Political progeria

It's a common pattern. Newly elected government are fresh and vigorous and brimming with ideas and energy. They can't wait to get to work and can't wait to do good. Reform is in the air; time is their enemy.

Then some time passes and middle age sets in and the tone changes. They've earned some experience and so they become a little more cautious and a little more careful as the bloom of youth fades.

That evolves into the aged government - defensive and maybe a little paranoid. Ideas are hard to come by and there's a world-weary "we've seen it all before" feeling that sets in. Getting up in the morning is hard, doing a full day's work is a chore and there's bloating around the midriff. More holidays are taken. Enthusiasm is down and coasting on past glories is preferred. Complacency and entitlement take over.

We've seen the pattern before. Smallwood went through it all by himself. Then the PCs came to power. Through Moores, Peckford and then Rideout, they rode through all three stages. When the Liberals won in 1989, Wells, Tobin and Grimes passed through the stages without even noticing.

These are the early days of the new mandate for a still relatively young government. They have just won, by their own estimation, a thunderous mandate. And it is a very impressive mandate.

Yet the ominous signs of government old age are there. After only four years.

Consider this: Williams has taken 3 weeks to appoint a cabinet which is largely a team of steady-as-she-goes; pretty well all the major portfolios (Finance, Fisheries, Health, Education, Natural Resources, Human Resources) have the same old bodies in them.

And let's be realistic about this: it wasn't as if there were agonising choices to be made unless the Premier was awake nights truly torn between monumental choices between the likes of Dave Denine and Steve Kent for municipal affairs.

And Williams didn't take 3 weeks because he was planing for the best people to undertake reforms. In the case of Fisheries, the reappointment of Tom Rideout only ensures a stubborn refusal to take anything remotely resembling initiative during a time of drastic change in the industry. Unless maybe that's the plan all along.

As for cabinet size, it has swollen to 18 ministers, up 29 per cent from the 14 ministers sworn in when Williams first took office in 2003. That's a pretty big cabinet and it's as large as the previous cabinets which Williams rightly excoriated for being huge and bloated.

That's not including the 5 parliamentary secretaries who do not sit in Cabinet, who do not answer questions in the house, who are not responsible for any decisions, who do not manage any part of any department but who still pick up an additional salary stipend of roughly $35K.

In fact, it's worthwhile noting that while the perks and the ability of a parliamentary assistant to reimburse for expenses are carefully laid out in the recent House administration documents, their duties, in this case the Premier's assistant although the others are similar, are vaguely defined with no clearly delineated responsibilities:

Parliamentary Assistant to the Premier shall assist the Premier in the manner that the Premier directs.

In practice that means taking the meetings, passing on bad news to groups/individuals and generally doing the grunt work that the minister can't be bothered with. Here's a hint: if you have a meeting with the Parliamentary Assistant to a minister, you are being given an elaborately polite brush-off.

William's defence of his cabinet size was that:

“Right now the province is on a growth track, (there’s) a very positive feeling in the province that we’re going to drive the province forward, and I think we need to make sure that we’ve got ample resources so that the job can be done completely.”

Previous government have defended increased cabinet sizes in all kinds of ways. I'm sure more than a few have argued the province was going through difficult times so we needed a larger cabinet to cope. And now that we are going through good times, we need a larger cabinet to cope now too.

Those hoping to become cabinet minister win both ways. In the end, the trend is to ever growing cabinets.

One would think that such a large group of enthused servants of the public would be chomping at the bit to get to work. But no. Instead, Williams has decided to put off the House until the spring of the year.

Even Tom Rideout, government's defender-in-chief on the issue of House opening delay, once promised a budget and throne speech within two weeks of his winning the leadership. Meanwhile, even the City of St. John's will have met for more days in 2007 than the House of Assembly. So will have the useless and do-nothing Senate of Canada

Williams justifies this action by saying:

“So to turn around this fall and prepare another throne speech when we really haven’t concluded half of what we set out to do in the year, I just think would be inappropriate, it would be unproductive, it would be just a repeat, a complete re-spin of what we said before.”

Really? I wonder what the election was all about then? Was the Blue Book mere window dressing? I suppose we can all look forward to a Spring legislative agenda that is new and exceptional and wholly unlike whatever this government has been doing the last four year. I know I'll be holding my breath for that.

If this year's new lows in House activity was exceptional then there would be not too much more to be said about it. But that's not the case. Instead, since this government was elected, it's House activity has steadily diminished to the current low levels.

It all adds up to a government in the throes of political progeria; a disease of premature aging where the effects of old age settle prematurely to strike at efficacy and energy. The signs of diminished capacity, reduced energy and efficacy appear far earlier than normal.

Williams presides over a government where the inevitable signs old age, which usually become apparent after a decade or more and several different leaders has, in this case manifested themselves at the end of a single term: bloated cabinets of familiar faces defending old polices combined with a reluctance to open the House and then, when the House is open, a reluctance to keep it open.

