New Brunswick Conservative

When in Doubt, Follow the Money

2009-11-28T15:34:00.002-04:00

When I was young I used to hear my grandfather talk of things happening on the news and on the political front.

From time to time he would grumble…follow the money…follow the money. That little phrase is very timely right about now for the good citizens of New Brunswick.

Pretend for a minute that you are the premier of New Brunswick and had spent the past three years running up successive budget deficits - even though you promised to adhere to balance budget legislation? What if you had ran the total debt from $5.6 billion to $7.4 billion in three short years? What if you knew there were a number of tough decisions that you have to make in the last year of your mandate? These decisions would probably upset a lot of people that you would need to vote for you to get reelected? To avoid these tough decisions you would have to borrow even more money in year four.

Hmmmm….What to do…..What to do…

You might be on the look out for some CASH and a lot of it. But where would you find it?

Wait a second – New Brunswick has a government owned and operated power utility and is located in a strategic geographic position to pump power into the USA. That could be worth some money. Even though it has a debt (about $4.8 billion) it is not really a debt in the sense that tax payers do not have to pay it. It is serviced by the rate payers and has assets that back it up. For a buyer this should be an attractive proposition.

What if you could sell this utility and get some cash. And by cash we mean a lot of cash. Perhaps somewhere in the $5 billion dollar range. Could it really be worth that much? What if as part of the deal you could get power rates frozen for residential customers and industrial users would get a break. Holy moly you might say – what a killer deal. Tons of cash and rate freeze/reduction. Everyone wins. You would be tempted to quickly jump at that. Devilish details about the deal be damned – you would want that cash. You would send a team in with instructions not to come out until a deal was signed ASAP.

Being a smart politician you would know that you would have to show the people that the utility in question is no longer good and somehow convince them that the debt of that utility is both very bad and part of the overall provincial debt.

As well you would have to be careful about how you position what you are going to do with all that cash. You would be wise to think that the owners of the publicly owned utility might have some issues with you selling it and what you might be planning to do with the money you are getting. Well you might say – all that money will go to pay off the really bad debt associated with the power utility. This will also lower the overall provincial debt by a lot. Sounds good. Right. Just to make sure it all goes off without a hitch you hire several public relations firms to sell the people of NB on the whole thing.

Good news. Somehow you were able to pull it all off and convince the people that the sale of the utility paid off a large chunk of the overall provincial debt – that $4.8 billion associated with the utility. Even though you know it is not really a debt. But you have convinced most New Brunswickers that it is. Phew…

But ohhh boy all that cash….$5B worth. How many good things could you do with that? With overall net debt down by $4.8 billion you might be tempted to borrow some more money to help get through the last year of your mandate and throw enough election goodies around to ensure a victory next September. Even though the the real New Brunswick debt has not changed. Enough people believe it has to allow you to get busy borrowing.

Crafty…Very Crafty….

All the hullabaloo about the NB Power deal and what is good or bad, the MOU, NERA report, heritage pool, NPV analysis etc… is all smoke and mirrors to allow the Graham government to go on a spending spree. It is no coincidence that the infrastructure spending was just increased to $1.9 billion over two years. They can do this all the while telling the people of NB that the ‘net’ debt (the one all of a sudden includes NB power’s debt) went down. They can go out and borrow a LOT of money this year and still report that the net debt of the province of NB went down

They are planning on a long summer's worth of black top and as many other make work projects as it takes to buy their way to reelection in September 2010. That is why the budget was backed up into December. To allow for capital projects to get the green light in time for work to start as soon as the snow melts.

Perhaps Mr. Graham is a little smarter than people are giving him credit for. You have to give him kudos for getting us all to think about everything except the money.

As Grandpa always said………………...follow the money.

The Future of Loyalty

2009-11-26T10:08:00.001-04:00

Like most New Brunswickers, we here at the NB Conservative have always been proud to support our local businesses. We fill up our cars at Irving, eat McCain's Super Fries, and even though they are darned expensive we do enjoy Ganong's chicken bones, especially at Christmas time.

But this holiday season we are starting to wonder what the Ghost of Christmas Future might show these New Brunswick titans if he had the chance to float them into a time yet to be.

As more and more New Brunswickers start to figure out that the deal to sell NB Power is really a deal that benefits big business - how will their loyalty be affected towards these famous families? After all, not one of them has stood up to say "We want some savings, but we also want to share these savings with the people who buy our products and work in our plants."

Let's be clear about a couple of things. First, the debt of NB Power is not going away. It is simply being shifted from NB to Quebec, and the people of this province are still going to be the ones who will pay it back. Secondly, this debt was not created by residential customers only, so it's not really fair that only residential customers should have to pay it back.

The big family businesses of this province have not been showing the holiday spirit of giving during this whole debate. Can they reasonably expect to keep seeing our gift of customer loyalty under the Christmas tree this year?

Transformational Independence

2009-11-22T10:18:00.002-04:00

When Shawn Graham was elected in 2006 with almost a plurality of the vote, he promised to honour that landslide victory by delivering transformational change.

With his recent appointment of a six-person independent panel to review the Hydro Quebec deal - he has once again delivered on that promise.

Instead of relying on the stodgy old definition of "independent" to refer to people who are at arms-length from Government or who have no appearance of a conflict of interest, Premier Graham has decided to go in a completely transformational other direction.

1. In answer to the concern that the Hydro Quebec deal was written for the benefit of big business, Premier Graham has decided to appoint David Ganong, the CEO of Ganong Chocolates to be the Chair of the Independent Committee. And hey, it has been several months since Shawn Graham gave David Ganong a $2 million loan so he could hire 50 more people at his chocolate factory. (see Smiling Shawn and Dave here: http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/news/bnb/2008e0565bn.htm)

2. What?! Most Premiers would only appoint one major industrialist to an independent review panel? Well not Transformation Man Graham. Here comes Allison McCain the Chairman of McCain International to provide some more balance to the committee.

3. But what about Dr. John McLaughlin, the recently retired President of UNB? Good news - he also fits into Premier Graham's transformed definition of independent - because McLaughlin is not only a charter member of the New Brunswick Business Council but he also used to report to David Ganong who is the Chair of the UNB Board of Governors. How's that for arms-length?

4. By now you are wondering - how can this panel of transformationalists exist without at least one environmental activist? Thank goodness Premier Shawn was able to convince Dr. Louis LaPierre to join the group - he's a world renowned biologist and the former Chair of Sustainable Development at the University of Moncton - also known as the Irving Chair because it is named after KC Irving.

