Tagged: Darrell Dexter
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery
A friend asked recently why I had not written about the MLA expenses flap, and I confessed that I have trouble summoning much outrage over the issue. While I admire Brian Flinn’s dogged pursuit of the facts in AllNovaScotia.com, I fear that the public and the media are almost as much to blame for the problem as our lawmakers.
The public nurses an attitude of begrudgery toward politicians, and the media fans these embers at every opportunity. This is not our most attractive quality, and it makes it almost impossible for MLAs — who by definition must set their own salaries — to pay themselves appropriately for the work they do. So MLAs have, unwisely but understandably, developed a variety of secretive ways to pad their allowances.
A few observations seem in order:
- On the facts adduced so far, an audit of the compensation received by 60-odd present and former MLAs turned up a small handful of obvious abuses, amounting to a few thousand dollars each, and a larger number of errors in accounting or judgment, amounting to less than a few hundred dollars each. Total recovery: far less than the cost of the audit.
- Compared to recent expense scandals in Britain and Newfoundland, this is thin gruel. No Nova Scotia MLA built a swimming pool at public expense.
- The media’s habit of lumping salary and expense reimbursement together is invidious. We expect MLAs to have constituency offices, and these require rent, salaries, furniture, postage, phones, electricity, computers, and sundry office equipment. We expect MLAs to travel frequently between their ridings and the capital, and this imposes real costs. To add these legitimate expenses to their base salary, and cite the total as “compensation,” is absurd.
- While it is reasonable to expect MLAs to support large expenses with receipts, I am not sure I want lawmakers spending their time adding up slips from Tim Horton’s.
- Many costs imposed on MLAs are not receiptable. You and I can brush past the minor hockey player in the supermarket checkout line, but an MLA cannot. They are hit up constantly for donations, gifts, handouts.
- The circumstances of individual MLAs — remoteness from Halifax, size of riding, local culture of constituent service, committee duties — are almost infinitely varied. Any set of rules governing expenses will necessarily be arbitrary, and will beget examples that seem unreasonable.
- The shaming of the premier into reimbursing the treasury for the cost of a leather briefcase was petty and unworthy of us.
- When I began covering Nova Scotia politics 36 years (!) ago, an MLA’s job was considered part-time; most maintained other occupations to supplement their income. Not so today.
- Upon taking office, most MLAs set aside established careers in exchange for a job with far less security than comparable positions in the private or public sector. A 2009 report on legislative salaries in Newfoundland and Labrador found that the average tenure for MLAs in that province over the preceding 20 years was 7.5 years.
- Nova Scotia cabinet ministers make less than the deputies who report to them. Backbench MLAs make less than civil servants several steps down in the hierarchy.
- Most MLAs work exceptionally long hours, especially in rural and Cape Breton ridings, where a culture of constituency service is the norm.
Yes, the compensation for MLAs should be open and above board, but the witless moralizing that has dominated the current brouhaha illustrates one reason it is not. I hope this will lead to a system in which MLAs receive a single, generous but all-encompassing salary, additional pay for cabinet service and a very short list of special house duties, and reimbursement for legitimate expenses, supported by receipts where practicable.
But if it does not, we can shoulder some of the blame ourselves. To paraphrase Pogo, “I have seen the enemy, and it is partly us.”
NDP dissembling – reader feedback
Contrarian reader Cliff White, who perches somewhere to the left of our new blue NDP government, responds to our complaints about the Dexter/Steele spin on their foregone fiscal promises:
Enough with the self righteousness already. Of course they have to take responsibility for, and be brought to task for, their broken promises and misleading statements. On the other hand, dismissing them offhand and branding them all as liars, as some readers have, is not helpful.
Lets face it: they didn’t get into this predicament on their own. There are, for instance, the unelected workers and volunteers who craft strategies and policy statements they think will sell during the campaign. And there is the public, many of whom later become the complainers, who do not want politicians to tell the truth. They want, and vote for, those who tell them what they want to hear. Take a look around and see how many elected politicians you can find who make a habit of pointing out unpopular truths. It does hurt though to see a government you hoped would set a higher standard, fall into the same old patterns.
