Now, if I want theatre, I’ll go to the LSPU Hall, where the actors are skilled and convincing.
Too often, politicians try to deliver the same when what we really want from them is substance over performance.
Thankfully, during Wednesday night’s televised debate between provincial political leaders, there was little drama. Instead, the NDP’s Alison Coffin, Tory Ches Crosbie and Liberal Andrew Furey stuck to their election platforms and outlined their visions for governance in a respectful way — a refreshing change from the caterwauling and childish snipes of election debates past.
(That’s not to say that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don’t enjoy flights of rhetoric on occasion. Smallwood, Peckford, Tobin and Williams certainly enjoyed riffing on grandiose themes. And witness this snippet from a speech by anti-Confederation leader Charles Fox Bennett during the 1869 election in Newfoundland: “It was the Confederates, those Lawyers and other loafers, who compose the present Government, men who are now striving by the grossest untruths to induce the electors to put them again into the Legislature, that they may continue to fatten on the taxes they unmercilessly wring from your hard toil, and keep you ... in poverty and wretchedness.”)
There was none of that Wednesday night.
Now, “bankrupt” by definition means a declaration in law that you cannot pay your debts. Heck, we were in danger of not meeting payroll.
But there was one exchange I found particularly interesting, between Furey and Crosbie, which was the distillation of the difference between their approaches.
Furey acknowledged the province is in a tenuous financial position. (Or as a media colleague put it aptly the other day, “We’re Thelma-and-Louising right over the cliff.”)
Furey said there were “structural issues” and “no magic bullets,” calling the bloated-budget hydroelectric mega-project in Labrador an “anchor” around our “collective souls.” (Of course, he was quick to distance himself from it with the catchphrase, “I didn’t create Muskrat Falls, but I will fix it.”)
Crosbie reached for a blunter instrument — the word “bankruptcy,” which Furey objected to.
“Saying we’re bankrupt is irresponsible language to use with our federal partners,” Furey said.
Which would be funny if it were not so lamentable, given the letter his predecessor sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau less than a year ago. On March 20, 2020, Dwight Ball wrote that Newfoundland and Labrador could not borrow to pay its bills: “I must bring to your attention the immediate and urgent financial crisis that Newfoundland and Labrador is facing. To put it bluntly, our recent attempts to finalize our borrowing program, both short term and long term, have been unsuccessful,” Ball said.
“We have no other recourse to raise the necessary funds to maintain the operations of government, including our health-care system, especially at this critical time.”
Now, “bankrupt” by definition means a declaration in law that you cannot pay your debts. Heck, we were in danger of not meeting payroll.
Which is perhaps why Crosbie was unapologetic in his choice of words.
“I deal in hard facts and realities…,” he said. “I look people in the eye. I’m a straight-shooter. That’s why I use words like ‘bankruptcy.’”
The Feb. 2 report from the think-tank C.D. Howe Institute, “The Rock in a Hard Place: The Difficult Fiscal Challenges Facing Newfoundland and Labrador,” favours similarly unadorned language.
“Without strong corrective action, provincial finances appear to be set on an unsustainable track, with net debt to GDP reaching almost 60 per cent by 2025 and interest payments eating over 14 per cent of revenues…,” it states.
“For the last 15 years, spending in Newfoundland and Labrador has in fact exceeded that of Alberta, the richest province in the country.”
Of course, political outcomes should never be decided merely by whoever paints the rosiest picture or by who speaks in the bluntest, bleakest terms.
But the C.D. Howe report has a point when it notes, “The province needs to put the basic facts before the public and explain the need for action.”
Hear! Hear!
Pam Frampton is The Telegram’s managing editor.
Email her at [email protected]
Twitter: @pam_frampton
