Category Archives: Politics

Feb 24 2016
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Humour, Politics

What’s in a word?

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It’s awfully nice work, if you can get it, though I suspect a facility with words – specifically, the ability to pull them from thin air – doesn’t hurt.

Meet Sir Michael Barber, once a high-ranking serf in the former British government of Tony Blair and now co-chair of something called the Centre for Public Impact (a creature of the Boston Consulting Group).

He’s been hanging around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s various offices of late, banging on about a little something he likes to call “deliverology”, which is, as near as anyone can tell, the art and science of getting things done in the civil service.

Actually, it’s a tad more complicated than this, as Sir Michael and co-authors Paul Kihn and Andy Moffit explained in their 2011 monograph, Deliverology: From idea to implantation.

“Now more than ever, governments are under pressure to deliver results in public services while ensuring that citizens’ tax dollars are spent wisely and effectively,” they write. “Nearly all governments – and individual public agencies – have set ambitious reform goals and developed strategic plans to achieve those goals. . .The challenge for public-sector organizations is to find ways to define and execute their highest-priority objectives so that they have the greatest possible impact.”

Enter deliverology, an approach the authors say “leverages and extends the key principles of best-in-class performance.” (In fact, they also say the word was originally crafted as “a light-hearted term of abuse” for the process adopted by the Prime Minister Blair’s Delivery Unit, and only later transformed into the expression it is today, replete with positive connotations).

Whatever its derivation, Prime Minister Trudeau and the Privy Council Office appears to be taking deliverology with deadly seriousness. News reports say that Deputy Secretary to Cabinet, Michael Mendelsohn, now runs the new Results and Delivery unit. According to Tony Dean, quoted by the Globe and Mail last week, “I suspect (he) will be talking to the Prime Minister and his senior staff about whether or not there are top-level, five or six, high-level priorities that the delivery unit will be initially rallying the system around.”

And why not? As silly as the word sounds, there’s some evidence that the management approach it represents actually works. Even the venerable, sometimes stodgy, Economist has given Sir Michael’s innovation a mild endorsement. “The lesson is that doggedness and consistency are of more use to the deliverologist than popularity,” a review last year of the former civil servant’s book on the subject reads. “(The) 57 rules for success range from the commonsensical – ‘Review the capacity of your system to deliver agreed goals’ – to the controversial – ‘Successful markets and effective government go together’, which has as many exceptions as proofs around the world. Yet this account of a potentially dry subject has an uplifting brio to it.”

All of which suggests, apart from anything else, that after years wandering the political wilderness in Canada, high-powered consultants have re-entered public life. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was famously intolerant of any advice, save his own, on how to run a government. Mr. Trudeau is a far more consultative sort. And it seems to be going around.

Last week, Brunswick News reported that one of New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant’s friends and, until recently, a provincial Liberal Party operative, has been recently enlisted by TransCanada to lobby the feds on the Energy East file. According to the story, Justin Robichaud will “seek government support for the proposed project, including updates on. . .development and stakeholder consultation progress.”

Can we then expect a little more pipeline deliverology in the offing?

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Feb 23 2016
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Humour, Politics

Yankee come home!

Oh to be a bluenoser now that the three-minute-long spring becomes us

Oh to be a bluenoser now that the three-minute-long spring becomes us

New Brunswick’s department of tourism (or whatever they’re calling it these days) should take a page from one Cape Breton radio personality’s playbook on luring wandering Yanks to these shores.

As Canadian Press playfully reported last week, “The creator of a cheeky website that encourages Americans to move to Cape Breton before Donald Trump can be elected president says he’s been shocked by the response. . .Traffic to the website has increased steadily, reaching over 35,000 unique visits on Wednesday (February 17).”

The spillover effect has also been pretty commanding. Said the CP story: “The site includes a link to Destination Cape Breton, which promotes tourism on the island. CEO Mary Tulle says U.S. traffic to her website over the past three days has jumped from almost 1,300 visits last year at this time to almost 12,000 this week.”

The man behind the fuss, Rob Calabrese, was, himself, gob smacked by the reaction. “I’m in disbelief,” he told the wire service. “I wish everyone from Cape Breton could read them (emails from Americans), because they really make you proud of living here. Some are writing about how it feels nice to know that they are welcome somewhere. A lot of Americans think that they’re not very popular in the eyes of the world.”