Deficits, lies, and audio tape
CBC Cape Breton’s Information Morning host Steve Sutherland did a deft job Tuesday Morning holding Finance Minister Graham Steele’s feet to the fire on the NDP’s no-deficit, no-tax-hikes, no-program-cuts campaign pledge.
Steele had a well-rehearsed answer, including a far-fetched analogy about a family doctor whose honest diagnosis gets overruled by four specialists, but Sutherland was politely persistent. He pressed Steele twice more to explain the glib falsehoods at the core of the NDP’s spring election platform.
“The fact is that we were acting on the best information we had at the time,” Steele said. “The fact is that now we are in government, we have access to more information, better information, and that’s the basis on which we have to move forward.”
This explanation doesn’t hold water. Everyone knew last spring that the province was facing a huge budget shortfall, but Dexter and Steele promised to cure it without running a deficit, without raising taxes, and without cutting programs. They didn’t need better information to know this was impossible; The promise was untenable on its face. To claim now that it was offered in good faith is an untruth as shamefaced as the original promise. It diminishes both men, and the offices they hold.
The sad part of this is that the road map offered by the advisory panel is a good one, but it is overshadowed by the cloud of deceit that now follows the men who must carry it out.
Colin May said earlier that political promises are for fools. On Twitter, Carman Pirie of Halifax reacted to news of political untruths with cynical resignation. “It’s what they know how to do,” he tweeted. “Like getting mad at a dog for barking.”
Attitudes like this are poisonous to the body politic. Twenty years ago, Contrarian would have delighted to catch a premier and a finance minister in an obvious lie. Today, it just feels disheartening—especially from these two, especially when it seems to come so effortlessly.
Are promises for fools?
Contrarian reader Colin May writes :
Do you know anyone who believed the three promises made by DD and his colleagues ? Did you believe they would be able to keep the ERs open ? Everyone in the health business knew it was BS.
Voters just wanted rid of Rodney, they cared less about reality. The less said about the media the better.
Looks like Premier McNeil in four years, about the only bright light in the Canadian Liberal firmament.
Stan Jones adds:
While I tend to agree with the recommendations in the report, I wonder if it isn’t true that Dexter and Steele knew pretty much what the report would say the day they appointed the experts.
The views of all four of them are surely well-known (and if Dexter and Steele didn’t know them, why did they appoint them?) and nothing in the report surprises me, given what each has said in the past.
What new information?
This morning, Contrarian observed that Darrell Dexter had to have known he could not keep the three main promises of his June campaign: no deficit, no tax increases, and no program cuts.
Sure enough, the premier jettisoned all three promises at a news conference this morning, and lamely tried to ascribe his about face to new information:
But there are economic realities that we are faced with today that we did not know six* months ago.
and:
We have information now that no one had six months ago.
Do tell. What new information is that?
The Economic Advisory Panel report offers little that wasn’t known long before the May election call. The very first sentence of the Finance Department’s March, 2009, fiscal overview said, “the 2009-2010 budget will require some very difficult decisions [because] costs continue to rise while revenues remain flat.”
A chart from that review clearly shows the falling revenue:
From the same overview, here’s a chart showing rising expenses:
The plunge in offshore revenues was known as far back as the 2007 fiscal overview, which warned at page 11:
In recent years government has seen revenues increase in a number of areas, most notably in categories related to the production of offshore natural gas. However, some of these upward trend lines are flattening out or even declining.
The 2009 Renewed Energy Strategy, released in January, was equally candid about the pending drop in natural gas revenues at page eight:
Production of natural gas, a cleaner fuel than coal, has made a major contribution to our economy. Revenues from the Sable Offshore Energy Project account for nearly one-tenth of the provincial budget this year and a significant share of our GDP. However, production from Sable has peaked (or will peak soon), and royalties from that project will decline. Deep Panuke is the only other Nova Scotia offshore project moving into production, and its total gas and royalties are expected to be much smaller than Sable. If we are to retain the revenues, jobs, and business opportunities we’ve enjoyed from Sable, we need to attract new, large-scale offshore developments.
