In mere days, some of us will head to the polling stations to cast our ballots for a new House of Assembly. The Liberals will vote Liberal, the Progressive Conservatives will vote PC and NDP loyalists will vote NDP. The Independent members may (or may not) retain their seats, and the NL Alliance may pick up some votes with their interesting platform of electoral reform.
So, what will be accomplished? Very little, if anything, unless the undecided voters turn out in their anger of having to vote in a harsh winter election hastily called to precede the impending interim report of the Premiers Economic Recovery Team (PERT). That protest could turn our minority government into a PC-led legislature instead of a Liberal-led one. Either way, the NDP and Independents would be essential to the process of governing.
Given the critical point in history that we are all facing, another minority government may be the best we could hope for. Whoever becomes premier after Feb. 13 will have to deal with the interim PERT report on Feb. 28 and presumably share it with the legislature and the people of the province. Although it is interim (the final report is due on April 30) the information forthcoming will indicate the findings concerning the position of our financially challenged province within the Canadian Confederation. Many voters believe the current rush to the polls is because recommendations which may be made to government will not be popular. Indeed, the resignation from PERT of labour leader Mary Shortall is concerning, if not foreboding. And of course, the report will influence the 2021 budget, which could nullify many of the promises now being made by all parties and their candidates.
Given the critical point in history that we are all facing, another minority government may be the best we could hope for.
It may well be that we are facing a historic turning-point similar to 1934 when we had to abandon self-rule for a Commission of Government, and 1949 when we became a province of Canada. Such major challenges must, as a matter of principle, be dealt with by the people, and not by a premier and cabinet with a mandate from their own party to govern. It demands intensive public consultation regardless of political partisanship.
Commentary seems to be once again transfixed on cutting costs, like a corporation dealing with financial challenges by laying off employees or replacing them with machines. The problem with this focus is that it is a Band-Aid approach. The root problem remains, but is ignored like the proverbial elephant in the room.
We have a lot of geography, but little demography. The land mass of Newfoundland and Labrador (370,514 square kilometres) is equivalent to the entire United Kingdom (241,390 square kms) plus Nova Scotia (52,942 square kms), New Brunswick (71,388 square kms ), and 85 per cent of P.E.I.s 5,686 square kms.
The combined population of the U.K. and Atlantic provinces is 70 million. The N.L. population is less than 520,000, equivalent to the city of Surrey, B.C. And this tiny tax base is spread all over the land mass from Nain to St. Shotts and from Port aux Basques to Labrador City, and everywhere in between. We have more than 400 communities with over 9,000 kms of roads, scores of hospitals and health-care centres, hundreds of schools, a university complex and regional post-secondary colleges.
So, if we sharpen our pencils for cost-cutting, which hospitals do we close? Which roads do we maintain? How do we give our children the education they deserve in the 21st century? How many communities must become abandoned, as in centralization? Surely what is necessary is a new status within Canada if we are ever to become financially viable.
Perhaps Dame Moya Greene and her PERT members will address this vital question. The problem is that we dont know. And we should have known before we vote on Feb.13.
Edsel Bonnell
Mount Pearl
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LETTER: Politics before principles and people, once again - TheChronicleHerald.ca
