s export potential and capitalize on our capacity to be able to say yes to natural gas development.”

How much is not important, because, as the Saint John Telegraph-Journal reported yesterday, “Alward said there’s no specific cost to developing a strategy.”

That’s convenient considering there’s also no specific reason why the province’s seaports, which fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, would undertake a planning exercise of this complexity without Ottawa’s explicit support, both moral and monetary.

On the other hand, apart from the funding piece (always the Achilles heel in these matters), Mr. Gallant’s scheme, if given a chance, might actually produce tangible benefits. Moncton-based economic development consultant David Campbell has actually costed out the investment and calculated the return.

According to the T-J article, “The Liberals say an analysis conducted for them by Jupia Consultants indicates that spending $150 million per year on infrastructure would create and sustain 1,702 full-time jobs over six years and return $13 million in tax revenue to the province, annually.”

Moreover, “the annual spending is expected to generate $92.6 million worth of direct and indirect GDP through the supply chain in New Brunswick and $113.5 million with induced economic impacts. That would include $69.7 million worth of direct and indirect labour income and $78.5 million worth of labour income, including induced effects.”

In the end, the Liberals’ plan to get people back to work – preparing the province for that fine, sunny day when its booming economy will require superior infrastructure – may be too costly. It may even be unworkable.

But at least here’s a bottom line, instead of the usual empty rhetoric, to scrutinize.

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Aug 25 2014
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Politics

The ‘Martinizing’ of Brian Gallant

One of Brian Gallant’s greatest strengths is his youth, which also happens to be one of his greatest weaknesses.

That may explain why the 32-year-old Grit leader, who looks at times like he just graduated from junior high school, has rolled out one of his party’s grand, old men to sanctify an economic plan that would both cut and add about $300 million a year to the New Brunswick budget.

There he was at a Liberal pre-campaign announcement in Fredericton last week,

in all his ruddy-faced septuagenarian glory, Canada’s 34th Prime Minister the Right Honourable Paul Martin, who served for about 10 minutes (politically speaking) in the breaking years of the century.

Rising to the podium, he recalled his tenure as the nation’s finance minister in the early 1990s. “I had a very short-term target which I had to do because Canada was in very tough shape at that time and I was very worried that there was going to be an international financial crisis,” he said.

Referring to his youthful fellow traveller, Mr. Martin added, “He (Mr. Gallant) doesn’t have to do it all in two to three years, but what he does have to do is set very clear targets that are going to give everyone confidence that he will achieve them.”

Of course, confidence in political leadership – now at what must be an all-time low in just about every corner of the country – depends on the lucidity of the political purpose. And Mr. Gallant’s fiscal and economic agendas, while promising in many ways,  are still obscured by crowd-pleasing rhetoric, shy on details.

The Liberal leader says that should he become the next premier of New Brunswick, he will launch a thorough program review with the objective of finding at least $250 million a year in spending cuts. The haircut would occur in the second year of his term.

“We must get our fiscal house in order if we are strategically invest to create jobs and make life more affordable for New Brunswickers,” he said at the announcement.

Meanwhile, the aspiring chief elected officer has rolled out a plan to spend $300 million “targeted,” as one newspaper report explained last week, “at supporting job creation as part of a plan to begin paying down the province’s debt.”

As usual, the Tories made them do it.

“The Alward government has made its focus cut, cut, cut and cut, and that approach simply hasn’t worked,” Mr. Gallant said. “Their across-the-board cuts have recklessly depressed job creation, dropping government revenues and leaving us with a persistent $500-million deficit.”

In contrast, the Liberal plan would spend money to generate new jobs, which would, in turn, generate new tax revenue to fight the province’s pernicious $12-billion debt. Or, as Mr. Gallant stipulates, “We believe we must make strategic investments to create jobs and make life more affordable for New Brunswickers. We will lay out a plan that strikes a sensible balance between strategic investments and fiscal responsibility.”

