Saskatchewan withdraws from battle

Premier-designate Brad Wall of Saskatchewan has adopted a conciliatory tone in the province's long-running feud with Ottawa over equalization payments. He says he will look carefully at the legal basis for the equalization lawsuit launched by the NDP government shortly before the election and suggested a compromise with the federal government is possible.

Why hasn't Premier Williams excoriated him as he did Rodney Macdonald?

Saskatchewan election - results and local impact

As predicted, the Sask Party has taken the government and the new Premier is Brad Wall. This CP story says:

Throughout the campaign, Wall tried to look like a premier by communicating his party's plan clearly and without caveat. He wasn't overly negative and, for the most part, he stayed out of the gutter.

Those qualities won Wall - a fresh-faced, smooth talker who is quick on his feet and good with a joke - the job of party leader in 2003. His first step was to move the Saskatchewan Party toward the middle of the road. Now he must guide his province through an economic boom that is luring people home with the promise of jobs and a bright future.

This table provides the latest election results. Those who care about such things will note that the Liberals have been shut out again.

Party	Elected	Leading	Total	Vote Share
SP	37	0	37	50.6%
NDP	21	0	21	37.4%
LIB	0	0	0	9.5%

Although Premier Williams has expressed the hope that the new government will continue as a stalwart ally in the fight against the federal government on Equalization, he's likely just whistling in the dark. The subject was not raised in the election and it looks like it's been moved to the backburner. Besides, that new government has better things to do than indulge in fights it can't win.

So with Lorne Calvert gone and Rodney MacDonald cutting a side deal, it looks like the big cheese stands alone after all.

That leaves Premier Williams limited options: make new friends among the premiers (a vanishingly remote possibility), start a process of rapprochement with the Harper federal government (difficult in light of Williams' election night attack) or just keep up the war in the hopes that he will outlast Harper or wear him down; none of them are easy options.

Big cheese stands alone

While amateur local pundits are eager to place Premier Williams front and center of the national stage, the shape of the political landscape for their hero points to growing isolation and continuing national irrelevance into the indefinite future.

When you clear through the noise of the regular fall Ottawa ritual of the rutting political parties bellowing and taking runs at each other, one thing becomes clear: there will be no election this year. Over the next month or so, each opposition party will make separate and independent runs at the government and the government will pretend that the runs actually mean something and will make their appropriate noises. Then everybody will go home satisfied that they have been seen to be doing something.

The Conservatives are still locked in minority territory, the opposition parties are still unprepared for an election, there are no burning issues to run on and nobody wants to call an election to be conducted over the pre-Christmas season. Layton already made that mistake once and even he has learned it's not wise to do that twice.

The real game will start with the spring budget.

And the more time goes by, the fewer national allies Williams has to count on. MacDonald of Nova Scotia has looked after the interests of his own province and made a separate peace with the feds. In truth, he was never a reliable ally at the best of times because there was so little money at stake for him. And now with a single bland assurance, Harper and McKay have neutralized that problem.

Harper and MacDonald's success in burying the hatchet lies in the fact that talks continued between the governments through the conduit of Peter MacKay. He was critical to making the deal happen.

Williams has no such conduit. He has emasculated Loyola Hearn and our Ottawa plenipotentiary is nowhere to be seen.

There's no doubt that the deal was in the works for a while and the announcement was held off until after the NL provincial election. For one thing it takes up to weeks to coordinate a federal-provincial announcement of this magnitude. For another, Harper knew full well that Williams would use the deal as the excuse to launch yet another provincial jihad against Ottawa.

That's the problem with being so predictable - it gives the initiative to others.

Whether the deal is good or not for Nova Scotia is irrelevant. MacDonald is now out of the game and the Williams' parting shots at him as "weak" will make him disinclined to be sympathetic in the future.

Meanwhile, Premier Calvert of Saskatchewan has called an election and his outlook is not bright. He is a familiar and tired leader heading a familiar and tired party that has been in power for 16 years and has been 15-20% behind in the polls for too long. There is always a chance that he might pull it out but that's not where the smart money is going.

As for the other provincial premiers, the Williams hobbyhorse of broken federal promises that nobody ever expected to see kept anyways combined with absolutely no interest in Equalization as an issue in any premier's suite of any note across the country ensures a big ho-hum response to his same old song.