Heavens to betsy! Wherever did they get that idea?

Here, then, are a few collected quotes (courtesy of the CBC) of Mr. Trump from 2015:

“I don’t need anybody’s money. . .I’m using my own money, I’m not using the lobbyists, I’m not using donors, I don’t care. I’m really rich.”

“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.”

“When Mexico sends its people they’re not sending their best. . .They’re sending people that have lots of problems. . .They are bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

“Obamacare really kicks in in 2016. Obama’s going to be out playing golf, he might even be on one of my courses. I would invite him. . .I have the best courses in the world.”

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I’ll bring back our jobs and I’ll bring back our money.”

“I’m a free trader, but the problem is you need really talented people to negotiate for you. . .But we have people that are stupid.”

“I like China. . .I love China. . .Their leaders are much smarter than our leaders.”

Need we say more?  Or, as Heather from Missouri points out on the ‘Cape Breton if Donald Trump Wins’ website, “As an American who has spent time in Nova Scotia exploring new opportunities and the idyllic landscape over the last three years, I would highly recommend a visit Northeast – destination Cape Breton Island. Fair warning, though, you WILL be charmed and delighted. Political asylum seeker, curious traveler, or modern nomad seeking jaw-dropping beauty, rich culture, and inspiring collaboration value, oceanside? Pack your skill set, and explore island life beyond the confines of a tourist/visitor visa. Consider the NAFTA Skilled Workers Program as a path to legal residency for American immigrants.”

In fact, the website has received an enormous amount of publicity over the past few days, having received write-ups in mainstream print and online news organizations across North America, including The National Post, Winnipeg Free Press, Vancouver Sun, Fortune, and the Huffington Post.

All of which may only prove that Mr. Trump is the greatest gift God ever created for improving Atlantic Canada’s anaemic immigration record.

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Feb 22 2016
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Humour, Politics

Polling for the truth

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If you are New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant, reading in a provincial newspaper that a recent poll indicates he’s no longer the flavor of the month among voters, you might be tempted to issue your own press release sardonically headlined, “alert the media”.

Except, oh yeah, they already know.

The relationship between the public, per se, and public opinion surveyors (and purveyors) is both close and ancient. It started sometime back in the 18th Century when a guy with a quill and piece of parchment stopped a passerby on a fetid London street and queried, “What ho, young man; what say you about the Jacobites? Aye or nay?”

Naturally, the results of such straw polls quickly traveled far beyond the coffee houses and gin dens and eventually made their way into the hands of the era’s pamphleteers who dutifully reported that, according to popular opinion, the king was a fool, the queen was a harlot and that even the most educated man couldn’t spell the word ‘Jacobite’, let alone venture an opinion on what it signified.

Thusly, dear reader, was born what we affectionately, if somewhat ruefully, refer to as popular democracy. As a member of the modern Fourth Estate who spends altogether too much time parsing opinion polls in the interest of hearing himself talk, I have. . .ahem. . .only one thing to say, a rare example of concision, if you will, amongst my ilk: You’re welcome.

Specifically, you are welcome to my conviction that public opinion polls are, for the most part, blunt instruments (with a margin error of plus or minus 100 per cent, 20 times out of 20) for digging at the truth about the electorate.

You are also welcome to my belief that the recent craze in this industry for providing online surveys to all and sundry (except, naturally, to those without high-speed Internet connections) only further blunts these instruments.

Still, let none of this dissuade the Angus Reid Institute from pursuing its appointed rounds. Its new survey indicates that 33 per cent of New Brunswickers approve of Brian Gallant’s performance in office. That’s a point lower than he scored in December, but a convincing improvement from his 25 per-cent showing in September. (Las Vegas odds makers must be salivating over their potential windfalls in April, when the latest provincial budget fully influences opinion).

According to a piece in the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, the premier’s performance numbers put him right in the middle of the pack of his provincial peers across Canada, which is a sort of glass-half-empty-glass-half-full result. After all, if a third of New Brunswickers like the man, then as much as two-thirds do not.

What, exactly, does that mean?

Former premier David Alward held onto power within the first few months of his mandate with less than 30 per cent of the popular vote; his approval ratings actually rose in the weeks before the provincial election that ended him.

Again, what does that mean?