What do we have to look forward to? I suspect more defensiveness (as if that were possible), more crowing over past glories like the Atlantic Accord $2billion instead of announcing new initiatives, endless rehashing of old initiatives, creative hyping of minor tinkers to existing programs and generally a whole lot less energy and ideas.

Definitely no hope for reforms on any level. It's just steady as she goes.

Break out the wheelchairs.

No House this fall

Congratulations on NewfoundlandLabrador's new government: from populist to smug, fat, arrogant and lazy in record time.

It seems this government sees no need to open the House of Assembly 16 months after the House last closed.

Thank you Mr. Rideout for demonstrating that this administration considers democratic principles inconvenient and that transparency, openness and accountability are mere slogans to be trotted out during elections and then put away again once the majority has been banked.

It's nice to see at one party leader has a problem with this. I wish they all did.

It's going to be a long four years.

Don't go back to sleep

A milestone of sorts was reached today: the first ever open and public meeting of the successor committee of the House of Assembly Internal Economies Commission (IEC).

Outside of a few House of Assembly wonks, nobody had ever heard of the IEC. It was the rare member of the public or even media could tell you what it was and what it did. And as hard as it is to believe, even most MHAs were largely ignorant of IEC operations.

But as the center of the House of Assembly spending scandals, the dispenser of secret $2800 payments to MHAs and the committee which set the rules (such as they were) which for years permitted MHAs spend public money for private political purposes it was a critical part of the legislative/political system.

Now everyone has heard of it.

When politicians tell you that open meetings of the IEC are the beginning of a new era and marks the end of the bad old ways, don't take that too seriously.

Remember that much of the spending shenanigans were not directed by the IEC in isolation and away from the light. Much of the mess was organized in close partnership with the full House of Assembly in open and free votes in front of media representatives and televised across the province.

And just when you thought we were out of the dark times and into the new era of accountability, openness and transparency, this government and the entire House in general lets us down.

It was only in the last few months that Minister Rideout proudly trumpeted new rules for MHA spending. Only after the fact did we realize we were hoodwinked and that no rules would be in place until after the election.

We were misled about what was happening through a series of amendments delaying implementation which threw up so much smoke and mirrors that even the media watching from the galleries had no idea what was happening. More than a few voting MHAs were taken by surprise when they were later advised of what they had voted for.

An open and televised vote in the House, observed by the media, fooled us all. What's the lesson to take from this? That just because the new IEC meetings are public does not eliminate the possibility that they can pull the wool over our eyes.

So when they tell you to go back to sleep and everything is OK, don't. It means we have to watch what they do and scrutinise them more closely than ever.

Clyde Wells becomes Liberal leader 20 years ago

In June 1987, Clyde Kirby Wells, a constitutional and appellate lawyer and former minister of labour under Smallwood, defeated Winston Baker to became leader of the Liberal party of Newfoundland and Labrador.

It was a win given little consideration in the province and wholly unnoticed in the wider Canada. That would change.

In the House of Assembly and on the provincial political stage, Premier Brian Peckford was in his last days and through his antics, tactics and personality he sucked all the political oxygen in the province. He polarized the province into those for and against him, his policies and the province. He fought petty battles with local media outlets, notably the Sunday Express which chronicled his dubious personal expenditures and the peccadillos of his cabinet members.

In fighting the last of his constitution/oil battles, he was distracted in vigorously defending the indefensible in the Sprung project which was becoming more of a political tar baby everyday.

Taking on a thankless job, for the next two years Wells quietly, thoroughly and with great tenacity rebuilt a shattered party from the ground up. Under Smallwood the party was merely a shell for his own personal political ends so there was no structure at the provincial or district level under his leadership. While that had changed some in the intervening years, Wells still had his work cut out for him.

As opposition leader, it was hard for Wells to seize public attention and that wasn't his style anyway. He preferred to tackle issues than take potshots and he refused to go for the cheap political points. He took more than a little political flack from his own party stalwarts for not being louder and noisier.

Resigning in early 1989, Peckford was succeeded by Tom Rideout and the stage was set for a general election. Just three weeks after taking the reins of the PC party, Premier Rideout announced the province was going to the polls.

Instead of catching the Liberal opposition by surprise, he seemed to have caught his own party flatfooted.

Rideout puttered around in St. John's for a few days until he, and his party, were ready for him to hit the road. The previous two campaigns saw the Peckford Tories steamroll the hapless Liberals almost into oblivion. This time it seemed the Tories were wrong footed while the Liberals seemed like they couldn't do anything wrong.

On the day of the call, the Liberal bus was in front of the Confederation Building. There was a rally in the lobby and Wells mounted the bus and didn't stop moving for the next 21 days. The media was surprised to see how prepared, organised and energized the party seemed to be. They noted what seemed to them a generational change within the party and that was symbolised by a new and unfamiliar young crew of relatively young staffers manning the bus and supporting Wells.

One of those new staffers was me.

This pic was taken outside the legislature during a fire alarm around October 1990, I think. Left to right are Roger Grimes (later premier), Paul Sparkes, 1 unknown female with obscured face, Lynne King, Kim Ploughman, Ed Hollett, Deborah Coyne and me.

