Psychic!

Quick call the X-Files because a real live psychic has been found in New Brunswick!

This week Donald Arseneault, the Minister of Post-Secondary Education, announced that if New Brunswick didn't get more money from Ottawa they would have to scrap the plans to build a new Community College in Fredericton.

The scary part is that the promise to build NBCC-Fredericton was made in the Liberal platform 3 years ago - but the federal program they are counting on to pay for it didn't even exist at that time! So how did he know three years ago what Stephen Harper would do in 2009? Amazing!

In order to make the promise in 2006 and for it to be dependent upon a one-time federal stimulus package - the Graham Liberals would have had to know that the economy was going to bust world-wide in 2008 and that the Government in Ottawa would pass a special one-time stimulus budget in January of 2009. Furthermore, Don "The Swami" Arseneault would have had to predict that out of the extra $40 billion the feds are dropping this year, $2 billion would go into universities and colleges. Astounding!

Unfortunately, like Nostradamus, the Minister's prediction was not accurate enough. When he had his vision 3 years ago he neglected to calculate the total amount of funding that NB would be eligible for, so now they are short of the money for Fredericton because they spent the initial funding on other projects. Making priorities is hard!

Still, at least now we here at NB Conservative know who to ask about our picks for next year's hockey pool.

More Election Talk

Why is the Premier suddenly talking about an autumn election, when he recently passed legislation stating that there would be fixed election dates? It makes you wonder what is going through his mind when he states that there may be some reason to go to the electorate a year before his mandate is finished.

We would presume that he has some insight on what his budget will look like next year and he will either have to make deep cuts into the civil service or increase taxes in order to pay for all his promises. We are only starting to feel the effects of the recession now, next year, when we feel the full impact of the downturn in the economy, we will see tax revenues plummet and there is no way the Premier will be able to deliver on all the promises he has made.

The cuts made to the public service this year were minor in comparison to what he will have to do next year if he wants to control spending at all. His MLAs in the Capitol region will be decimated and he desperately needs them to maintain his government. Never being someone who wants to deliver bad news, especially prior to an election, the Premier is contemplating calling an early election, renew his mandate and then bring all the bad news down blaming it on the recession stating he didn’t know it was going to be as bad as it is.

Don’t be fooled, if he does launch a campaign this year he will still make promises that he can’t keep. He states that he has done a good job of managing the economy and says that he will keep spending in check. Does anyone truly believe this? The Premier goes on talking about the transparency with his government and his plans, the only problem with the Premier and his transparency is that people will see right through it.

Why is the Finance Minister Spending So Much Time with the Auditor General??

Victor Boudreau is not just the Finance Minister, he is essentially the Chief Financial Officer for New Brunswick. Many might not realize but in addition to being Finance Minister, Boudreau is also in charge of several other government organizations such as NB Liquor, NB Investment Management Corporation, and the Regional Development Corporation.

Almost all of them are being investigated (or criticized) by the A-G.

The NB Investment Management Corporation, which looks after all the province's pension funds, was investigated last year. The A-G had to make several recommendations to the government about setting targets and disclosing information about incentives for employees.

A follow-up by the A-G's Office on the Regional Development Corporation noted they were still not providing evaluation reports on their programs and funding - something that has been a hot potato for Minister Boudreau lately. He had a recent disastrous meeting with the Editorial Board of the telegraph-Journal in which he admitted the problem and also admitted he doesn't know how to fix it.

Recently, the Conservative Opposition requested that the government ask the A-G investigate the very strange pricing practices at NB Liquor - where they apparently asked their wine suppliers to jack up the price so NB Liquor could make more money. How many stores do you know that would ask their suppliers to charge more so they can pass on the inflation to their customers?

Finally, when the Liberals tabled their budget this year they announced a massive deficit of over $700 million dollars, but then Boudreau said they just weren't going to count the $300 million they owe to the pension funds. (Here's an idea - next time your mortgage payment is due - try going to the bank and telling them you aren't counting your house payments as part of your expenses anymore.)

Once again, the A-G had to investigate and set the record state - the deficits that the Liberals are planning on running for the next four years are even worse than they are admitting to people.

How much confidence can anyone have in a Finance Minister who has every single one of his departments and agencies under a cloud of suspicion? Maybe Victor Boudreau's plan for stimulating the economy based on giving the Auditor General's office lots of work to do?

Liberals Do Have Hearts

We here at the NB Conservative are wishing Greg Byrne a healthy and speedy recovery from his recent heart surgery. We could make a lot of obvious jokes about this topic of course, but in the interest of being nice every once in a while, we will just offer our best wishes to the Minister of Business New Brunswick and his family.

Victor Boudreau & RDC

The Telegraph Journal had an article today about our Regional Development Corporation.

For those not familiar with RDC, it is sort of like a provincial version of ACOA, with no oversight, measurement or rules. And let's be honest, ACOA is not exactly non-partisan, they just cover their 'investments' with a long and detailed paper trail. Enough paper to cover the largest tushie.

Finance Minister Victor Boudreau fell all over himself trying to justify RDC. Some of his better quotes from the article:

"The return on investment is sometimes not calculated in dollars and cents or in the numbers of jobs "

"There's a benefit in every one of the projects we do."

"I don't know if you can calculate it every time, but there are definitively benefits beyond simply job creation and tax dollars,"

For anyone struggling to keep up, the 'return on investment' will be measured in September 2010. RDC is a provincial government vote-buying department. Makes one yearn for the time when a pint of whisky would suffice.

The Regional Development Corporation is a wasteland of political appointees buying votes, nothing more. I am sure there are wonderful Graham supporters, left over Lord appointees and maybe even someone able to facilitate MLA's crossing the floor at RDC. They are toiling away endlessly trying to help the good citizens of New Brunswick. Or they are wasting your money and mine giving it to the politically connected.

But how does the Finance Minister get rid of the Pork Barrel Mechanism of Last Resort. Where then does an MLA turn to get your money to give to a golf course or vacation cottage?