The key to long term success in federal-provincial relations is in making friends and influencing people through a combination of tenacity, flexibility and the ability to make allies through the sharing of common interests. Predictable, incessant, inflexible, noisy combativeness excites the local nationalist extremists back home; nobody else cares anymore.

Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia - Atlantic Premier Profiles

I wrote profiles of the four Atlantic Premiers for publication for the May issue of Atlantic Business Magazine (ABM). One has already left office (Pat Binns of Prince Edward Island) but the other three are still in power: Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia, Shawn Graham of New Brunswick and of course Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the next couple of days I'll post all the profiles.

A companion piece to these profiles is an overview of all four Atlantic premiers previously published in ABM and posted here.

Today, Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia.

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If being Premier is a difficult job at the best of times, then being Premier of a minority government has to be the most precarious of times. It’s a position that leaves little room for mistakes, requiring the balance of a tightrope walker along with a keen ear for political discord.

In other words, the skills of an athlete combined with the talent of a musician.

So it’s fortunate that Nova Scotia Premier Rodney Joseph MacDonald was both before he entered politics. A former teacher of physical education, on the hustings MacDonald is just as likely to pull out a fiddle as deliver a speech. With two albums and two East Coast Music Award nominations to his credit, he’s got game.

Just 34, MacDonald was first elected as MHA for Inverness in 1999. He was the surprise choice as Progressive Conservative leader in February 2006, inheriting the Premier’s office and a minority government. In June he won his own mandate, also with a minority.

Still, he has an ambitious plan: facing the pan-Atlantic need to develop the economy and retain his province’s educated youth, MacDonald looks across the sea to Ireland for inspiration. Rather than focus on the region’s traditional industries and resource extraction, his goal is to attract information technology and financial services. With an extensive network of nationally ranked university and community colleges, he touts Nova Scotia’s workforce as highly skilled and ready to deliver.

“Over the next five years we’ll see roughly 4000 to 5000 jobs in information technology here in our province,” says MacDonald. “That means opportunity for people to come home, that means career choices for people coming out of school, and that means good paying jobs.”

In the last year, his government announced the expansion to Nova Scotia of Research in Motion (RIM) with a new 1200-person technical support operations centre. Shortly thereafter, Citco Fund Services, the world's leading hedge fund administrator, officially opened the doors of its new Halifax operation, bringing the province up to 350 new jobs.

On the regional level, his vision goes far beyond the Atlantica concept. MacDonald plans to leverage Nova Scotia's port, airport, road and rail links, and its strategic location for access to Asia and India through the Suez Canal, to make his province the Atlantic Gateway to the globe.

On the domestic front, he shows a thoughtfulness and political realism that belie his years. On the reputation of politicians, he admits, “Unfortunately, it’s not where I’d like to see it. We need to continue to work with the public on ensuring that, not only that we fully appreciate what their issues are but they fully appreciate the job we have to do and, at times, the decisions we have to make.”

“I think in year’s past there was greater respect for our elected representatives.”

As Premier, he is sobered by the dignity of his office. His biggest surprise since taking office has been “How strongly people feel about the position, not necessarily about the person in the position; and the level of respect they give the position of Premier….There’s a real strong connection between the position of premier and the people of the province.”

All NL all the time

An embarrassment of riches today: four pieces in the Globe and Mail this morning on NL and the issues facing it. And who says we get no attention from the national media?

One comes out of the NOIA oil industry conference and covers his speech ('No compromise on Hebron: Williams Newfoundland Premier says he won't yield to pressure and sign 'a deal for the sake of a deal'). Related to that, the national media are responding to Ottawa's release the text of NRCAN Minister Gary Lunn's broadside(?) he was supposed to unleash on Premier Williams until Lunn's plane turned back because of fog.

The third outlines Premier MacDonald's and John Crosbie's appearance in front of the Senate and their opposition to the federal budget do to its Atlantic Accord provisions.

Finally, Jefferey Simpson's column on NL outmigration. It makes for sobering reading. Simpson will be speaking at NOIA today and tomorrow. Here's the text.