To which a weary voter, wise in the ways political wiggle room, might respond: “What exactly is this plan of yours, Mr. Gallant? Any time now; we’re all ears.”

The problem with a phrase like “strategic investments” is that it doesn’t mean anything to most people. Like “productivity enhancements” and “continuous improvement” it whips past the brain pans of even the smartest voters.

I sort of get what Mr. Gallant is reaching for, but that’s only because I spent a few years as a political operative playing hardball with Darth Vader.

If he means that New Brunswick’s economy is the key to solving the province’s fiscal problems (no kidding, right Sherlock?) and that, as such, the economy must become more creative, diversified and technologically savvy to become more durable  and shock proof then he’s dead right.

He’s also right about the Tories’ one-horse-campaign. In reviving the economy, the province ought not to be the sum of its shale gas deposits. That’s not, well, strategically wise. 

Still, for now, stop talking about strategy.

New Brunswickers have 30 days to make up their minds (if they haven’t already) about whom they’ll tolerate in elected office.

The youthful and grizzled, alike, want to know what, precisely, are the tactics involved in the job creation juggernauts of this and, indeed, all political parties in this province.

Aug 20 2014
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Business, Politics

Shale gas lawsuit puts government credibility on the line

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The New Brunswick government ritually boasts it maintains the toughest, most circumspect regulatory standards for shale gas in North America. But that’s faint comfort if those responsible for enforcing them don’t actually know what they say.

No doubt to the grim satisfaction of opponents of the controversial drilling technique – who have always mistrusted officialdom’s supreme confidence in the structural integrity of its knowledge bank – a glaring case in point now plays out on the front pages of provincial newspapers.

According to Legislative reporter Adam Huras, documents obtained by Brunswick News show that the Department of Natural Resources was advised that an exploration company complied with the law (when it undertook seismic testing within the borders of the municipality of Sussex) before government officials issued a press release that stated precisely the opposite.

That announcement, on behalf of then-Natural Resources Minister Bruce Northrup, on November 9, 2011, read, in part: “I wish to inform the public that a complaint has been filed by the Department of Natural Resources with the RCMP alleging Windsor Energy Inc. of Calgary, Alta., violated the Oil and Natural Gas Act by directing a contracted company to conduct geophysical exploration within the boundaries of the Town of Sussex.

“Under regulation 86-191 of the Oil and Natural Gas Act, a municipality’s written permission is required before geophysical activity can be conducted inside the boundaries of an incorporated municipality.”

The epistle then concluded on a note of supreme sanctimony: “New Brunswickers can be assured that all companies exploring for or developing oil and natural gas reserves in our province are expected to observe our laws and that we will ensure these laws are upheld. The rules we have in place and those now being developed to strengthen our regulatory framework are intended to protect our people and our environment, and must be respected.”

Regrettably – if only for the government – it appears that Windsor violated no laws; that it was obligated to obtain permission to test from either the town (which it did not consult) or the Province (which it did), but not necessarily both.

Certainly, the company’s CEO, Khalid Amin, is sure Windsor did nothing wrong. Now, he’s suing the provincial government for $100 million alleging that Mr. Northrup’s comments in the November press release and the follow-up RCMP investigation (which produced no charges, naturally) were libelous.

There is much to ponder in all of this, starting with the investigative reporter’s credo: Who knew what, when?

The chain of correspondence at the end of October, 2011, clearly shows one Charles Murray, a lawyer attached to Communications New Brunswick, strongly advising Natural Resources to cool its jets: “It would perhaps have been good form or or polite of them (Windsor) to obtain the permission of both (the town and the Province). . .It was not, however, required under the provisions of the regulations. . .Given that, I am not at all in favour of the minister stating that Windsor violated the province’s Oil and Natural Gas Act.”

You can’t get any more categorical than that. So, then, why did government officials ignore the advice in its entirety? Did they believe they had a steadier grip on the relevant legislation than did the attorney they presumably paid to advise them on the one thing about which lawyers know more than anybody: the law?