While I had noted the election of Wells to the leadership two years before, it wasn't until I met the man that I signed on to help. He was speaking at MUN when i was passing through on day and I was snagged by his executive assistant, an old friend of mine.

"Come over," he said, "and hear what he has to say." By that point I had wholly given up on provincial politics. I was annoyed and disgusted with the government of the day and had given up hope that it could be replaced. But I took a chance and went to give him a fair hearing.

I was amazed. Wells was clear, articulate, cool and rational. I quizzed him on issues and he responded with clear, unambiguous and reasoned answers instead of cant and roars. When the session finished, I went back to my friend, buttonholed him and told him to sign me up.

I found myself on the bus the next week for the duration of the campaign. I saw more of the province in those three weeks than I ever expected to see in my lifetime. It was an invaluable education in provincial geography, economics and history.

One recollection from that tour stands out. A reporter from the Sun media group in Ontario was assigned to the campaign. It seemed like he wasn't happy covering the campaign of an obscure opposition leader in an obscure province because he just wasn't enthused about being there. He was bored and expected no notable stories to come out of it.

One evening, while political rally-of-the-day was blaring in the next room, we struck up a conversation and he asked me where Wells stood on a variety of issues, including Meech Lake. I told him Wells was against it and that he would move to rescind it (take another vote in the House to withdraw provincial approval) should he win government.

"He can't do that," he said, somewhat peevishly.

"Don't take my word for it. Ask him yourself," I retorted.

He did. Wells gave him his standard and patented explanation for why Meech Lake was bad for the province and the country and what he was going to do about it. The reporter, happy to find an issue he could run with, filed the story and that was the first time Wells came to national attention.

I made his day.

That election was a squeaker. Wells and the Liberals started that campaign 21 points behind and for those 21 days, he climbed about 1 point a day. In the end, the PC's won 1 point more in the popular vote than the Liberals. But out of 6 seats won by less than 100 votes, the Liberals won 5. Wells lost his own seat.

After just 42 days in office, Rideout was out and Wells was in.

I won't go through the history of the whole of the Wells administration. Suffice it to say that his administration was a sea change from the one which preceded (Peckford) and the one which followed (Brian Tobin) and bears little resemblance to the one in place today.

Wells was premier during some of the most difficult times this province faced in the last half of the 20th century, including the cod moratorium (the biggest labour layoff in Canadian history) and all the associated social and economic problems. And he did it coolly with grace, poise and through honest intellectual force.

More on that another time.

I'll leave the last word to Rex Murphy: when Wells resigned, Rex gave his thoughts on Wells in the way only Rex can, opining that Clyde Wells brought perfume to the abattoir of NL politics.

And so he did.

No quotas, no chance, no way

It's not the first time this provincial government has tried to get through the back door what they failed to get at the front door. But this time the lives and livelihoods of a huge number of vulnerable plantworkers and harvesters from all across the province are being held hostage.

Let's review: FPI has made arrangements to sell chunks of itself to a host of interests both inside and outside the province. These sales are governed by the FPI Act such that the government of NL must provide approval for these asset transfers.

So what is Minister Rideout's position? Does he want to expedite the sale of these interests in order to get people back to work as soon as possible?

No. Instead this government has decided to strike with sudden power grab. The Government of Canada, insists Minister Rideout, must turn over control of groundfish quotas that FPI now holds to the Newfoundland and Labrador government. He says the provincial government is making its unusual request so that Newfoundland and Labrador communities remain the primary beneficiaries of quotas that FPI currently holds.

This looks like nothing more than an expedient attempt to politically blackmail a federal minister on the ropes.

Remember that there is no doubt anywhere that, legally and constitutionally, the federal government is the sole authority over harvesting in the oceans. So what Rideout is asking for is for a unilateral transfer of federal authority and constitutional jurisdiction.

Oddly, federal Minister Hearn is not quite so enthused to do that when exactly the the same provincial benefits can be achieved through simply setting conditions on where groundfish can be landed. It's done all the time. But now, today, in this case, that's not good enough for Rideout and company and so war with the feds on yet another front must be waged.

Premier Danny Williams said he was not surprised by the federal Conservatives' stand, particularly in the midst of an ongoing battle over equalization.

He is wrong; equalization has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of this issue and he has to know that. The fact is that there is no way under any circumstances that the feds are about to formally transfer any authority to the province when a simple administrative process would do the job.

FFAW president Earle McCurdy said his members are worried about a political struggle overshadowing their need to get back to work.

They should be worried.

For the same reasons this fishing restructuring process has stalled under new demands by Premier Williams in the 11th hour, thousands of oil sector jobs across the province have already evaporated. The experienced and trained oil workers are mobile and their skills are in high demand in other jurisdictions - they are out of sight and out of mind.

But these idle plantworkers and harvesters are more likely to stay where they are and become a festering problem.

This government's ability to handle issues of major provincial economic public policy is hampered by it's hamfisted inability to play with others. Let's hope government is more sensible over fish than oil.