5. Of course, no independent committee would be complete without a member who has so many Liberal appointments to his name that it groans with disbelief - enter Gilles Lepage. Who he? It's not possible to repeat here all the posts the Liberals have appointed him to over the years, but currently he is both the Chair of the NB Pension Investment Management Corporation as well as being the Vice-Chair of Facilicorp, another Crown Corporation. Phew - it's hard being a Liberal appointee.

6. And finally there is Elizabeth Weir. Let's just make it clear, we here at the NB Conservative love Elizabeth - everybody does. And we certainly don't believe that she will be any less independent just because she reports to Energy Minister Jack Keir who is also the Minister responsible for Efficiency NB - the crown corporation that she heads up.

So there you have it - the most transformationally independent review panel in the history of New Brunswick. Where some Premiers would be bending over backwards to appoint people who don't even have a whiff of conflict - New Brunswick stands apart. Shawn Graham could have appointed people like retired Supreme Court Judges or the President of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants - but no. Major industrialists, environmentalists, people who report to the Minister of Energy - that's the panel to review the deal to sell NB Power - the new transformational way.

PS - Just one more for the tin hat folks out there - Gilles Lepage was also the Co-author of the Self-Sufficiency Report in 2007. Who was the other co-author? None other than Francis McGuire, who was recently appointed the Chairman of NB Power.

Shawn, Interrupted

2009-11-11T10:29:00.000-04:00

In May of this year, our Liberal Premier and friend Shawn Graham made a very odd comment about whether he would be willing to call an early election.

He said essentially that he wanted to stick to the fixed election date of Sept 27, 2010, but that if an "issue of public importance" came along he might have to go to the people.

We know now that Shawn Graham personally broke his promise about NB Power and started the sales pitch with Premier Jean Charest in January of this year. Obviously a few months later he was so excited about how the talks were going he accidentally let it slip that it might become an election-worthy issue.

Were the Liberals lining up for a snap election? The timing of recent events for are very curious. On October 29th the Big Deal was signed with Charest. There is also a provincial Liberal party convention scheduled for Saturday November the 14th. This is just three days before the Legislature is set to start on the 17th with a fancy Speech from the Throne.

And let's not forget that the provincial budget has been announced for December 1st. Which we have also been forewarned by the Finance Minister is going to contain another historic deficit.

That's an awful lot of interrelated stuff happening within 33 days.

But consider this - if Shawn Graham's plan all along was to call a snap election at the Liberal Convention on November the 14th - then the House opening and the budget would be postponed until the spring. He could be campaigning on lower power rates as well as the positive impact they could have on the provincial budget - he wouldn't be campaigning on another terrible deficit.

The real kicker is that with a snap election there would be no time for the Official Opposition to ask annoying questions in the Legislature that would reveal the details of the Big Deal. Plus we also know that they have been spending our tax dollars on a massive advertising campaign in the three weeks leading up to the snap election date.

We here at the NB Conservative believe that the Liberal gurus intended all along to use the two week period between the announcement of the Big Deal and the Liberal convention to make the final decision on calling a snap election. But we also think a funny thing happened on the way to the election - the people have already spoken.

Consolidation Loan

2009-11-06T11:29:00.001-04:00

For a different perspective on the NB Power deal, we here at NB Conservative would like to switch into allegory mode.

I have friend who is not so good with his money. He has his own business and he tends to spend more than he earns every year. In fact, over the past several years he has accumulated so much debt that he is basically broke.

I like my friend because we think the same way about a lot of things, he's always around when I need some help around the house, and hey, sometimes he spends his money buying me gifts. Who doesn't like that?

I remember one time in particular, when I was out of work and needed a job, my friend was there with a short term contract to help me keep the food on the table for my family.

He's a good friend and I know I can rely on him. Despite the fact he is a terrible money manager.

Recently, my friend came to me and said he had been offered a consolidation loan by his bank (for the sake of argument let's say it was the Bank of Quebec). And he wanted my advice about whether he should take the loan.

When I looked at the deal I was not totally convinced it would be good for my friend. Yes, it would basically take all his bad, high interest debt and put it into one loan where he could make easy regular payments over the next 30 years. That was the good part.

However, some of the other terms of the loan were not so good:

He was going to have to give up all the equity he had in his house. He could still live there, but now he would be paying rent to the bank.
The interest rate on the 30 year loan was only fixed for the first five years, after that it could go up by an amount that the bank determined.
There was a slim chance that the bank would stop doing business in Canada, and if so, that would make my friend's life very complicated.
It wasn't really clear in the loan agreement what would happen to all his retirement savings and he was really concerned about that aspect of the deal.
The bank was also going to be deciding where he could spend his money in the future and that was probably going to mean he could no longer shop at the local stores he liked to support in his community.
And he certainly would not be allowed to support as many people in the community with jobs and contracts anymore.

After considering all those things I still wasn't sure this would be a good option for my friend. But then he threw in one more condition of the loan.

It turns out that not all my friend's money problems were his alone. He had been working in partnership over the years with his Uncle Mervin, who was partly responsible for some of the bad debt that had been accumulating. But now that my friend needed help repaying his debts it appeared that he was on his own. Uncle Mervin refused to co-sign the consolidation loan and my friend was going to have to pay it back all by himself.

So, dear reader, let us ask you this: what advice would you give to our friend?

Nothing to Fear?

2009-11-05T07:43:00.001-04:00

The Liberal government of Shawn Graham has developed an interesting line of attack against the opposition to their power deal. They just accuse their opponents of "fear mongering".

That is an interesting choice of words because it implies that the Liberal believe people have reason to be afraid of this deal. And that's probably true, but not for the reasons that the Liberals themselves are afraid.

New Brunswickers are most afraid because of their experience with the Graham Liberals. When they surprised people with ridiculous changes to the university system - the people had to march in the streets to get their attention. When they surprised people with changes to the French Immersion program, people had to take their own government to court to get them to listen. And the lawsuit against the changes to the health care regions is still making its way through the legal system.

With this latest brain wave, which the Premier says he was directly responsible for the idea, what is the lesson they learned from past experience? Have they learned how to do a better job of consulting with New Brunswickers?

No, rather they have learned that to get their crazy schemes past a knowing public they have to put on a huge and costly public relations campaign, not reveal too many details, and most importantly they need to threaten people that if they don't agree to an arbitrary deadline then their power bills will be increased.

Now that's fear mongering.

Jumping the Shark

2009-11-03T10:22:00.001-04:00

Those of us at a certain age can recall a terrific TV show from the 1970's called "Happy Days". It had a delightful cast of characters and produced many memorable catch-phrases and story lines.