According to Mr. Huras’s report, the emails he obtained “also show that government staff asked the RCMP not to publicly reveal the reason why the investigation into Windsor’s seismic work in the Sussex area would not result in charges.”

That’s predictable. Stupid, but predictable.

In situations like these, the only reason why the cops would not pursue charges  is that they believe the subject of their investigation committed no infraction.

In this case, expunging a talking point from a communications strategy isn’t going to prevent anyone from coming to that conclusion, or that the provincial government’s ham-handed stick-handling of the whole affair undermines public confidence in its ability to administer and regulate the shale gas industry in New Brunswick.

After all, why is the original, offending statement – the one over which Mr. Amin is suing the Province – still posted to the Department of Natural Resources’ website, still out there in the public domain in all its taunting glory?

Forget about this government knowing what its own regulations say.

Does it even know what it’s doing?

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Aug 18 2014
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Politics, Society

The prodigal pothead returns

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Stoners say the darnedest things. Take Marc Emery, for example. He’s Canada’s “Prince of Pot”, just released from a four-and-a-half-year long American hoosegow, courtesy of the state of Mississippi.

“Everywhere I go there have been well-wishers, even people who I don’t think agree with marijuana legalization think that maybe it’s a bit rough to have someone go away for five years over seeds,” the activist, who was sent up the river for running a mail-order marijuana seed company, told a reporter for the Toronto Sun last week.

Still, that was mild in comparison to other things he has said. Just ask Margaret Wente, the Globe and Mail’s delightfully irascible current affairs columnist. In one of her commentaries last week, she wrote, “Despite the public adulation, Mr. Emery is among the most obnoxious jerks in Canadian public life,” she wrote. “And I say this as someone who thinks it’s past time to relax the laws on weed.

“He’s a relentless self-promoter who’s compared himself to Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He insists that the persecution of people who smoke pot is the moral equivalent of the persecution of the Jews.

“In his most despicable, he called Irwin Cotler, the former federal justice minister, a ‘Nazi-Jew’ for allowing the United States to extradite him. Mr. Cotler is a Liberal who campaigns passionately against anti-Semitism.”

Well, gee, Peggy, why not try saying what’s on your mind for a change?

Methinks, however, her larger point is that because Mr. Emery is so objectionable  (at least to her), his support for legalizing pot undermines the principle, itself. This is a neat trick of tortured logic that some of us in the screed-making game make from time to time (me included).

Much has changed since Mr. Emery went to prison. Colorado and Washington has legalized marijuana for recreational use. President Barack Obama has openly joked about his yputhful adventures with weed, apparently to no ill effect on his standing in public opinion pools, which, in any case, couldn’t get much worse. And federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is calling to make the stuff legit.

And why not? Actual experts on this subject generally reject the proposition that the billions of dollars governments in Canada and the United States have spent fighting the so-called drug war over the past 30-or-more years have been worthy investments.

According to the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy last year, its “researchers reviewed two decades of global drug surveillance data, finding that the supply of major illegal drugs has increased, as measured through a decline in the price, while there has been a corresponding general increase in the purity of illegal drugs.”

This moved the Centre’s Scientific Chair Dr. Evan Wood (a co-author of the study) to state: “These findings add to the growing body of evidence that the war on drugs has failed. We should look to implement policies that place community health and safety at the forefront of our efforts, and consider drug use a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue. With the recognition that efforts to reduce drug supply are unlikely to be successful, there is a clear need to scale up addiction treatment and other strategies that can effectively reduce drug-related harm.”

In fact, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil and Chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, agreed when he stated: “In response to a study like this, policymakers often say ‘drugs are harmful so they must be kept illegal’. What they fail to consider is, as this and other research suggests, that drugs are more harmful – to society, individuals, and the taxpayer – precisely because they are illegal. Some European countries have taken steps to decriminalize various drugs, and these types of policies should be explored in Latin and North America as well.”

