Category Archives: Politics

Oct 17 2015
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Democracy, Economy, Politics

New Brunswick’s issues are united

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Word comes down that the residents of Fredericton consider jobs, infrastructure and education as the top three priorities in this slow-motion federal election. All of which raises the inevitable question: Well, duh?

If Monctonians were asked, what would they say? Would their priorities be eating, breathing and sleeping? Would citizens of Miramichi wonder about moose fences, camp bylaws and the funny, little things in the middle of the provincial highway that keep you on the straight and narrow at midnight?

Nope. Likely, they would all say what matters most to them are jobs, infrastructure and education for the obvious reason that without an education you can’t obtain a job and without infrastructure you surely can’t get to one.

Pretty simple, no?

So, why do we make these matters so complicated?

Our provincial governments are determined to divide our province – all 750,000 of us – into “regions” of interests.

There is the north, where life begins and ends on the riparian reaches and harbours of hope nestled against the Gulf.

There is the south, where a great river runs to ensure that tourists enjoy their reversing falls.

There is the east, where a harvest moon beckons to California surfers, looking for a long-board experience on the mighty Petticodiac.

There is the west, where the zip-line of the Grand Falls meets the Maine forests of Paul Bunyan and his Great Blue Ox.

Altogether, and through it all, we crave one thing: clarity from our political leaders, and, more importantly, a sense of unity. That’s what we’ve been missing. That’s what we desperately need. And we’re not getting it.

For years, and more, New Brunswick’s Grits and Tories have been playing a game of musical chairs. Neither party has actually addressed the fundamental issues that commonly affect the people who do all the heavy lifting in this province. Rather, the main political gangs have preferred to castigate each other, ruin each other in the eyes of those who hold the keys to their respective castles: members of the public.

The results have been predictable.

In this province, we now endure an utterly unworkable government – one in which the bureaucracy holds no trust in anyone, and, for that reason alone, cannot be trusted; one the people who elected it are broadly certain they made a terrible mistake one year ago, four years ago, a generation ago.

We have come to the devil’s crossroads, people. The status quo simply won’t do anymore, if it ever did. We either sell our souls to the bond-masters of Wall Street, or we dig our way out by getting involved in the dirty, filthy political process of real change.

Either we remain sheep or we become wolves. Either we remain dopes or we become thinkers. Either we remain dreamers or we become doers.

So, then, if word comes down that the residents of Fredericton consider jobs, infrastructure and education as the top three priorities in this slow-motion federal election, consider the obvious:

It’s the same for all of us in this pretty province; it’s the same for everyone in this frightened region; it’s the same across a nation now terrified of its own shadow, now convinced of its own pernicious character.

We don’t need a political propaganda campaign to tell us what we’ve known in our bones for decades: We have seen the enemy, and we are it.

We have elected these fools. The time, now, is for taking back what we gave away, and to redeem the purchase of our democracy – one job, one student, one good road at a time.

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Oct 17 2015
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Democracy, Politics

Disproportionately misrepresented?

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The problem with Canada’s electoral system can be summed up in four words: “first past the post”.

It means, simply, that those who win a plurality of votes (more than the other guys, but not enough to justify a true majority in any particular constituency) get to rule the rural and urban roosts of this country without further ado.

For our purposes now, in an election cycle, that could mean that 60 per cent of this country will collectively vote for the NDP and the Liberals.

Still, under our peculiar system of government – which we borrowed – that would not be enough weapons-grade determination to defeat the Conservatives, whose 40 per cent showing would almost certainly return their majority government for a fourth, historic time.

As Globe and Mail national affairs columnist Jeffrey Simpson pointed out last May, “Canada’s system is looking increasingly isolated. It’s a system inherited from Britain, but even in that country, the system no longer easily fits with a fractured electorate. It also no longer fits easily in Canada, where three of the last four elections produced minority governments.”

Indeed, Mr. Simpson writes, “In contrast to many other systems, the Canadian provides very few checks and balances on a prime minister with a majority. The unelected Senate is a wet noodle; the government backbenchers are yes-men; the cabinet members are appointed by the top dog. With a couple of exceptions, none would dare stand up to such a domineering leader and his controlling staff.”