Happy Days was also responsible for spawning the phrase "jumping the shark". Unfortunately, "jumping the shark" refers to the point at which a show runs out of good ideas and just throws out any kind of controversial or exciting sounding story line to keep viewers interested. In this case, it was an episode (three-parter!) where Fonzie makes a crazy bet that he can jump over a shark on water-skis.

Here in New Brunswick - SHAWN GRAHAM HAS JUMPED THE SHARK.

Oh sure, we have all enjoyed many episodes of "Meet the Liberals" over the past three years. There was the one where Shawn said he was going to balance the books (oopsie!). There was the one where Shawn said he would lower taxes - then raise them - then lower them (oh those crazy Liberals). There was the one where Shawn was going to make Saint John an energy hub (whatever that means). And of course many, many more.

But with the deal to sell NB Power to Quebec - Premier Graham has jumped the shark and completely lost all credibility. Apparently he has no sense of irony at all because he has launched a website called "lowerratesnb" for a deal that does not lower rates for homeowners one single penny. The website contains buttons that are called "Win Win" and "Economic Growth" when clearly hundreds of good paying engineering jobs are going to be lost as we shut down one power plant after another. There's even a button called "Reliability" --- does anyone remember how many weeks it took Hydro Quebec to restore service after the ice storm?

When politicians jump the shark, and there are lots of examples in Canadian history, their time is up. Unfortunately they always seem to be the last to know.

Rejoice!

2009-10-29T22:56:00.000-03:00

What More Do You Need to Know?

"The business community in Quebec is rejoicing" or so goes our rough translation of the first article in La Presse to talk about The Deal. The headline reads Favorable Reactions to Hydro Quebec Buying NB Power, which should tell you everything you need to know.

The President of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, Michel Leblanc, says the deal will not only lead to important economic advancements for Quebec, but also be important for the environment.

Later in the article, Quebec environmentalists are said to be very happy that the deal will mean two plants will close (Dalhousie and Courtney Bay) which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The environmentalists have already started lobbying Hydro Quebec to close down two more New Brunswick power plants - Coleson Cove and Belledune.

The head of the Quebec union that represents Hydro Quebec workers says it is too soon to comment on the story as he only found out about it this morning. But the representative of the union, Maxime Valade, did say they will be looking closely at the credentials of the New Brunswick workers and the procedures for accepting new members, to ensure "all the proper rules are followed".

Promises Made, Promises Broken

2009-10-29T18:17:00.002-03:00

We were going to list the broken promises Premier Graham has inflicted on the people of NB, but we do not have the new Bell Fibre Op, and so lack the required bandwidth to handle them all.

Liberal '06 Platform Reprint

2009-10-27T21:19:00.001-03:00

Charter for Change Election 2006

We’ll put our province on the road to self-sufficiency by turning New Brunswick into a leader in energy conservation and generation

Together we will ... Lead the country in energy generation, green power technology and conservation

The Best in Energy Generation & Conservation

We will give consumers real control over energy costs and we will put more money back in New Brunswickers’ pockets. As energy prices fluctuate worldwide, a Liberal Government will work to protect consumers here at home.

A Liberal Government will introduce an innovative plan that will position New Brunswick as an energy leader in generation, promote green power and implement a massive conservation program that will grant homeowners $2,000 for home conservation.

Through NB Power, New Brunswick has long met the electricity needs of its citizens. Large construction projects, such as the refurbishment of Point Lepreau, can also stimulate the economy and provide employment to highly skilled professionals and tradespeople.

The people of New Brunswick are the shareholders of NB Power. Government does not need to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the utility but there is a responsibility to provide clear strategic direction and to define expectations.

A Liberal Government will:

1. Maintain NB Power as a publicly-owned utility that will serve all New Brunswickers equally.

2. Amend the Electricity Act to include a clear statement of purpose that puts the public good of New Brunswickers at the forefront.

3. Establish a long-term energy plan for NB Power with clear strategic direction and objectives.

4. Pursue a Maritime Energy Accord between the three Maritime provinces.

5. Establish regular reporting between the CEO of NB Power and the Minister of Energy.

6. Amend the Energy and Utilities Act to restore the independence of the Energy and Utilities Board, including the ability to review NB Power contracts over $75 million.

7. Establish an independent Office of the Consumer Ombudsman at NB Power.

8. Appoint a Consumer Representative to the NB Power Board of Directors.

9. Establish a no-disconnect policy between November 1 and March 31 for households in legitimate economic need.

Charter for Change:The Best in Energy Generation & Conservation

Pursue an at source rebate on the eight per cent provincial portion of the HST on electricity, natural gas and home heating oil.

Time to Gloat?

2009-10-24T19:50:00.002-03:00

Must mention the fact the NB Conservative Blog broke the story in July.

Just sayin'

See it here

Not in Anybody's Interest?

2009-10-23T12:36:00.001-03:00

A bombshell rumour is circulating in the Provincial Capital that the Graham Liberals have been working on a secret deal to sell NB Power to Quebec.

Given the Graham track record on management and negotiating skills, the power generated from the collective shiver running down our spines could probably light up the City of Bathurst for a week.

These guys could not get a lower pay increase with New Brunswick doctors after 10 months of negotiations, threats of law suits, and passing legislation to give them all the authority to do whatever they wanted. Why do they think New Brunswickers would even remotely trust them to negotiate with the sharp dealers at Hydro Quebec?

In response to the rumours, the Premier's press flak said "it's not in anybody's interest to talk about a possible outcome" of their conversations with Quebec.

Hey, Buddy, every New Brunswicker is a share holder of NB Power Inc - therefore it is precisely in everybody's interest to talk about possible outcomes.

More to come . . .

A Giant, Gaping Hole

2009-10-22T20:14:00.002-03:00

One of the constants of the universe is that the sun will rise in the East and set in the West. Another is that you can always count on TJ Burke to have an opinion on a topic.

MLA Burke is quoted in the morning papers reacting to the surprise news of a call center closing in his riding in Fredericton. Some of his comments include:

"It sickens me, quite truthfully"

"It's a pretty big shock"

"Nothing short of a catastrophe"

"It's a giant, gaping hole at the Brookside Mall"

Most tellingly however is his statement that he will meet with Premier Graham this week to kick around some ideas about what to do.

"I don't know what the strategy will be at this time" said Burke.

Why doesn't the government know what the strategy will be? Why were they taken by surprise on this announcement? Why aren't there any contingency plans in place? And if there are, why aren't the Liberal MLA's aware of them?

This is the second announcement of the closure of a Fredericton call center in two weeks, both of which announcements cruelly coincide with the annual conference of Contact NB, the call center industry association for this province.