In the Telegraph-Journal piece, reporter John Chilibeck issued the following caveat: “While Angus Reid says its results are based on a sample size that carries a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20, the sample size in New Brunswick was the smallest, with only 301 people polled. . .The margin of error (here) would be plus or minus 5.6 per cent.”

Statistically, then, that would mean Mr. Gallant is either enjoying the best ride of any sophomore premier in the history of the province or the worst.

In either case, alert the media.

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Feb 19 2016
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Politics

Who’s on first?

The gorilla in the room

The gorilla in the room

Whenever the stars align to produce a conjunction of leadership at both the federal and provincial levels, those in opposition invariably fuel suspicions that latter is merely a handmaiden to the former.

It is a time-honored political strategy, designed to undermine public confidence in the proper separation of powers in this country.

So it was some months ago when highly placed Tories in Fredericton solemnly informed me that the Liberal government of Brian Gallant is more than happy to do the bidding of the Grit forces of Justin Trudeau. So it was just last week when federal Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose urged the premier of New Brunswick to get tough with Ottawa over the Energy East pipeline proposal, the implication being that he his loath to challenge his so-called patrons in the centre of the nation’s political universe.

Ms. Ambrose’s comments immediately drew fire from New Brunswick MP and federal government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc.

“Rona Ambrose is party of a Conservative record of complete failure in respect to pipelines,” he declared. “Every time somebody who served in (former Prime Minister) Stephen Harper’s cabinet talks about the importance of getting natural resources to tidewater, it reminds us of how they failed for nine years.”

What’s more, he pointedly noted, “The idea that she would reproach the premier (Mr. Gallant) for not advancing his own viewpoint on this issue is rich. He (went) tow-to-toe with the mayor of Montreal on French television to state his case for the pipeline, speaking forcefully for the interests of this province.”

Now, some may say that Mr. LeBlanc, by speaking out in this way, is doing no favours for Mr. Gallant; that his defence of the premier’s comportment on this issue actually reinforces the argument that Ottawa exerts too much influence over affairs in Fredericton.

Still, it’s hard to credit this viewpoint with any degree of verisimilitude, even as, for some, it’s easy to interpret what amounts to a productive, mutually supportive relationship between two levels of government with playing footsy.

The irony, of course, is that the former Progressive Conservative government of David Alward in New Brunswick would have given its eyeteeth to build a happy alliance with Stephen Harper’s hardline Cabinet. That it could not was no comment on its skill or effort; the former prime minister wasn’t much of a fan of any provincial government.

Beyond this, it should be clear that Mr. Gallant is quite eminently his own man with his own agenda.

Some weeks ago, before handing down his second budget, the premier told me, “To me, our focus in the province has to be about growing the economy and creating jobs. And we also want to ensure that New Brunswick is a great place to live, work and play. Obviously you need many efforts and investments to make that a reality, but I think it’s pretty clear that education is the one area that gives you those things. I am a huge proponent of the role that education can play in developing our economy, and, of course, what it does for every individual in giving them opportunities in our province. So I am very happy, despite the fact that we face many challenges both fiscally and economically, that as a government we were able to prioritize education to the extent that we did, increasing the budget by $33 million, which represents an increase of over 3.1 per cent.”

We may not agree with any or even all of this, but there should be no doubt about who’s in charge in this province.

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Feb 16 2016
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Economy, Humour, Municipal Affairs, Politics

We don’t mean to be rude, but. . .

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We’re the best, the brightest, the fastest. We’re so exquisitely fine, the sun glints off even the ugliest girders in our fast-corroding downtown core, just as it does off the brand, spanking new strip malls along the ribbon roads and circumferential highways that encircle us.

Welcome, Canada, to the eighth-fastest growing ‘metropolis’ in the country, the purebred greyhound of the Atlantic region.

Say hello to Greater Moncton. . .again.

Sure, we’ve been here before – before your adoring eyes. You know we have. You’ve read about us in the headlines. We’re the little city that could. We’re the home of social and economic pugilists who famously (if sometimes nauseatingly) “punch above their weight class”. Does the phrase “resurgo” ring a bell? It should.

We’re one of the world’s “smart cities” (if only because we weren’t entirely too late to the global party of installing free public Wi-Fi in our downtown). We’re the nexus of economic dynamism in southeastern New Brunswick (whatever that means), of transportation, light manufacturing, university innovation, and information technology. We’re great, and we know it. We just don’t brag about it; that, after all, would be rude.