In fact, the evolution of western democracies seems to favour some form of proportional representation, and NDP Leader Thomoas Mulcair is not wrong when, in his election platform, he claims, “Democracies such as Germany and New Zealand have embraced proportional representation and realized improvements since moving away from first-past-the-post. In a study that looked at 36 countries with proportional representation, countries that reformed their systems saw increased voter turnout, more women and minorities elected and an overall higher satisfaction with democracy.”

Nova Scotia’s Atlantica Party also makes a good point when it declares in its mission statement, “A party that gets 35 per cent of the vote should not get 60 per cent of the seats in the Legislature. Electoral reform is needed to give fair results while retaining the voter-representative link. Voting systems such as Single Transferable Vote provide this; making it easier for independents to run in elections.”

The party also wants to institute e-voting and “the direct election of the Premier (and of) Nova Scotia’s Senators. Everyone should have a say in picking our leadership. The ruling party should not have the unfair advantage of game-playing the date of an election. Election dates should be fixed every four years and be called Joseph Howe Day.”

What if, in a new mood of enlightened self-interest, local leaders decided to experiment with proportional representation in New Brunswick – indeed, across the Maritimes?

Would that make our democracy stronger, more able to sustain a wider variety of voices and opinions, more wiling to entertain unorthodox, yet workable, solutions to our shared problems?

Or would proportional representation only guarantee – as its opponents repeatedly point out – policy gridlock at every turn of the screws of government? You think it’s tough getting anything done now, they argue? Just wait until you add dozens more dissenting voices to the mix. See what happens then to the quicksand of political decision-making?

Still, I’m inclined to ignore “facts” that are not based on evidence. How do we know until we’ve tried?

We certainly know what “first past the post” has done for, and to, our democracy.

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Oct 17 2015
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Democracy, Politics

Couch potatoes for democracy

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The anybody-but-(fill in the blank) voting strategy is a time-honoured tradition in western democracies. In fact, the late, great American comic, Richard Pryor, squeezed a whole movie out of the construct in the 1980s.

In “None of the above”, the actor played a hapless candidate running on a simple platform: No one is good enough, wise enough or strong enough to represent the public, whose interests he or she purports to cherish. So, the message went, vote for “no one”, not even the guy urging the boycott.

As political commentary, the piece was mildly affecting. As movie-making, it was merely ho-hum. As a blueprint for democratic change, it was naïve, at best, and, at worst, oddly seditious to the underpinnings of a society that still embraces the conviction that individuals – no matter how poor – can still make a difference to their various lots in life as long as they exercise the power of their plebiscite honestly.

This species of strategic voting has raised its head in Moncton in recent weeks, as roadside signs urging people to “nullify” their ballots have cropped up overnight.

Elsewhere in New Brunswick, certain social activists have inveighed against what they characterize as a crooked and fossilized system that allows political candidates with a simple plurality to, in effect, hijack entire constituencies in which the majority vote goes against them. The activists ask people to protest with their hindquarters on October 19 and stay home – a sort of “couch potatoes for democracy” gambit.

It’s tempting to fall in line behind this thinking. After all, no form of proportional representation – which would immediately inject more, better and diverse voices into the system – has ever gained traction in a province where political elites of the two major parties (Liberals and Progressive Conservatives) jealously guard their territories. It hardly matters that the New Democrats are gaining ground (at least, until recently), for, as they do, the “machine” transforms them, leveling them, remaking them as “mainstream-light”.

Still, it’s important to understand what we lose by voting against a thing (either by staying home or deliberately scratching a ballot), as opposed to what we gain by voting for a thing (as odious as this may seem to be).

We lose when our disaffection trumps our determination to effect change. Fewer votes automatically concentrate power in the hands of (guess who?) the powerful. The greater concentration of power, the better likelihood there is of abuse of such power.

Imagine a New Brunswick where only wealthy business owners and propertied money-managers have seats at the table where decisions are made. You think you’ve got it bad now; boys and girls, I’m here to tell you ain’t seen nothing yet!

You can forget about “public consultation”. Banish all thoughts of making a positive difference in your lives. No one is listening, precisely because you chose not to be heard.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. It will fill up the void with the good, the bad and the ugly; it all depends on who’s doing the pouring.