No doubt at the conference, participants will be discussing the "giant gaping hole" - not the one that will be left at the Brookside Mall, but rather the "giant gaping hole" in the Liberal government's contact center strategy.

Get It?

2009-10-20T09:24:00.001-03:00

"Did you hear the one about the Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the federal government to give him more handouts?"

"Greg Byrne"

A horse walks into a bar and orders a Shirley Temple with a side of self-suffiency. The bartender says, "Hey, you know we don't serve your kind in here". And the horse says, "Greg Byrne".

"Knock-Knock"

"Who's there?"

"Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the feds to give him more handouts."

"Finance Minister who believes in Self-Sufficiency but wants the feds to give him more handouts - who?"

"Greg Byrne"

A Priest, a Rabbi, and an Imam are walking in the park and talking about self-sufficiency. The Priest says, "In order to have self-sufficiency you need to have a growing economy". The Rabbi says, "Self-sufficiency means doing more with less and not asking for handouts". And the Imam says, "Greg Byrne".

There once was a Finance Minister from Lincoln,

Who about self-sufficiency was thinkin'.

But more money from the feds,

Was what was in in head,

"Greg Byrne"

** News item: Finance Minister says despite growing economy he doesn't want Ottawa to lower transfer payments to NB.

Cry Me a Chocolate River

2009-10-20T08:31:00.001-03:00

Few projects stand as a testament to Liberal hubris as blatantly as the project to replace the Petitcodiac River causeway between Moncton and Riverview.

Despite countless studies and environmental impact assessments, Shawn Graham has decided that the causeway must go because this project is "not significant only here in New Brunswick, but across Canada and around the world" *

That's right - people in China, India, and even Swaziland are just waiting with baited breath to see that causeway replaced by a bridge. Sheesh!

All political hyperbole aside (or as the Premier used to pronounce it - "hyper-bowl") the opening price tag on this project is in the neighbourhood of $100 million dollars, which amounts to about $1,000 for every single person living in the Greater Moncton Area.

Back here in the real world, we at the NB Conservative have a not so novel idea for the Premier. Do what they do in the US states when they have a mega project to fund - they ask the good citizens to vote on taking out a bond. In other words, they ask first if everyone agrees to borrow the money and then they actually pay it back.

In fact, we double-chocolate-river dare the Premier to put this initiative on a ballot, either province wide or in a local referendum, and then see if it's worth pursuing.

* In case you might have thought we made the quote up, here it is in its entirety from an actual government press release:

"The construction of the Petitcodiac causeway did not simply block the river," said Graham. "It devastated the river's ecosystem, eliminated commercial fisheries, and changed a way of life for residents of Fort Folly First Nation who had used the river for fishing, travel and trade.”

"Our undertaking of this important environmental project is significant not only here in New Brunswick, but across Canada and around the world. When the Petitcodiac River's magnificent tidal bore can be appreciated once again, and when species such as salmon, smelt and shad return, this endeavour will stand as a symbol of what we are capable of here in this great province, and why we can be proud to call it home." - www.gnb.ca

Missed Op-portunity

2009-10-16T15:54:00.000-03:00

Shawn Graham's good friends at Bell-Aliant have really screwed him this time.

This week it was announced that they would be closing down their call centers in northern New Brunswick putting hundreds of workers on the unemployment line.

Didn't Shawn just give Bell-Aliant a big million dollar pile of our taxes so that they could install fiber optic cables in Fredericton and Saint John?

Didn't Shawn also just tear up the public procurement rules to give Bell-Aliant a sweetheart contract extension on their government business worth millions more?

What exactly are we getting in return? The chance to pay $100 a month for an over-priced internet connection and now, it turns out, job losses in the one area of New Brunswick that needs jobs the most.

Spending Up and Math Scores Down

2009-10-14T23:06:00.001-03:00

While the Liberals were recently touting their success in raising literacy rates among our school age children, they were just as aggressively down-playing the three-year drop in numeracy rates.

The conspiracy theorists here at the NB Conservative are wondering if maybe lower numeracy scores aren't one of the objectives of the provincial Liberal party. After all, why would Liberals want New Brunswickers to be good with numbers? If more people understood the size of the provincial deficit this year they would be a lot more pissed off about it.

In December, the Graham Grits are going to produce a follow-up budget to the last deficit balloon they released only 7 months ago. All accounts are that it is going to be full of rosy predictions and very light on difficult choices.

Of course the fewer the number of people who understand just how bad their number are the better for them. So don't count on any extra budget money going towards math education.

What Did You Expect?

2009-10-14T23:03:00.000-03:00

After a week of traveling around New Brunswick, the Finance Minister has announced some surprising news - all the people who came to the pre-budget meetings want the government to spend more money.

These meetings were not recorded or televised so we will have to take his word for it. But from the sounds of things there were plenty of union reps at all the stops encouraging more spending on government programs.

Then again, Mr. Byrne, what did you expect?

The Liberal government put out a pre-budget questionnaire that asked people how soon they would like to see the deficit paid off: 3 years from now, 4 years from now, or 5 years from now.

That's right - they told the public that balancing the books immediately was not even an option.

So when you tell people in advance you want to keep spending and borrowing more money that we have - why would people come to your meetings with ideas for spending less?

Quick Question

2009-09-24T22:33:00.001-03:00

For our loyal readers.

If the new leader of the NB Green Party is Jack MacDougall, who ran against Shawn Graham for the Liberal leadership 7 years ago, does that make him the Leader of the Red Green Party?

Quick Question

2009-09-24T22:33:00.000-03:00

Optics of Fibre - The Opdate

2009-09-20T16:35:00.000-03:00

A while back we were talking about the new fibre optic service to homes that Bell Aliant is rolling out in Fredericton and Saint John over the next year.

This sounds like an interesting new product. Our problem at the time was the provincial government's involvement in the deal. It essentially amounted to the Graham Liberals giving the big Bell phone company (headquarters in Toronto) a tax-payer funded grant along with a sweetheart contract for the government phone business.

Now the other shoes are starting to drop. Bell recently announced that the cost of this tax-payer subsidized service is going to be $100 per month for high-speed internet. Yowch!

We're sure the Premier can afford to spend more than $1,000 a year to be able to download YouTube videos, but it makes you wonder just how many actual New Brunswickers will actually be able to get this new service.

All Aboard the Feeling Good Train

2009-09-20T16:33:00.000-03:00

While everyone else in the provincial capital is hooked on jazz and blues this week, we here at the NB Conservative are in more of a country mood. Especially after the announcement that the old train station on York Street is finally getting a make-over. The good news brings to mind one of Sammy Kershaw's greatest CD's "Feelin' Good Train".