Already, a sizable chunk of Canadians support decriminalizing pot, if not actually legalizing it.

All of which is to say that Mr. Emery can yak on about anything that fancies him. That’s what a man on a mission (a.k.a. media hound) does, stoned or not. It won’t affect  the ultimate outcome.

On this issue, if with few others, the momentum of the age is with common sense.

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Aug 15 2014
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Politics

Liberal jobs plan is much ado about nothing

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An economic development agency by any other name would smell just as. . .what? Musty? Stale? Rank? Surely, the appropriate adjective is not “sweet”.

Our history with such creatures of bureaucratic imagining in New Brunswick is not stellar. At worst, these government units have functioned as rubber stamps for multi-million-dollar adventures in politically motivated corporate welfare. (Can you spell A-t-c-o-n)?

More often, too often, they’ve served as repositories of senior civil servants, grandfathering out of their jobs en route to comparatively fat pensions, picking up, during their final periods of service to the taxpayers who pay their salaries, handy tips for reinventing themselves as private-sector consultants. For them, perhaps, “entrepreneurship” never smelled sweeter.

So when Liberal Leader Brian Gallant insists that what the province needs now is more of the same, but, of course, completely different, one is inclined hold one’s nose before stooping to sniff that particular flower.

Still, he’s adamant. According to a report this week in the Telegraph-Journal, “Gallant said (his) proposed Opportunities NB differs from the current Invest NB because it would report to government through its board of private sector members rather than through the civil service. He added that the new Crown corporation will target ‘high-growth sectors’.”

In the interests of explication, he said, “right now, Invest NB has six vaguely defined sectors that they are trying to prioritize. We think we have to pick a few and become really good at it.”

Quick question: When are “six sectors” not “a few”?

Dunno, but the T-J reports that this political hopeful thinks that information and communication technology will be one of his priorities. Guess what? That’s also one of Premier David Alward’s cherished sectors, and has been since his election in 2010.

So, then, one is forced to ask, again, how does the proposed Opportunities NB differ substantially from the existing Invest NB, apart from the name?

Is it in the composition of the board, itself? Will its private-sector members enjoy carte blanche to pursue investment opportunities to their logical conclusion, without interference from government bureaucrats – as has, from time to time, the Greater Halifax Partnership?

Or will it more likely become another sounding board for official government policy (meaning courtly inaction) full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Stranger still, are Grit plans to take over job creation in the province. The second shoe that drops in Mr. Gallant’s grand scheme to reinvent New Brunswick’s labour market finds purchase in this excerpt from the T-J piece: “Under the proposed economic model, the Liberals would. . .decentralize the role of job creation to other departments. The Liberals would also create a board, headed by Liberal Leader Brian Gallant, to co-ordinate economic development initiatives across government.”

What’s more, the presumptive premier would then lord over the new jobs board like a latter-day Solomon issuing edicts to a body that “would be made up of all ministers and deputy ministers of the principal economic departments and chairpersons and CEOs of all economic Crown Corporations.”

Indeed, “the board would set government policy on jobs, establish targets for job creation, and hold government agencies and personnel accountable for meeting job creation objectives.”

So much for “decentralizing the role of job creation to other departments.” So much for an independent, private-sector board at the new Opportunities NB.

It all seems so gravely familiar, musty, stale and rank.

Mr. Gallant began his campaign to become the next premier of New Brunswick bravely and boldly, if a little naively, by emphasizing, in his platform, the primacy of education and sensibly administered health care. He rightly admonished the current Progressive Conservative government for failing on both accounts.

Now, he retreats behind the window-dressing of policies that will not, in fact, enhance economic capacity in this province, but only add public sector costs to the growing deficit and debt without any clear promise of return on investment.

He has, in effect, forgotten his Shakespeare.

In New Brunswick, the central conundrum is, as it was for the fictional Prince of Denmark, to be or not to be; that is the question.

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