On the other hand, we win when we engage – not because we are voting for a particular candidate or party, but because the weight of our democratic participation cannot be easily dismissed by interests who would rather see us watch political pot-boilers on Netflix than witness our lineups at the ballot box.

Personally, I may not always agree with the “great unwashed” – a company in which I gladly include myself – but I am not prepared to have my mind sanitized by the alternative.

I will vote, looking for the best in a bad crop.

Will you?

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Sep 25 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The seasons of our discontent

Permanent winter for a Moncton events centre?

Summer came in like a lamb, and, for all intents and purposes, it settled for a long slumber from which it has yet to fully awake.

On the first day of autumn, in Moncton, the sky was azure blue, a light southwest wind blew, and the temperature was Bermuda-warm.

In the weeks and months ahead, I will remember that day because, for sanity’s sake, I must.

How else does one survive the winter that is surely to come?

There are no descriptions sufficiently accurate to capture the utter absurdity of last year’s white and woolly season – in fact “white and woolly” doesn’t even scratch the surface.

During the days just before Christmas 2014, a record seven feet of flakes fell on Buffalo, New York. In comparison, we on Canada’s East Coast had gotten off Scot-free. In fact, on December 27, the mercury didn’t dip below 16C. We could have been forgiven for believing that the rest of the winter would be just as mild. Except for the fact that The Almighty was not in a forgiving mood.

When Old Man Winter finally descended sometime in mid-January, he arrived for the duration – kicking up his feet, daily belching snow and ice, until, under some of the coldest temperatures on record, he had deposited as much as 500 centimeters (16.4 feet) on my West-end neighbourhood of the Hub City, by early April. Even the old-timers where astonished.

At some point in late June, the last of the once-incredible snow dump, adjacent to the Shopper’s Drug Mart on Vaughan-Harvey Blvd., had finally melted to the ground, leaving only the standards and flags intrepid mountaineers had planted on its peak.

Then, mercifully, came summer – one of the finest and longest on record in this corner of the Canadian Steppe.

Also, rather rudely, came Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s election call on August 6, reminding us all that October 19 is just around the corner, vaulting us all into the shoulder season that prefaces the arrival of winter, once again.

There ought to be a law, in this country, that proscribes warm-weather political campaigns – one that prohibits stern-faced candidates from invoking the certainty that our cold, dark, worried hearts are as inevitable as a February Nor’easter.

Leave that to the shovel season, when those who want to vote for “one-of-the-above” or “none-of-the-above” must work to get out of their driveways and exercise their democratic rights, come rain, sleet, ice, and snow.

As it is, signs urging voters to nullify their ballots have been showing up all over Moncton’s downtown in recent days – the lazy, hazy consequence, perhaps, of a glorious summer, interrupted by the same, old politics of division, easy partisanship, and cynical vote pandering.

Try erecting those road-sign messages (any messages) in the middle of a blizzard; see how far you get.

Still, we persevere; looking for a main chance, searching for a man or woman who will speak the truth, for once, to power, tracking the Great Dear of democracy through the September of our expectations, the snows of the impossible winters of our frozen minds, the frigid springs of our disbelief, and, finally, the summer seasons of our discontent.

As for me, I will take the last of this beatific time of the year to reflect, under the blue sky and baking temperatures, on the fleeting nature of pure joy: When the lambs and lions of the political world might finally lie down together, and contemplate building this province, this region, this country together.

After all, then, and only then, will we fully awake.

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Sep 23 2015
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Democracy, Politics

The crowns of our careers

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When I was 33, I was schlepping phone books, on temporary assignment in the back end of Halifax’s Fairview neighbourhood.

When Brian Gallant was 33, he was ending the first year of his inaugural term as premier of New Brunswick.

Who, I wonder, had the better deal?

In my case, all I had to do was forget the fact that the publisher of the magazine that had employed my wife and me as editors and production managers had gone bankrupt, concentrate on the then and now, and pick up enough loose change to fill the gas tank and deliver the yellow pages to gulags of apartment complexes.

In Mr. Gallant’s circumstances, all he had to do was reconcile a provincial budget that ran hundreds-of-millions of dollars into the red with the fulsome expectation of a jurisdiction, hosting 750,000 people, which would clamor, loudly, for its regular, reliable entitlements – including, perhaps, why it was no longer getting free phone books every April 1.