We should of course be "feelin' good" about this news, but the involvement of NB Liquor in the deal raises more than a few red flags.

Our readers will recall the brilliant strategy of the Booze Bunker the last time they decided to open a new store, this one in Salisbury. Not only did they build a shop conveniently right off the Trans-Canada Highway but they have also decided to go head-to-head with an agency store just 5 minutes drive away.

What are the details on the train station deal and how much will beer buyers be on the hook for the new signature store in Fredericton?

So far the facts are sketchy, which always leads us to believe there must be more to the story. We know from public comments that they will be paying $23.50 per square foot for a 20 year lease. That's pretty pricy even for downtown Fredericton, but it's not outrageous.

Of course, a shrewd landlord will make his bucks on all the extras: fit-ups, escalator clauses, maintenance agreements, etc. Oh did we mention, the landlord is the Irving family?

We will leave the final comments to Sammy:

You work so hard just tryin' to make a livin'
Still you wind up on the losin' end
We don't want to leave the station without you
You'll have the best time that you'll ever spend

Economic Advice

2009-09-20T16:31:00.001-03:00

Hard to imagine anyone in New Brunswick looking to the NDP government in Nova Scotia to be a role model. But new Premier Darrell Dexter seems to be getting a few things right.

Recently when they rolled out the typical report by an accounting firm stating that "the situation is worse than the last government would admit" (these reports are standard every time the government changes hands) Dexter also established a team of advisers on the economy.

And what a team - NBer Donald Savoie, APEC chair Elizabeth Beale, a former BMO Vice-President and a university economist.

Meanwhile back in New Brunswick - nothing.

No wait, that's not true. In March of this year Premier Graham held the first meeting of the Self-Sufficiency round table - a bi-partisan group of 36 New Brunswickers with the goal of making the province stronger and more prosperous.

The problem - it hasn't met since.

Guess we are going to solve our economic problems using photo-ops and not advice.

Off to the Races

2009-09-15T21:07:00.001-03:00

In the wacky world of the Shawn Graham Liberals it makes sense to take revenues away from non-profit groups in order to give more millions of dollars to people involved in horse racing.

At least that's what their latest scheme proposes to do. They are going to allocate 150 VLT machines worth of revenues to the NB Harness Racing Association, but only 25 of those machines will actually be at racing tracks. The rest will be ... in some other place.

In a recent article, otherwise competent Minister Jack Keir was trotted out to explain Graham-onomics. "It's not like it's new money that's being generated for them" was his explanation. He further explained that their goal is to make the horse racing industry sustainable, but also points out that the economics of horse racing already generates $20 million per year in activity. So why do they need the money?

In the meantime - the Graham Liberals announced last year they are cutting back on VLT machines in order to make room for the new casino being built in Moncton. Which machines are being cut? - you guessed it, the ones that are hosted by non-profit groups and small businesses across NB. Don't they have the same right to be sustainable too?

The Beer Bust

2009-09-08T19:51:00.001-03:00

NB Liquor Admits Beer was a Bust

Actually, the official news release from Booze HQ said no such thing - but if you read between the lines it's there.

What the press flak from NB Liquor actually said was that they were "very pleased with these results". In August, the store brand beer generated about 1% of all beer sales. To put that into perspective, the booze corp sold 1 million (!!) cases of beer in August and 990,000 of those were NOT the Selection brand.

This despite the fact that you can't walk into a liquor store without tripping over the Selection Beer display.

So regardless of the fact that August share of sales were down over 60% from the initial launch, that is apparently one for the win column at the booze bunker.

They are even claiming that the $18.67 cases were the reason why beer sales have increased in New Brunswick. The problem with that analysis? When you take away the Selection numbers, beer sales were still up! So basically if they had done nothing they would still be making money. But we guess that's true of any monopoly.

Curiously absent from the presser was any mention of how sales affected border communities. You may recall that the whole reason given for entering into an untendered contract with Moosehead to produce Selection Beer was to compete with low prices in Quebec. Does anyone know what Selection sales were like in places like Edmundston and Campbellton?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

2009-07-27T22:57:00.001-03:00

As we have heard often lately from the Graham Liberals New Brunswick is in an economic crunch. We are experiencing a monster of a deficit this year ($750 million) and the future is not looking much brighter.

That's why, when TJ Burke announced he was stepping down from Cabinet last week, the Premier's reaction seemed so out of place.

With 21 Ministers the Graham Liberals already have one of the largest Cabinets in New Brunswick's history, and certainly a lot bigger than similar sized provinces. Saskatchewan has 18, Manitoba has 18, Newfoundland has 18, and the new NDP (!) government in Nova Scotia only has 12.

We at the NB Conservative think that Burke's resignation as Environment Minister would have been an excellent opportunity to reduce the size of cabinet down to a more modest level.

Think of it this way - every Minister gets an extra $40,000 in salary, gets a special housing allowance in Fredericton, gets a vehicle allowance of about $500 per month, has to have an Executive Assistant and a Secretary hired to help them out, and so on and so forth. Maybe it all only adds up to an extra quarter of a million dollars a year - but shouldn't the Premier be leading the way when money is so tight?

License Plates

2009-07-27T22:55:00.000-03:00

The Shawn Graham Liberals have recently rediscovered the economy is an issue. Several news releases and public statements over the past month have referred to their so-called 5-point plan to rescue New Brunswick.

So just out of curiosity - which one of the 5 points is the one that says now would be a good time to change the slogan on our license plates, thereby costing every person in New Brunswick an extra $25 bucks when they renew their vehicle registration?

And by the way - aren't these license plates made in Nova Scotia?

UPDATE: Yes, all our license plates are made by Waldale Manufacturing in Amherst Nova Scotia. Maybe helping their economy is the sixth point in the plan?

Is NB Power for Sale?

2009-07-19T09:25:00.000-03:00

Selling NB Power to Quebec

If you blinked you might have missed. Right around the time kids were getting out of school and many New Brunswickers were thinking about summer vacation, the Liberals announced they are in talks with Hydro-Quebec to take over NB Power.

On the surface this does appear to be a good match. Both companies are owned by their respective provincial governments. NB Power is 100% owned by the people of New Brunswick and Hydro-Quebec is 100% owned by the citizens of that province. Also, both corporations are broken into logical components with divisions for generation, transmission, distribution and shared corporate services. Both NB Power and Hydro-Quebec operate a nuclear power plant.

But while they appear to be mirror images of each other in terms of organization, there is one major difference that puts NB Power is a very weak position at the Liberal bargaining table. And it's not just a size issue because Hydro-Quebec is about 10 times bigger than NB Power.