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Buffeted by the winds of the great migration
JEFFREY SIMPSON, June 20, 2007

ST. JOHN'S -- Could anybody in Ontario imagine their province losing 1.5-million people in the past 15 years? Could anybody in British Columbia get their mind around their province shrinking by 500,000 people since 1991?

Yet a decline of commensurate size happened in Newfoundland. Since 1991, its population fell by 12 per cent, or about 70,000 people.

The very young and the very old didn't leave. Young and middle-aged adults did - the people who work, pay taxes, raise families, support others. The decline was greatest after the cod moratorium, but it persists today. And it will continue. Today's population is about 510,000. Under the best scenario, it will fall to 495,000 by 2020; under the worst, 460,000.

More difficult still, the population is aging, quickly. The entire Canadian population's demographic profile is getting older, but Newfoundland's is getting older faster. In a generation, Newfoundland has gone from having the country's youngest population profile to its oldest. In the 1970s, Newfoundland had the country's highest birth rate. It now has the lowest, courtesy of people of child-rearing age having left.

For decades, politicians of all stripes, and at both levels of government, have pledged to revive rural Newfoundland. These promises continue. There are pockets of modest revival, sometimes because people who went to Alberta or other places "away" came back with money. These are the exceptions, in fact, if not in rhetoric.

Agencies, task forces, royal commissions, studies, programs and billions of dollars have been thrown at the problem. The political culture of the province requires the suspension of belief, a culture no political figure dares challenge.

Meanwhile, here is what is happening - because people took rational decisions in their own self-interest - and what is projected to occur.

According to provincial statistics, of the province's 20 "economic zones," only two have kept steady populations: the Avalon peninsula that encompasses St. John's, and northern Labrador with its aboriginal peoples. Every other one has lost people in the past 15 years, with the decline ranging from 12 to 30 per cent.

The reporting of the raw numbers of decline doesn't tell the whole story because it misses who is left behind.

Take the southwest corner, Stephenville and Port aux Basques. In 1986, it had 15,200 people aged 1 to 19, but only 3,100 people over 65. The ratio then was five young people to every senior. Today the ratio is 3 to 2, and by 2020 it will be about 1 to 2, or about 4,000 young people for almost 8,000 seniors.

Another example: the Burin peninsula on the south coast. In 1986, it had 11,600 people under 19 and 2,500 seniors, for a ratio of about 4.5 to 1. By 2020 it will be about 3 to 4, with 2,800 young people and 4,300 seniors.

Today's median age is 41. By 2020, it will be about 49, but much higher in the rural areas. In 2006, for the first time, Newfoundland recorded more deaths than births, the only province where that occurred. Said the province's finance department, "there appears to be no relief in the foreseeable future for demographic issues stemming from declining births and rising deaths."

The depopulation of rural Newfoundland, in the face of every policy to arrest it, leaves the province with big delivery and spending problems.

A rapidly aging population means higher health-care costs. Outports, even shrunken ones, still need roads plowed, children educated, police on call, but the economy of scale of providing those services grows worse.

Facing these facts, and they are facts, is politically very hard. It is easier to speak of hope, revival, return, and to offer another plan. It is a completely nefarious myth that Newfoundlanders do not wish to work. Newfoundlanders would not have left, and be leaving, in such great numbers if they were shifters.

The work, however, is not there in large swaths of the province. People know it. But governments cannot admit it, and so maintain policies designed to blow against, rather than with, the winds of the great migration.

5 Top Stories of 2006 in ABM - 3 of 4

This is the next is the series of the 5 top stories of the year as published in the January-February issue of the Atlantic Business Magazine.

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Deep Panuke - Finally Moving

On June 30, 2006 Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald announced that the stalled Deep Panuke natural gas project was moving forward.

Deep Panuke first emerged as a potential third project for the Nova Scotia offshore in 2000, when PanCanadian Energy announced encouraging drilling results from a natural gas field associated with the Cohasset Panuke oil project. Deep Panuke will tap into the natural gas reservoirs located underneath the original Cohasset-Panuke oil field, which ceased production in late 1999.

The Offshore Strategic Energy Agreement (OSEA) announced by Premier MacDonald is the first step in the process to get both gas and opportunities flowing to the province.