The Premier is famous in NDP circles as a numbers geek who pores over polling data. His then-Finance Critic / now-Finance Minister is a voracious reader of and commenter on government financial documents. It is not credible that any of this “new information” was new to them.
It may be new to voters who relied on Dexter’s and Steele’s campaign rhetoric for their understanding of what to expect in the way of deficits, tax hikes, and program cuts.
–
* Five months, but who’s counting.
What the panel report confirms about the NDP campaign
Contrarian is working his way through the Economic Review Panel’s 95-page report. At first blush, it seems a sensible document, offering a balanced approach to navigating the economic mess the MacDonald government left us in.
Premier Darrell Dexter choose wisely in selecting Donald Savoie, Elizabeth Beale, Tim O’Neil, and Lars Osberg to carry out the review. All are respected, progressive, and fair-minded.
But before we get too deep into discussing the pros and cons of their recommendations, something needs to be said:
Darrell Dexter campaigned on a triple-barreled promise: not to run a deficit; not to raise taxes; and not to cut programs. The report makes clear he will have to do all three. There is no surprise in this. Dexter made a conscious decision to promise voters what they wanted to hear, even though he knew he could not deliver as advertised. (It might be added that many voters made a conscious decision to believe him, or at least to suspend their disbelief.)
That’s water under the bridge, but it warrants notice. The premier and his party indulged in dishonest politics, and the inevitable harvest is increased public cynicism and reduced public faith.
We are not naive about politics. We understand that winning is the point of the exercise. But when politicians of Dexter’s caliber dissemble so brazenly, they cannot feign surprise or disappointment at voter mistrust.
Nova Scotians who don’t want to wade through the panel’s full report can find a useful 12-page summary here.
Hydro Quebecwick unveiled
Inter-provincial power grid diagram shows the startling degree to which Nova Scotia is an energy island. This is a big obstacle to the development of local renewable energy supplies like wind and tidal, which are intermittent and therefore require robust interconnection with nearby power porducers and users. The Hydro Quebecwick deal means that any increase in our connectivity with the rest of the world will be at the mercy of the new monopoly owner of the grid, the Government of Quebec.
Premiers Shawn Graham (NB) and Jean Charest (QC) have unveiled the details of the Hydro Quebecwick deal. Quebec gets a monopoly on eastern Canadian access to US power customers; New Brunswick gets a mess of short term pottage and some debt relief, but gets to keep two white elephant dirty coal power plants. This may one day turn out to be as big a fleecing as the one Quebec gave Joey Smallwood 40 years ago.
It’s hard not to see this as a dark day for the rest of Atlantic Canada. Bye bye, Green Grid, a critical element in developing promising renewable but intermittent local Maritime energy sources like wind and tidal. Bye bye, fair access to US electricity markets, an equally critical element in developing those resources.
David Wheeler take note: This is very bad news for anyone anxious for action on climate change in Atlantic Canada. Considering he was blindsided, Premier Darrell Dexter’s response has been appropriately dignified, but make no mistake: this presents his administration with a huge challenge. Like Newfoundland, Nova Scotia’s influence on the national stage has reached such a low ebb that hardly anyone there will give it a thought.
See also: News release. MOU. MOU summary. (All are PDFs.)
Hydro Quebecwick? Not just Danny’s problem
This promises to be a continuing Contrarian topic, but I will flag it briefly: NB Power’s apparently imminent sale to Hydro Quebec represents a tectonic shift in Nova Scotia’s energy options.
I mention this because, as is typical, the national news media seem to view the story as just another installment in Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams’s (to them) clownish battles with central Canada. Such a view is as witless as it is patronizing.
The sale poses huge problems for Nova Scotia and PEI, as well as Newfoundland. If Quebec can use its windfall profits from Joey Smallwood’s disastrous 1969 deal on Upper Churchill Falls to buy up all the available routes that might get Lower Churchill Falls power to market, you have to wonder whether Canada really is a country any more.
Nova Scotia needs desperately needs to get off dirty imported coal as an energy source. Of our three local renewable energy prospects—wind, biomass, and tidal—two are intermittent and require large amounts of dispatchable backup energy. (Dispatchable means it can be turned on and off quickly, unlike thermal plants, and when needed, unlike wind and tidal). Pt. LePreau nuclear and Churchill Falls Hydro are the two best only two prospects. To justify the cost of Churchill Falls, we need to be able to transit any excess electricity to New England.