The real weakness of NB Power is that it is so unprofitable. And because it makes no money it has accumulated a monstrous amount of debt. Just to compare, Hydro-Quebec last year had accumulated over $22 billion in shareholders equity and they have paid down a lot of their debts. NB Power on the other hand has only accumulated $351 million in shareholders equity versus 4.7 billion in debts. In fact, NB Power probably owes a lot more than it is worth. Ouch.

This is the equivalent situation to going to the car dealership because you know that it's time to get a vehicle that is more fuel efficient, better technology, safer, etc. However, all you have to trade in is an old clunker with more than 200,000 km on it, rust spots everywhere, leaking oil and bald tires. Guess how much the dealer is going to give you for a trade-in credit. You will be lucky if they offer to take it off your hands for you for free.

Now to give them credit, the Shawn Graham Liberals are slick operators and smooth talkers, so maybe they will be able to get something out of those negotiations with the Province of Quebec. But that certainly has not been proven by history, if Quebec's negotiations with Newfoundland over Churchill Falls are any guide.

The Optics of Fibre

2009-07-19T09:20:00.002-03:00

Just like your phone bill, the Devil is in the details.

Everyone knows when you get your phone or cable bill, it's worth it to double check all the details, because there are sometimes hidden costs and mistakes.

Recently Bell Aliant announced that they were going to roll out high-speed fibre optic connections to every house and business in Fredericton and Saint John. Good news, right? Yes, if you live in one of those areas it is good news, because competition (in this case versus Rogers) is always a good thing.

However, some of the fine print is a little troubling. Even more troubling are the details that we don't know.

Bell Aliant is a large national company that operates in several provinces including Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic Region. It is not to be confused with its predecessor Aliant that used to only cover the Atlantic provinces. That company was bought by Bell Canada and became Bell Aliant (clever!). And it is certainly not to be confused with NBTel which used to be a New Brunswick owned and operated business.

Bell Aliant is regulated by the CRTC. They have to spend certain amounts of money every year on capital expenditures and they are choosing to spend $60 million rolling out fibre optic lines in two NB cities between now and mid-2010.

To do this they are getting $1 million from us taxpayers, which was why we originally thought Premier Graham was invited to the announcement and included in the press release. But buried in the details was a little blurb that part of the deal included an agreement from the Government of New Brunswick to give Bell a 3 year contract worth (coincidentally) $60 million.

Now the press release does not specify what the 3 year agreement covers. Presumably it means that the government will use Bell Aliant exclusively for all its phone lines, cell phones, internet, and other related services for the next three years. But again - no details were given.

A news story on the announcement indicated that the government was skirting around public procurement rules to give Bell Aliant this special treatment. The news article also suggested that this contract was richer than it could have been with a public tender, and so it was going to cost us taxpayers an extra $7 million for the same service - but again no details.

Most curious was the missing information on speeds and pricing, usually the two most important considerations in any phone or cable equation. In the USA, a similar service called FIOS which is offered by Verizon costs between $50 and $150 per month. How much more will it cost in New Brunswick?

It's always great to see New Brunswick become more competitive with greater options for consumers and businesses to access internet and phone services. However, why is our government eliminating competition with a sole-source contract that will cost us an extra $7 million? Worse, they are eliminating competition province-wide, and taking money from all New Brunswickers, in order to support a service that covers about 25% of the population.

And why can't a big national company like Bell afford to pay for this without all the tricks and gimmicks from the Liberals anyway?

When the bills start rolling in on this project, it will be worth the time for New Brunswickers to check the fine print. There may be some hidden costs and surprises.

Spot the Mistakes

2009-07-05T10:23:00.001-03:00

A fun game for kids are those "Spot the mistakes" pictures where you can find places where the artist has drawn people doing things incorrectly and kids get to pick up on others' mistakes.

A less fun pastime for adults is the "Spot the mistakes" game that comes with every Liberal press release.

Recently the acting Liberal Finance Minister decided to write a six paragraph letter to the editor in defense of the Grit tax plan. Unfortunately he left out about 10 more paragraphs (if he really wanted people to have the whole story).

Some of the gems in his letter include:

"It is true that we modestly increased taxes in our first budget" - well modesty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

"When we took office, independent auditors showed us ... we were facing a potential deficit of $400 million". Yes, the Grits did hire the accounting firm of Grant Thornton to tell them, based on a worst case scenario, how bad could the province's books get? And they did say, if the Liberals were to completely fail as a government the deficit could reach $400 million.

But what actually happened is that because of the good financial management New Brunswick had over 7 years with Bernard Lord the year end budget was more than balanced. In fact when the Liberals announced their first budget (the one with all the tax hikes) they said there would be about a $35 million surplus for the year before instead of a $400 deficit. But as if their credibility wasn't already in doubt, when the actual Auditor General got finished with the books, it turned out that the last Bernard Lord budget resulted in a $237 million surplus. Whoops. Better not talk about reality when we have a report we paid $400,000 for that talks about fantasy numbers instead.

(Interestingly, the Liberals have never released the full Grant Thornton Report to the public, only the Executive Summary)

Acting Minister Keir's tall tale in the TJ keeps on delivering however, when he writes "In 2007 we increased personal income taxes by approximately $50 million. This year we have lowered them by $118 million...". Did you miss it? That's right - there was a whole year that took place between 2007 and this year which is 2009. How much was collected by the government in personal income taxes in 2008? We don't know because Mr. Keir conveniently leaves that page off his calendar.

But not to be a total Scrooge, Minister Keir does give some credit to the PC Opposition for being right about the highest earning 1,300 New Brunswickers getting the most tax cuts. But in an effort to downplay the amounts he says those 1,300 richest New Brunswickers "will still pay 5.2% of total all income tax in the province" down from paying 6%.

Gee, only a 0.8% reduction makes it sound like a pretty small tax cut, eh? Well consider that this year NB will collect more than $1.2 Billion in personal taxes. If the richest 1,300 contribute 6% of that that means they pay $72 million of the total. Thanks to the Liberal tax plan those same wealthy few will get $8 million in Liberal tax reductions to split between them, or about $6,000 per individual.

I wonder why Keir did not compare that to Premier Graham's recent visit to Dieppe where he was bragging about his great tax plan that is going to save a family there about $10 a week...

Latest Polling

2009-06-20T10:08:00.003-03:00

Seems the Bristol poll out yesterday puts the provincial Tories in the lead.

See the Daily Gleaner article about the poll here.

With no indication of the number of New Brunswickers polled, it cannot be taken too seriously, as very possibly the error of margin could be quite high.

But it is one more indication that the early election talk will slow down more.