To start, EnCana has guaranteed 1.34 million person-hours of work in Nova Scotia, including at least 850,000 by Nova Scotians. The agreement also contains a commitment to build accommodation facilities for the Offshore Production Unit in the province yielding some 280,000 person-hours for Nova Scotians.

The Deep Panuke OSEA contains a unique element that will facilitate long-term opportunities for Nova Scotia companies: EnCana will provide financial and human resources to help build an onshore drilling rig manufacturing operation in Nova Scotia - $1 million dollars worth per rig towards the construction of five onshore rigs in-province.

Nova Scotia companies who participate in this ambitious and creative supplier development initiative will acquire experience and an entrée into a market hungry for qualified labour and industrial capacity. Construction of the proposed initial five rigs could also help alleviate the rig shortage that has hindered the onshore industry in Atlantic Canada and across the country.

But rig construction is likely to be just the beginning of long-term benefit emerging from the Deep Panuke OSEA. Premier MacDonald expects joint ventures and partnerships established during project development to establish export capacity and help Nova Scotia’s resident industry flourish.

Premier MacDonald says the deal was reached through patience, cooperative spirit and an eye to the future: "(By) staying at the negotiating table and showing certainty to the company during the regulatory process, Nova Scotia demonstrated it is a steady partner that’s open for business and will find ways to make projects move forward."

The mood in Nova Scotia is confident, the supply and service sector is ready, and the industry is looking forward to success beyond the life of this new project.

5 Top Stories of 2006 in ABM - 1 of 4

The January-February edition of Atlantic Business Magazine has a special feature: the 5 top stories of 2006. The number one story, penned by Rob Antle, was a quality feature length piece outlining the issue and ramifications of out-migration.

The other 4 stories here, shorter and more concise bits which came from my keyboard, will be reprinted here over the next little bit*. Enjoy.
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Atlantic Premiers

Atlantic Canada has always had strong common historical, economic and political interests. From the Maritime (or Atlantic) Union movement of the mid-nineteenth century to the Council of Atlantic Premiers, established in 2000, the region’s political leaders have sought to put forward a common front. However, this seems to work better in theory than in practice.

With two new figures on the Atlantic Canadian political landscape, 2007 would seem like a time to launch a new era of cooperation.

In June, New Brunswick ousted Tory Premier Bernard Lord in favour of Liberal Shawn Graham, after a brief period of unstable minority governments and peculiar parliamentary shenanigans.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia saw the end of the John Hamm era and the surprising ascendance of Rodney MacDonald as Conservative leader and premier in February. MacDonald received a mandate of his own in a nasty and close June election.

Less than a year in office, these two are finding their place among their more seasoned colleagues.

Tory Pat Binns is a known quantity, having served as premier of PEI since 1996. If he finishes his full term, he will be the second longest serving premier of that island province since Confederation.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Danny Williams is perhaps the best known regional premier, having won a national reputation through waging war with two Prime Ministers in just three years.

How will the two new first ministers change the regional political balance?

If the recent December meeting of the Council of Atlantic Premiers is any indication, it looks like while the Premiers can agree on the big issues; it’s the details that bedevil them.

A good example of an issue that binds all four is equalization.

At the December 7 press conference following the meeting, all the premiers agreed that they wanted more equalization money, that the program should be equitable to all provinces and that no province should lose income.

Oddly, nobody was surprised at this.

But beneath this seeming unanimity, there were stark differences in positions. While Williams insisted that resource revenues be wholly excluded from the formula, his compatriots were just as adamant about their inclusion.

Williams’ position would give Newfoundland and Labrador a huge fiscal advantage, since his province relies heavily on resource royalties, especially oil. For the others, resource revenues are marginal.

Since politics is the art of the possible, they reached a compromise - after a fashion. They concluded with the insistence that federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty can and should come up with a plan that benefits all provinces and territories.

And Premier Williams promised to campaign nationally against the Harper government if he didn’t get his way.

So in the end, it looks like our two new Atlantic Premiers fit neatly into the region’s tradition of cooperation and agreement - unless individual provincial and political interests get in the way.

Just political business as usual on Canada’s east coast.

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*I'm not resorting to reprints because there is nothing on the go in the wider environment. I've just been out of commission with a very bad cold and now I'm behind on other commitments.