And we don’t want to be rude. Heaven forbid that we let our hubris run away with our modesty and bury it in a muddy flat of the Petitcodiac River, which, in case we failed to mention, now hosts one of the greatest displays of tidal-bore activity on the freaking planet. Did I say planet? I meant universe.

Of course, we don’t have to brag about our achievements here in the Hub City. We have Statistics Canada to do that for us. Except for Moncton, said the agency in a recent report, “Preliminary estimates indicate that the seven CMAs (Census Metropolitan Areas) with the highest population growth rates were all located in Western Canada. In 2014-15, the population growth rate was two per cent or higher in four CMAs: Kelowna (+3.1 per cent), Calgary (+2.4 per cent), Edmonton (+2.4 per cent) and Saskatoon (+ two per cent). They were followed by the CMAs of Regina (+1.9 per cent), Abbotsford–Mission (+1.4 per cent) and Winnipeg (+1.4 per cent).

“In contrast, the CMAs that posted population decreases were all located in Eastern or Central Canada. The population decreased in the CMAs of Greater Sudbury (-0.3 per cent), Saguenay (-0.2 per cent), Peterborough (-0.2 per cent) and Thunder Bay (-0.2 per cent).

Population growth also varied in areas outside of the CMAs. In 2014-15, the non-CMA part of Alberta grew at a rate of 0.7 per cent, the highest among the non-CMA areas for the provinces. Population decreases were recorded in the non-CMA parts of three provinces: Newfoundland and Labrador (-1.1 per cent), Nova Scotia (-0.7 per cent) and New Brunswick (-0.4 per cent).

Except, naturellement, good, old Moncton, which posted a population growth rate of 1.3 per cent over the past year and a bit.

We are obviously overjoyed to be counted in this company of speedy CMAs. We also mourn the loss of vigour amongst our closest civic neighbours (Saint John at -0.4 per cent? Oh, for shame!).

But I wonder what any of this actually means in the larger scheme?

New Brunswick’s population can’t compete with Mississauga’s. Noting that Moncton is a “fast-growing” community is akin to observing that a snapping turtle runs more quickly than a tortoise.

If this province hopes to reverse its economic and demographic fortunes, its major communities must work together to determine how we all become the best, the brightest and the fastest.

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Feb 09 2016
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Democracy, Politics

Membership has its privileges?

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Trust New Brunswick to tilt at the beast of federal complacency and partisanship. After all, didn’t this province help invent the Senate of Canada? Shouldn’t we, of all this great land’s citizens, now properly tame it, if not actually slay it?

Two senators from this fair province – and from two different parties, no less – prefer door No. 1. But how much luck are they having travelling the high road to reform?

Pierrette Ringuette, who was appointed as a Liberal senator but who has announced that she will quit the Grit caucus and sit as an independent, declared last week that “Canadians have been clear in their desire for a non-partisan Senate. The Senate, as an institution and senators themselves, should be working to remove partisanship from the chamber and with that goal in mind, I believe in taking the proactive approach and sitting as an independent.”

In this, she joins fellow New Brunswicker John Wallace, a former Conservative senator who is now an independent. At the time of his resignation last November, he stipulated in a letter, “Differences that I consider to be irreconcilable exist between myself and Conservative Senate Leader Claude Carignan and other Conservative Senate Caucus members regarding the required Constitutional roles, responsibilities and independence of Conservative Senators. These differences are fundamental to the roles and responsibilities that I have sworn to uphold as a member of the Senate of Canada.”

In an interview with the CBC’s Jacques Poitras, Mr. Wallace said, “I believe in order for the Senate to function as it was intended by the Fathers of Confederation. . .political partisanship, as much as it can be, has to be removed from the Senate,” he told CBC’s Jacques Poitras in New Brunswick. “Others can think otherwise, but I don’t want to find myself constrained by feeling that every time I go against the will of my political leaders, it’s an act of disloyalty.”

Still, as fine and noble as these sentiments ring, when it comes to the Senate of Canada, independence does not necessarily confer any privileges – except, perhaps, those of conscience. In the meantime, just try and get a committee appointment. Go ahead, Mr. Wallace, I dare you.