A Tribute to Sue Park

2009-06-19T09:04:00.003-03:00

We here at the NB Conservative would like to admit not all the great posts come from us. Here's a fine example of a wise New Brunswicker giving her two cents worth on a recent CBC story concerning Fraser Papers seeking bankruptcy protection from their creditors. Thank you Sue Park, wherever you are.

Original Article is here

"How to lose $40 million dollars in one year. By Shawn Graham."

Step 1 - Agree to save a few hundred jobs that are obviously going to be lost due to a complete meltdown in the forestry industry.

Step 2 - Give a company that has a stock in free fall a $40 million loan guarantee.

Step 3 - Tell critics they are all idiots spouting "hogwash" about priorities because no money has changed hands under the deal (for more information on belittling the public - see Jack Keir's manual "How to run a business portfolio with no business experience")

Step 4 - Wait 12 months

Step 5 - By this point the company will be bankrupt and the security you hold will be available to you. Congratulations, you are the proud owner of pulp mill machinery.

Step 6 - Unload the machinery by auction where a foreign firm buys the machinery for 2 cents on the dollar. This will provide you with a return of $800,000 on your original $40 million investment.

Step 7 - Provide new owner $800,000 forgivable loan to keep machinery in New Brunswick

Congratulations. You have now lost every penny of your $40 million dollars. In addition, you will now have a new entity that will be dependent on you and rest assured, they will at some point ask you for another $40 million so the entire process can occur all over again. While this may seem like a lot of time, money and effort to save a few hundred jobs, my Dad says it is really worth doing because his friend Frank told him so.

COMING SOON!!! - How to Lose $50 Million in One Year.

Shawn shows you how to take the failsafe strategies he's applied to the forestry sector and apply them to the NB Construction Industry!!

Fall Election Postponed

2009-06-03T23:10:00.002-03:00

Appears the fall election has been postponed. Sorry for earlier posts musing about the possibility of an early election call.

Psychic!

2009-05-29T08:08:00.001-03:00

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

2009-05-25T15:08:00.002-03:00

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??

2009-05-20T13:00:00.001-03:00

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

2009-05-12T18:07:00.001-03:00

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

2009-05-12T08:36:00.003-03:00

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?

Graham Tax Increases - The Never Ending Story

2009-04-27T23:11:00.004-03:00

The Graham government has raised taxes again, this one with a special twist.

The executive dream team at NB Liquor, led by Dana Clendenning (currently under a cloud of a conflict-of-interest allegations), requested that the companies that sell wine to NB Liquor increase their prices.

That is correct, as loony as that sounds, NB Liquor asked to pay more. Well not really asked, they told them to pay more. We here at NB Conservative cannot understand this fact alone, but it gets worse. Much worse.

The reason they did what can only be described as an idiotic move, is that Team Graham is now selling tax-cut-mode, as opposed to the tax-increase-mode he was selling two years ago.

As Mr. Clendenning wanted to avoid being seen to increase taxes on New Brunswick consumers, to keep his rain-maker happy, the Team felt the best way to increase taxes on New Brunswickers was to share the loot with large, mainly foreign, wine companies.

This may take a pencil and some loose leaf paper (with lines), but keep with us. If you have a calculator on your phone, now is the time to get it out.

The Scenario:

You are the patronage appointment of a crown corporation in New Brunswick. You need to generate some cash to make your patron look better. And you want to travel to really, really nice wineries in beautiful countries, at no cost to yourself. Countries like Italy, where you can rent apartments to share with friends, who did not win the patronage lottery. Or France. Probably not Sweden, they do not produce much wine, and it is cold anyway.

If you just raise the mark-up like you have the past couple of years, it looks like you raised taxes, since the serfs cannot shop elsewhere for their goods. And remember, we are now in tax-cutting-mode, so increasing 'mark-up' looks quite a bit like 'taxes'.

You realize the markup on wine is 145% (really). A $10 increase in the case price NB Liquor pays turns into a $24.50 increase in the shelf price ($10 + $14.50).

Voila! an extra $24.50 per case!

But what you needed to do to accomplish this tax increase is give $10 per case to the wineries. Or 40.8% if you have the fancy calculator phone.

What is the difference you ask than just putting up the price, since people who drink wine are rich, snobby, Volvo-driving yuppies that can pay more? The difference is that if you think the Graham government can spend your money better than you (or anyone else's money for that matter) than why let them give 40.8% of the money to large wine companies in California, France, Australia, Chile and everywhere else NB Liquor buys wine.If you are a believer in higher taxes, we would guess you are not a believer in giving a large percentage to foreign multi-national corporations.

That is correct, in order to avoid looking like they raised taxes, the government of New Brunswick will give wine companies over $475,000 (based on projected annual wine revenue of $60,000,000)

So, our dream team at NB Liquor just gave almost half a million dollars to wine companies to avoid looking like they increased taxes.

Genius at Large

2009-04-27T19:26:00.002-03:00

Not content to muddle and befuddle education policies for people who are actually from New Brunwsick, our Minister of Education Kelly Lamrock has now entered into immigration policy. And dare we say, the self-styled "Genius at Large" at the cabinet table is handling immigration services with all the same tact and grace as he uses on French immersion and teacher contract negotiations.

The Worst Government Ever has announced that they are putting on an extra $250 fee for foreigners who apply to have their kids attend our schools. It's not that being a foreign student is already a free ride, in fact non-residents pay the full shot for a year of NB education (often ranked as the 9th or 10th worst in the country) if they make it in. The problem, as defined by the Genius at Large, is that so many foreigners are sending in applications that it is a burden on the school system.

Never mind that we are never told just how many applications there are - it could be 10 applications per year that the bureaucrats find exhausting. What we know for sure is that even if the new fee keeps all the unnecessary applications out of the queue it will still mean that the only people being punished will be the honest citizens.

That's right. Instead of charging fees to the companies who send in applications to multiple schools "just to play the odds" as Lamrock describes it, we will instead be making the legitimate and successful applicants pay the fees while the ones playing the odds just take their business (and the students we need) to another province. As an added bonus, the honest applicants will also have to pay a new $150 "orientation fee" as well - but the Genius at Large has so far failed to explain how that is going to make the system more efficient.

If we here at the NB Conservative were more cynical we might suggest that the Minister's public explanation and the actual reason for putting on the new fees don't seem to match up. But since the person doing the explaining is a Genius, he has to be logical too, doesn't he?

Favourites List

2009-04-23T20:53:00.001-03:00

Anybody who uses a computer to surf the internet is familiar with the concept of a "Favourites List". It's that button you push when you want to see the list of your favourite web sites. It's a useful tool that means you don't have to think to remember where to go next - it's just there in front of you on the list.