This is one of the reasons why, when I have been asked by various political parties over the years to run as a candidate on their tickets, I have politely, but firmly, stated: “I would rather be road kill on the Trans-Canada, stuck in the grill of a RAM ProMaster van, than live to answer questions from people like me, over and over again.”

This is, of course, why Brian Gallant is a better citizen of this province than I. So are David Alward, Shawn Graham, Bernard Lord, Camille Theriault, and even Frank McKenna, who doesn’t even live here anymore.

Each of them chose to run for, and succeed to, public office, knowing the costs to their personal lives and well being, knowing how fully ridiculed and hated they would become. Each of them, in their own ways, made peace with that inevitability.

This is not to say that those who aren’t inclined to throw their hats into the political ring should let those who are off the hook. This is, after all, our remnant of democracy.

So, to Mr. Gallant, on the anniversary of his first year as premier of New Brunswick, I say: Good start.

You’ve managed to get just about every constituency angry: Seniors, public servants, educators, health-care professionals, and ambulance drivers.

In fact, that’s what a first-term premier is supposed to do – level the playing field, shake out the winter carpets, prepare for political springtime. People don’t pay attention to the condition of their own lives until they are well peeved.

The corollary to this is, of course, to generate one, truly magnificent idea around which to rally a disaffected and disengaged public – not three, not two, just one good, durable notion that will catalyze a productive, prosperous society.

You might begin this way:

Talk more, in the next year, about giving back to New Brunswick not the trinkets and baubles the federal government sometimes allows, but the power and capital local communities require to collaborate and thrive together.

Build a true consensus across county and municipal lines for common social and economic needs in our hospitals, clinics and schools.

Ensure that every kid in this province learns to read, write and speak both English and French to an international standard. Deliberately remodel New Brunswick as a center of excellence in math, science and literature.

Finally, lay the foundation for civil discourse in this province; make facts rule the public conversation.

You, Mr. Gallant, are only 33. Your whole life is ahead of you. And, from my perspective, at age 55, you have the better deal.

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Sep 21 2015
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Government, Politics

New Brunswick’s surging orange crush

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For a while here, on the East Coast, it seemed that the federal Liberals could do no wrong. They had a majority approval rating of nearly 50 per cent in the run-up to the national election. They had a youthful, passionate and sometimes articulate leader in the body of Justin Trudeau.

But at some point between the time the writ dropped and the last summer barbecue ended, a funny thing happened on the way to the ballot box: Atlantic Canadians lost faith in the ability of a red tide to subsume the prevailing blue wave. Now, some are talking about an orange crush, Quebec-style.

This turn of events frankly amazes Don Mills of Halifax-based Corporate Research Associates, whose company conducted the latest survey of public opinion. “It’s all very close now within the margin of error for (the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP),” he told the Brunswick News organization last week. “New Brunswick is starting to look a lot like Canada. It’s going to make it a lot more competitive than, perhaps, it has been in the past.”

According to his most recent results, “Support for the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) has increased once again this quarter. . .Four in ten decided and leaning voters in Atlantic Canada support the Liberal Party of Canada (40 per cent, compared with 43 per cent of decided voters three months ago), while one-third prefer the NDP (33 per cent, compared with 29 per cent decided voters).

“Meanwhile, backing for the Conservative Party of Canada is consistent with last quarter (22 per cent, compared with 24 per cent of decided voters), while four per cent of decided and leaning Atlantic Canadians prefer the Green Party of Canada (unchanged). One-quarter (25 per cent, down from 41 per cent) of residents in the region are undecided, refuse to state a preference, or do not plan to vote.”

What’s more, Corporate Research’s results show that “Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper’s popularity currently stands at 17 per cent (compared with 19 per cent in May 2015). Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party is preferred by three in ten Atlantic Canadians (29 per, down from 36 per cent), while preference for Thomas Mulcair of the NDP increased to one-quarter (27 per cent, up from 22 per cent), and Elizabeth May of the Green Party is preferred by seven percent (up from 5 per cent).”

As for New Brunswick, specifically, the numbers shake out this way: Twenty-seven per cent of those surveyed are “completely dissatisfied” with the Harper government; another 30 per cent are “mostly dissatisfied”; only 31 per cent are either completely or mostly satisfied. That’s a ratio of nearly two to one against returning the incumbents to office.