Since his resignation from the Tory caucus, the good fellow and other independents in the chamber are having a dickens of a time getting a seat on any of the signature quorums that essentially comprise the Senate’s raison d’etre. “The total exclusion of myself and other independent senators from any committee, it’s completely outrageous,” he told the Telegraph-Journal’s Adam Huras not long ago. “It goes right to the heart of the credibility, the reputation and the integrity of the institution. There couldn’t be a clearer example of that problem of irreconcilable difference than what this represents. There is a message that is being sent to me.”

For her part, though her political associations may differ from Mr. Wallace’s, Ms. Ringuette is sympathetic to her colleague’s cause, which is, naturally, also her own. “It’s a sad state of affairs,” she was quoted as saying last week. “You would think that individually and collectively with the events of the last three years that independent spirited senators would rise to the challenge.”

Actually, given those very events of the last three years, I would expect nothing less than the officious, foot-dragging, obstreperous behaviour from the partisan-aligned majority of senators we witness today.

Mr. Wallace’s and Ms. Ringuette’s principled stand, notwithstanding, notions of meaningful reform do not pass frequently through the Upper Chamber’s gilded doors.

Perhaps it’s time to slay the beast, after all.

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Feb 07 2016
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Government, Politics

The dummies of small things

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Let’s face it, no government drops a budget without engaging in a substantial amount of tortuous explanation and twisted logic.

The problem, of course, is that elected officials are notoriously poor spin doctors; voters, more often than not, easily penetrate their veils of assurances and, worse, never forget the degree to which political prevarication undermines everyone’s faith in public institutions.

Still, two measures in the New Brunswick government’s most recent budget, announced last week, are precious, to the point of being almost adorable, for their utter lack of perspicacity.

It’s almost as if communications personnel at Freddy Beach downloaded a page from some apocryphal version of “Public Relations for Dummies” and attached it to their media emails.

In the first instance, provincial brain trusts thought they could explain a palpable drop in the personal income-tax rate (to about 20 from 21 per cent) for the highest earners in New Brunswick (those netting $150,000 or more a year) by emphasizing that the feds are planning to raise levies on these putative one-percenters anyway: a kind of glass-half-full-empty sort of argument.

In the second, the Gallant government justified its $400,000-a-year cut to the New Brunswick Arts Board – a move that would effectively render the arms-length organization extinct – by absorbing its staff into the civil service, which would then prosecute the defunct group’s mandate. This is despite the fact that the Province intends to eliminate as many as 1,300 public employees before its reigning Libs head to the polls again.

Uh, huh. . .What, pray tell, is credible about any of this?

If we were, for example, to accept the Gallant government’s contention that fat cats in this province will still wind up paying their fair share in taxes, we must also perceive that a substantial amount of these levies will now travel to Ottawa’s coffers, leaving New Brunswick with an unfunded shortfall (based on original expectations) of close to $10 million a year.

That’s ten million bucks that won’t be available to offset the cost of the HST hike here, which affects pretty much all but the poorest. It’s certainly not going to defray the price of higher education or health care.

It is, purely and simply, a political giveaway to a higher level of government pursuing its own agenda, but which wears the same-colored jersey on the political football pitch.

Again, if we were to accept, in principle, the evisceration of the province’s arts board, what assurances do we have that the new ‘civil service’ to cultural workers will be fair and politically unmotivated. How do we know that it will even survive the next round of budget cuts?

As Akoulina Collins, the Arts Board’s executive director, lamented to the CBC last week, “We were informed that the (government) wished to respect the arm’s length nature of (the organization), yet in the same breath (they) informed us that they would be making contact with our employees to move them over to become employees of the government. . .It’s problematic.”

You bet it is. Political interference is always a danger in arts funding.

To be sure, these two, juvenile adventures in budget butt covering are minor; given New Brunswick’s enormous fiscal challenges, they amount to nothing but chump change.

Still, they are troubling for a government (in fact, all governments in recent years) that fails to appreciate the effect even its littlest decisions have on its ability to govern.

It is, after all, the small thing voters remember.

Remembering that might save the next government from torturing its explanations to justify its logic.

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Feb 05 2016
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Government, Politics

The deficit facts of life

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Balance the budget, certainly; but not just yet. In a nutshell, this was what New Brunswick Finance Minister Roger Melanson told assembled ladies and gentlemen of the press and other observers at Tuesday’s provincial budget announcement.