Premier Darrell Dexter speaks bravely about turning the sale, and Newfoundland’s antipathy to Quebec Hydro, to Nova Scotia’s advantage by building an undersea cable from Yarmouth to Maine. That would add a third undersea cable to the project. (The first two would cross the Strait of Belle Isle and the Cabot Strait.) Maine Governor John Baldacci, keen on forging an energy alliance with NB, has previously rejected that idea.
Dexter may by hoping to keep the young’un’s spirits up by whistling past this graveyard, but he must understand that this is first big crisis to face his administration.
A sale would also blows a big hole in nascent plans for a green energy pool involving the four Atlantic Provinces, another potential solution to the problem of intermittentcy of renewable energy supplies.
The Globe and Mail reports that Quebec is holding out a sweet carrot to NB Premier Shawn Graham: wiping clean NB Power’s $4.7-billion debt, and cutting power rates to consumers and businesses by $5-billion. That will be hard for the province to resist, and it goes without saying that no national government would risk offending Quebec by blocking the sale, even if it cripples energy options for three poor-sister provinces.
More on this in the days ahead. Meanwhile, Costas Halavrezos has a good interview with Yves Gagnon, KC Irving Chair of Sustainable Development at Université de Moncton here, CBC-New Brunswick’s estimable Jacques Poitras has some cogent analysis, and, as always, AllNovaScotia is on top of the story (subscription required). Reaction from Williams here and here. The Fredericton Gleaner likes the deal, as does the New Brunswick Business Journal.
McNeil shows leadership
We can’t say whether Liberal leader Stephen McNeil read this particular Contrarian entry, but he did both the right thing and the smart thing in helping astonished New Democrats speed passage of political financing reform through the house in a single day.
It’s the smart thing, because McNeil couldn’t prevent passage of the new law, so why encourage days of debate focusing on past Liberal wrongdoing? It’s the right thing, because no party should enjoy a permanent finger on the political scale based on a 40-year-old shakedown racket. McNeil explained it this way:
It was my direction—and I take full responsibility—that this issue needs to be behind us. It needs to be behind the party, and [let’s] get on with doing the business of bringing our Liberal values, Liberal views, and engaging Nova Scotians about, not only how we hold the government accountable, but the things that matter to them and how we put together public policy.
McNeil is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t around 40 years ago. Now that the authority has passed into his hands, he can take credit for acting decisively and correctly: A mark of leadership.
A way out of a wrongheaded promise
I’ve criticized the NDP’s carbon subsidy (here, here, and here,), but I understand the value of keeping campaign promises, even dumb ones. In my contrary view, public cynicism about politicians is so deep, it threatens to destroy the minimal level of public trust democracy needs to survive. This may be why the Tories and the Parliamentary Press Gallery have been so successful at drumming up absurd faux-outrage at the prospect of a fall election.
So even as two of the Dexter government’s promises (keeping all rural emergency rooms open and using tax rebates to encourage electricity consumption) make me shudder, I can’t help but admire Dexter’s determination to implement them.
Contrarian’s friend Mike Targett suggests a way out of this self-set trap:
While the NDP’s home insulation & energy-efficiency improvement program for low-income earners is a good idea, the electricity rebate is an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy that will likely encourage wasteful consumption precisely because it is not targeted at those in need.
Here’s my idea: those on one side of the wage gap donate their rebate to a fund that feeds into the energy-efficiency program for low-incomers. This fund could be set up by a charity or the province itself. If only 6 or 7 thousand people did this, it would double the program’s current budget.
How about it, Darrell?
On the debate over the Wark Principle, Targett adds:
Home-heat is a necessity; carbon emissions are not. A carbon tax (exempt low-incomers) would fund renewable energy development in order to decouple energy from carbon. Of course, as we’ve seen, it can’t be called a tax. Since averting climate catastrophe ensures a livable future for our children and grandchildren, we could just call it an RFSP: Registered Future Saving Plan.