As for leadership preferences, the results are even more compelling. On the question, “Which one of the following party leaders would you most prefer as Prime Minister of Canada?”, New Brunswickers answered thusly: Thomas Mulcair of the NDippers, 27 per cent; Mr. Trudeau of the Grits, 22 per cent; Mr. Harper of the Tories, 21 per cent.

Of course, there’s much turf yet to be covered in this horse race. Still, as Mr. Mills’ research indicates, “A majority of Atlantic Canadians continue to be dissatisfied with the current federal government. Two-thirds of residents (66 per cent, as compared to 63 per cent in May 2015) are dissatisfied in this regard”

All of which may not suggest an actual, Quebec-style orange crush for the NDP in New Brunswick next month.

But the chances of a blue day for the Conservative Party are certainly improving.

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Sep 21 2015
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Business, Economy, Politics

Life’s certainty: debt and disappointment

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For more proof that the federal government lives in a black box, coated with bubble wrap and buried in the deepest antechamber of Parliament Hill, look no farther than the hosannas it raises over the Finance Department’s latest projection that the country has posted a razor-thin surplus of less than $2 billion.

Apparently, this announcement is designed to cheer a worried populace, convince the nation that the Harper plan for “careful economic stewardship” is working and that, thanks to cunning and perspicacious policy at the centre, the regions may expect bread, honey and wine in the years ahead, if only they would get with the political program.

How, one wonders, does this logic track in Alberta, where provincial finances have been decimated in recent months thanks to a federally supported campaign to link that province’s economic prospects to fossil fuel prices it does not, and never has, controlled? How, indeed, does that constitute “careful stewardship”?

How, furthermore, does the argument persuade the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba and Ontario that their astonishing fiscal woes can be ameliorated by the actions (or, more precisely, inactions) of a federal partner in Confederation that has been absent without leave for, lo, these many, nine years?

How, indeed, do we reconcile such claims with the very real possibility that New Brunswick will find itself unable to cap its impressive operating deficit (now in the hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars), let alone pay down its long term debt (now above $12 billion)?

If we lay these burdens at the feet of the federal government, we have good reason.

That so-called national “surplus” has been bought and paid for by the provinces and territories that have been forced to endure broad caps to public spending on traditional, nation-building priorities, including: health care, public education, university research and development, arts and culture, and workforce skills development and placement.

To be sure, this does not, and should not, let New Brunswickers off the hook for their own prettily arranged economic malaise.

Over the years, we have been more than willing to demand of our provincial governments everything we’ve always believed we had a right to expect: low taxes, high-quality public services, good jobs, seasonal employment combined with fully funded, no-questions-asked employment insurance.

Still, lurking beneath the surface has been a federal administration that has evinced very little interest in the conditions of the places where people actually live and work and raise families – and even less interest in building long-term economic capacity where it matters most.

In contrast, an enlightened national government would spend time getting to know the provinces with which it is obliged to partner. It would reach out to extend the enormous capital and human resources at its disposal to build a true and durable national consensus on social and economic priorities.

It would not shut down debate in Parliament, relegate important committee work to busy work, demean the democratic process by burying every important issue into an omnibus bill, and demonize every principled, conscientious objector of its priorities and plans as effective enemies of the state.

It would not refuse to extend humanitarian relief to those who are, heartbreakingly, unable, through no fault of their own, find succor and solace elsewhere in the world.

We, in Canada, do not live in a black box, coated with bubble wrap and buried under Parliament Hill.

We, in New Brunswick, and in every other province and territory of this once-noble country, live in the light with our hearts nobly bleeding, our hands generously outstretched.

So should our federal government.

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Sep 21 2015
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Business, Culture, Government, Politics

Becoming who we must be

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The general rap about New Brunswick is that it is a minor principality of Canada, possessing neither the breathtaking vistas of Cape Breton nor the urban sophistication of Halifax nor even the vital, village atmosphere of Newfoundland and Labrador.

As for comparisons with Prince Edward Island, “fuggedaboutit”, as the New Yorkers say. That province has received so much federal money since God created the East Coast, there’s just no point in competing with it for tourists or, as the case may be, aerospace money.

Still, there are a few things demonstrably good about the “picture province”.