Still, though it seemed to take almost everyone off guard, the news that annual deficits – despite this year’s combination of tax hikes and spending cuts totaling nearly $600 million – would be facts in our lives until at least 2020-21 was not actually surprising.

In fact, a careful review of the budget measures reveals that some sort of pernicious shortfall was always in the cards.

On the revenue side, yes, the Gallant government raised the Harmonized Sales Tax to 15 per cent, from 13 per cent, effective July 1. And, yes, it also goosed the corporate income tax rate to 14 per cent, from 12 per cent; increased tobacco taxes by three bucks a cigarette; boosted the one-time property transfer tax; and hiked capital tax rates on banks.

On the other hand, the finance department decided against tolling any roads in the province, and even snuck through a modest decrease in the income tax rate the province’s top earners face.

On the spending side, yes, the government announced it was slashing 1,300 civil-service jobs over the next five years; 30 per cent of middle-manager positions were on the chopping block. And, yes, it also terminated the Gagetown ferry; amalgamated its 40 contact centres across the province into four; and froze operating grants to universities.

Again, though, it left both the departments of education and health virtually untouched – at least, in any significant way. Both Mr. Melanson and Health Minister Victor Boudreau recently confirmed that there’s very little appetite among the voting public for dramatic cuts to these, the province’s largest and most expensive program portfolios.

The results, then, are largely predictable: a deficit this year of $347 million; a deficit of $267 million in 2017-18; $167 million in 2018-19; $49 million in 2019-20; and a yet-to-be determined surplus in 2020-21.

Said Mr. Melanson about his “fun-with-figures” exercise over the past few weeks: “The decisions we are announcing today on expenditures and revenues will lead us to a balanced budget and meet our commitment to get our finances in order. This is very important because we currently spend more on serving our debt than we do on post-secondary education.”
Complicating matters, of course, is the economy, which isn’t broadcasting especially cheerful signals these days. “Economic activity is expected to be tempered by demographic realities, private-sector investment, fiscal measures, and the recently announced suspension operations at the Picadilly mine,” Mr. Melanson reported.

Naturally, what frustrates close political watchers in this province is the fact that a $300-million tax-revenue boost haul will have only a modest impact on New Brunswick’s bottom line.

The deficit is now running at approximately $466-million. If the Province’s projections prove to be accurate (and, be honest, when have they ever?), the next-year-over-this-year improvement in the annual shortfall will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100-$120 million.

That’s not bad, but it’s nothing to write home about. And it’s certainly not likely to quell the concerns of business lobbyists, who think taxes are the devil’s work, and fiscal hawks, who believe New Brunswick can find multiple savings in its health and education systems if its political leaders are willing to close surplus classroom, consolidate hospitals and clinics and take a meat cleaver to the associated labour force.

To be fair, though, who’s going to do that?

Our deficit, it seems, will be with us for a while.

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Feb 03 2016
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Economy, Government, Politics

Our feet of clay in a cold place

The hole we're in

The hole we’re in

If hell freezes over in New Brunswick, it doesn’t actually solidify until Canada Day 2016, when the sun warms us just enough to let us know that we owe, we owe, and, so, off to work we continue to go.

July 1st is when the Brian Gallant government has decided to impose a two-percentage-point bump in the harmonized sales tax – from 13 to 15 per cent. His second budget makes his reasoning clear. As Finance Minister Roger Melanson explained in his speech on Tuesday, “When we completed our review of the books, it was clear that there would be no way to lay the foundation we need without an HST increase or significant cuts to education and health care. . .New Brunswickers made it clear that they do not want deep cuts in education or health care.”

For years, here, raising the HST has been a bedevilling proposition for every political party. Only more controversial has been a full-court embrace of shale gas development and highway tolls. Times have changed.

In this budget, the Grits have neatly embraced the fiscal fix that former Prime Minister Paul Martin imposed in 1991 to balance the federal books at that time. Indeed, rip a page from the old Red Book, and you will find the 33-year-old Mr. Gallant holding the hands of the old, Grit guard.

Still, he’s not wrong; he’s just late. And so were his federal predecessors, when Ottawa’s brain trusts dropped the federal (GST) portion of the HST one point to six per cent, and again in 2008 to five per cent, leaving N.B.’s HST at 13 per cent.