We are, for example, good with potatoes. In the early 1950s, a couple of middle-class brothers from Florenceville invented a way to harvest, process, and sell frozen French fries. Within a couple of decades, Wallace and Harrison McCain had conquered the world for these tasty treats. Today, their descendants operate a $5-billion a year conglomerate, employing nearly 25,000 people on six continents. Not so bad for a boring stopover, a la New Brunswick, en route to somewhere more, we shall say, exotic.

We are also good at oil and gas refining, having mastered the craft through the diligent efforts of the Irving family in Saint John. In fact, that outfit in New Brunswick’s “Port City” is among the most sophisticated in the world. Recently, the company announced that it would, according to a CBC report, “spend $200-million and employ up to 3,000 workers over 60 days to upgrade existing processing units at the New Brunswick plant. The Saint John facility is Canada’s largest refinery.”

Beyond this, we’re preternaturally good at making technological infrastructure and producing entrepreneurial options to traditional resource industries. We are, and have been an early-stage incubator (mostly for Information Communications applications) for innovations that have been exported and implemented across North America and around the world.

Lamentably, what we have not always been good at is blowing up the silos that separate us from the rest of this country and, in fact, from ourselves – the ones that keep the rural north and the urban south apart; the ones that cultivate differences between the three, major urban centers of Fredericton, Saint John and Moncton; the ones that persist between First Nations and non-aboriginals; and (surprise, surprise) the ones between Anglophones and Francophones in the nation’s only, officially bilingual province.

Maybe the worst thing we do is to make a meal of systemic mistrust of our own political representatives and public institutions. Our inability to get together to solve our joint economic and social problems has been our biggest problem – the only intractable hurdle that has held us back for 100 years or more.

Still, New Brunswick has produced some of the smartest men and women in the global room. Many have actually understood their responsibilities to the their fellows; they have decided not to break the world they helped build.

One of them is Donald Savoie of the University of Moncton. Another is David Campbell, chief economist of New Brunswick.

Still others include: Louis Leger, Mario Theriault, Ben Champoux, Nancy Mathis, Aldea Landry, and Brian Murphy.

All have spent their productive lives pondering the productive question about this province, about their communities: How do we come together?

How do we blow up the silos that separate us and render us vulnerable to those who continue to retail the general rap about New Brunswick?

The questions are crucial. The answers are vital

Unless we know how to become, how will be ever know what we must be?

How do we become who we must be?

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Sep 21 2015
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Democracy, Employment, Politics

Leveling the playing field

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Speaking truth to power doesn’t guarantee that the ears of the privileged among us will open. But they will almost always burn – and in a delightful reddish hue, no less.

Charles Murray’s job is, thank goodness, to afflict the comfortable. In fact, as New Brunswick’s Ombudsman, he gets paid to swing away at provincial Crown corporations like WorkSafeNB, which is precisely what he did last week in a closed-door meeting with a blue-chip panel of experts which is reviewing the legislation that covers the Worker’s Compensation Act.

Specifically, according to Mr. Murray’s official website, “The Ombudsman is an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly who investigates complaints from the public about New Brunswick government services. Ombudsman offices are present throughout the Canadian provinces and their services are free”.

Indeed, “The New Brunswick Ombudsma’s Office has one central mission: to ensure that all New Brunswick citizens are treated with administrative fairness by government and its agencies. The Office strives to guarantee that individuals are served in a consistent, fair and reasonable manner by provincial governmental organizations.”

As for WorkSafe, Mr. Murray is blunt. “In a rather fundamental way,” he said in his presentation, which is posted to his website, “it is our strong impression that WorkSafe’s present calibration, if I may use that word, is proving less equitable to injured workers than it should.”

He elaborates: “For the worker, the injury represents a deep, life-changing, and fundamental challenge to their ability to live the sort of life any of us would wish, both for them and their families. It touches them very deeply. The injury is a blow to financial and emotional security for them and their loved ones. It also may, at the very time of this challenge, diminish their mobility, their ability to perform their daily tasks and hence their available time. The injury itself, the medication needed to treat it, and the stress and trauma of the accident and the uncertain future may also compromise their mental health.”

On the other hand, the company that employs the injured worker “faces no such existential crisis. Its challenge in finding a replacement worker or in reallocating duties may be more accurately described in terms of degrees of inconvenience.”