Consider where this province might be today had successive provincial governments – those under Messrs. Shawn Graham, David Alward, and Gallant – possessed the political courage to hike the HST two points back then and applied its proceeds to economic diversification, innovation and . . .oh yes. . .the humungous, horrific deficit and debt we now so cheerfully enjoy.

Why, just for fun, we might even conduct a work-back of lost revenues, lost opportunities and truly myopic public policy and service.

The Gallant government now claims that its hike to the provincial portion of the HST will net a total of some $300 million over the last nine months of the current fiscal year. Had it introduced such a measure when it rode into office back in 2014, it would now have in the bank a total of $800 million with which to cover New Brunswick’s pernicious and perennial deficit and chomp a commanding chunk out of its multi-billion-dollar long-term debt. What’s more, through appropriate tax rebates to middle- and low-income earners it would have done so with nary an argument.

Now, had former premier David Alward pursued a similar course while he was in Freddy Beach, those savings, today, might actually amount to a budgetary surplus.

As it is, despite the Gallant government’s efforts to balance the books, the annual deficit in New Brunswick this fiscal year is likely to amount to something close to $300 million, as the long-term debt rises to $13.4 billion. That’s nearly $18,000 for every man, woman and child of less than 750,000 benighted, underemployed, anxious souls in this province.

Higher consumption taxes were never the way out of this mess; they were, in the minds of thoughtful people, a means to an end, the point of a spear. That end remains building a more durable, innovative, productive economy without having to constantly check the balance in the public bank account.

Will we do this now, before our hell truly freezes over?

Feb 03 2016
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Democracy, Government, Politics

Vision becomes us

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There have been times in the storied history of the Atlantic region when meaningless, self-destructive, icy battles over trade, skills and labour mobility between and among the provinces have almost melted away under the warming sun of common sense. But those times have been rare.

Prior to Confederation, a century-and-a-half ago, Maritime political leaders gathered in Charlottetown, originally to consider establishing a united, regional economy. Then, of course, certain Upper Canadians, led by John A. Macdonald, crashed the party and rewrote the agenda. Suddenly, the urgent conversation was about creating a bi-coastal nation (without, at that time, a railway to connect is disparate bits).

How’s that for vision?

How’s ours on the East Coast in the second decade of the 21st Century?

We might just remember an almost-concerted effort to forge closer, more efficacious economic ties, leading to some sort of durable political union among Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in the mid-1960s. But as the counter-argument went at the time, “Where would we put the capital?”

Twenty years later, the debate flared again. This time, though, the political class in this part of Canada had no appetite for the concepts of either economic or political union; for they had become too complacent, too inculcated in the status quo thanks to decades of federal government welfare (transfers) to prop up their perpetually underperforming public accounts.

Now, when the rest of Canada reflects on us, it conjures a region of people wise in the ways of the sea, determined to give the shirts off our backs, willing to throw down a kitchen party. This, it seems, is the stereotype we gladly proffer in return for free money from other parts of the country. As long as Ontario and Quebec can laugh their rumps off at our expense, we court jesters can count on a cheque in the mail.

Again, how’s that vision thing going for us?

Each year or so, Atlantic Canada’s provincial premiers and their mandarins gather in capital cities around the region to consider how best to work together, how marvellously they may transform their tiny economies into what they have recently termed a “global force” of growth. At the same time, they just can’t seem to figure out how to rationalize the rules concerning the transfer of honeybees and booze across their provincial borders.

This small collection of principalities remains one of the most economically divided of any in the developed world. We make it virtually impossible, in this region, for university students to transfer their credits from one institution to another; for skilled tradesmen and women to find meaningful work if they choose to leave the jurisdiction in which they received their accreditations; for doctors, lawyers and veterinarians to move between provinces without first obtaining professional papers proving that the practices of law and medicine are, somehow, locally relevant and compliant.

Certainly, each Atlantic province must develop its own vision for economic and social security, And, indisputably, each jurisdiction should maintain the right and responsibility to protect and preserve its cultural heterogeneity.

But do these priorities obviate the common sense in pursuing the stock of our common story along the East Coast?

Should we continue to ignore the fact that the tales and travails that unite us are richer than those that currently divide us?

Shouldn’t this propel us to write the next chapter of a region that embraces its constituents as members of the same extended family of social, economic and political players?

All we need is the vision.

Once again, always again, let’s have that now.

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