How has equity and fairness drifted over the years? Mr. Murray invites his audience to “look at the imbalance another way. Any government agency which interacts regularly with powerful, articulate and monied interests in the private sector risks over time being persuaded to shift its perspective towards that interest.”

In fact, he warns, “If regular self-examination is not conducted, agencies may find themselves what is termed ‘captured.’ They become so used to seeing the world in a certain manner that they lose the ability to see the invisible ways in which they are favouring one side of the balance they are tasked with ensuring.”

Naturally, WorkSafe’s president, Gerard Adams, is buying none of what Mr. Murray is selling. In a statement, reported by the Telegraph-Journal, he expressed his surprise and disappointment with the Ombudsman’s statements.

Still, is it dramatically difficult to believe that institutional inertia does, over time, favour the status quo, which, in turn, favours the powerful and the privileged?

This is not necessarily a deliberate attempt by individuals to favour one party over another. In a sense, the problem would be easier to fix if it were engineered that way.

This is the way of the organizational world; the banality of evil is, sadly and all too often, bureaucracy.

That’s why guys like Charles Murray still have jobs afflicting the comfortable.

Thank goodness.

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Sep 20 2015
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Business, Democracy, Economy, Politics

What’s wrong with this picture?

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As a resident of this fair province, New Brunswick, it’s a hopeless comfort to know that while the rest of Canada slips quietly into recession, I may expect to keep my head above water and even thrive during the two minutes it takes me to attach the absurdity filter to the worn and threadbare spectacles I use to read the morning headlines.

So it was the other day when I came across this marvelous series of proclamations from New Brunswick’s finance minister, dutifully reported in the pages of provincial newspapers:

“Nationally, we’re in a recession and Stats Canada has confirmed it,” Roger Melanson said some days ago. “So we will continue to monitor the situation on a quarterly basis. That’s why we have quarterly updates. It’s the tool we have in terms of making the information public so New Brunswickers are fully aware of the state of our economy.”

Yet, his finance department boldly predicts an annualized growth rate in the province of between 1.5 and 1.7 per cent next year. Why? Because the economic auguries say so? Because the entrails of road kill on the Trans-Canada are aligned just so? Because the tea leaves in the lunchtime cups left on the cafeteria tops at Freddy Beach suggest better times ahead?

How bluntly irrelevant Minister Melanson’s claim is – especially when you consider that most New Brunswickers are already fully aware of the state of their economy. Indeed, as the nation dips into recession, this province has never managed to crawl out of a long, agonizingly slow one.

The essential quandary is: Do we care?

Go back into history see the same ludicrous patterns repeating today: A province whose economy is bifurcated by rural and semi-urban sensibilities; an institutional sector that will protect its turf at the expense of the students, professionals, patients, and citizens it purports to represent; a political culture whose last, good idea for meaningful change died when the New Brunswick inventor of kerosene did.

The agony that Mr. Melanson does not address when he talks of scraps of GDP improvement in this province in this year is the long, slow dissolution of self-reliance, self-improvement, and enthusiasm in this province.

Where are the monumental projects of imagination?

Who will build the next generation of entrepreneurs willing and ready to break the molds crafted by their forbears?

What new cohort of young people, coupled to older folks, stands to step up in this province to usher a renaissance of economic, social and political principals and priorities?

These are the questions that political leadership in this province should pose. Instead, Mr. Melanson seems content to rely on the predictions of statisticians and economic actuaries to spin a wobbly tale of good news about New Brunswick’s prospects.

“It’s important to note,” he says, “that every province, including us, have adjusted their GDP projection based on growth. . .(With the exception of Prince Edward Island) we’ve all brought it down because of the national situation economically. But we still have to keep in mind that there are sectors of our economy in our province where we have seen positives.”

T’was ever thus, perhaps. But our present condition demands sterner stuff from our elected representatives, appointed bureaucrats and, in the end, us.

Our future cries out for it.

Canada’s national recession may be a lamentable circumstance; ours, in New Brunswick, is a state of mind.

We have, in this province, only two avenues: becoming or calcifying.

We either fossilize or shunt the ties that bind and live in hope.

Through my threadbare spectacles, I choose hope.

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