Shawn Graham and the Worst Government Ever have been working on building up their favourites list over the past couple of years, and it's become pretty obvious who's on it over the past month or so.

For instance, if you're a teacher or a nurse - you're on the list. We know this because even though they didn't have the money, the Worst Government Ever signed huge salary increases with them just weeks before freezing the wages for all the other civil servants. You know, slackers like social workers and forest rangers.

Recently they added another group to the favourites list - home care workers. Now nobody would disagree with giving raises to the people who travel the back roads of New Brunswick looking after our seniors. It just seems a little strange that the Worst Government Ever would crow about these big raises in a press release the week after they totally hosed the nursing home workers by reneging on their tentative agreement and making them take a wage freeze. Guess some people are on the list and some aren't.

We know some of the others who aren't on the list, such as anyone in rural New Brunswick, or anyone who needs help with the winter power bills. And we know some of the others who are on the favourites list, like the President of NB Liquor, ducks, and anyone who wants to start a houseboat business.

The question we're wondering at NB Conservative is this: will any voters have the Worst Government Ever on their favourites list when the next election happens in September of 2010?

What a Difference a Day Makes

2009-04-15T08:48:00.002-03:00

(or in this case, what a difference a couple of months makes.)

It seems the Department of Education is suddenly and unexpectedly short 10 million dollars. Education Minister Kelly Lamrock has devised an ingenious plan to fix the problem by forcing teachers to either accept more students in some classrooms or fewer resources for students in general. I guess Liberals support a teacher's right to choose.

Where did this budget shortfall come from anyway? Well, this "unexpected" deficit comes just couple of months after the Grits sat down with the Teachers union and signed an agreement to raise their salaries by 14.5%.

See all the smiles here:

http://www1.gnb.ca/cnb/multimedia/display-e.asp?ID=1745&num=1

You might ask, how much is a 14.5% increase worth? Well, if you assume the average salary for the 7,500 teachers is the province is $50,000 then the increase will be worth over $50 million in the last year alone.

Now we here at the NB Conservative may not be that good at math but we can read a calendar. On December 8th, the Graham Government admitted they had created a huge provincial deficit. On December 17th Minister Lamrock signed a deal with the teachers worth tens of millions of dollars. But it actually took the Liberal Government a couple of months to figure out - "Hey, we don't have the money to pay for those big pay raises for the teachers".

Minister Lamrock has a Letter to the Editor in the papers today where he incredibly states "Tough times call for tough decisions and frank discussions about new approaches."

Maybe that should read "Tough times call for big contracts and photo ops with politicians, followed by lower quality education for our kids."

Liberal. The L stands for Lobbyist.

2009-04-14T18:56:00.007-03:00

Here at the New Brunswick Conservative, we are shocked at the level of incompetence the Graham government has attained.

Well, not really, that is kind of what you would call a Shawn Graham Guarantee*.

But we did not think it would become so obvious to so many in such a short period of time.

Well, that too is kind of what you would call a Shawn Graham Guarantee*.

We knew the Liberal bench was shallower than the Becaguimac in August, but we thought the senior bureaucrats King Shawn placed in important positions would be highly skilled, best-of-the-best and very qualified.

Well, that would also be termed a Shawn Graham Guarantee*.

But the fact is that the presidency of a major NB Crown Corporation was given to a political hack with no qualifications, simply because he was in the room when the 'good patronage jobs' were being handed out. How could that happen you say? Simple. The presidency of NB Liquor was given to the person who most helped Shawn take the Premier's chair. The former Executive Director of the Liberal Party of NB. Because everyone knows political party EDs are a proving ground for executives.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/04/13/nb-clendenning-conflict.html

Once even the left wing elites at the CBC point out the emperor (president of NB Liquor)has no clothes, you know it must be obscene. The Graham government has taken incompetence to a new low.

Evidently $140,00 per year to tour wineries around the globe and abuse New Brunswick consumers with exorbitant pricing is not enough. You must then socialize the beer making business and use accounting rules for toilet paper to fudge your numbers.

But wait, there is more. You get caught up in a conflict of interest investigation. But El Presidente has an out. He allegedly only took the money (the quid), he did not provide the 'pro quo'.

For those that do not know Latin (or do, since I am a product of the NB Education system), to make it clear, the allegation is the lobbyist took the 'Consulting Fee', but the Lobbyist did not deliver the required 'Patronage'

Corruption is a very harsh word. But sometimes only very blunt words will deliver a very blunt message. We have corruption at the highest levels of the Graham government, and it must be expunged.

If the Premier has any ethics left, he will ask the President of NB Liquor to resign, before the case comes before the judge.

NB Liquor needs to be led by someone with the skills required for the job. Maybe El Presidente could become the President of RDC and just shovel money around ridings that are winnable in 2010.

* This is not a Guarantee

The Rest of the Story

2009-04-04T09:11:00.002-03:00

It must be the training that lawyers get that makes them so good at telling only part of every story. Recently, Liberal mouther Britt Dysart penned a piece in the TJ that allegedly quoted the Globe and Mail as being supporters of the recent provincial budget.

What Dysart quoted was some glowing comments, but unfortunately he left out the part that the comments were not written by the Globe and Mail editorial board, but they were found in a column by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies that was reprinted in the Toronto paper. And while the quotes were complimentary towards the tax cuts, AIMS overall rating of the provincial budget was a turkey. As the column rebuts itself: “Even with fewer and lower tax rates, the New Brunswick tax system will still be disproportionately dependent on job-killing personal income taxes.”

What the President of the Liberal Party was doing is the equivalent of an ad that quotes a famous reviewer as saying “Go see this movie...” - when in fact the full quote from the movie critic was “Go see this movie if you want to waste $10 and 2 hours of your life”. Only in this case, the Graham Liberals are putting us $2 billion dollars into debt and wasting 4 years of opportunity.

For the record, the Globe and Mail editorial board had this to say about the recent budget: “Some of this restraint is sensible in tough times; while private-sector jobs are being lost, there is no reason for generous pay increases to be dispensed to public employees. Nor is a move to a more competitive corporate tax rate to be frowned upon. But personal tax cuts - particularly those that go toward upper-income earners, whose rate will drop as much as five percentage points on their highest earnings - are less likely to provide economic stimulus during a recession than well-targeted spending, since some of the money will be saved rather than spent. Moreover, the long-term cut to revenues will make it difficult to balance the books even by 2012-13, as the Liberals have optimistically projected.”

Far from a ringing endorsement.

The New Newfoundland

2009-03-30T18:17:00.002-03:00

Newfoundland has long been the basket case of Canadian provincial economies. The fish disappeared and they're so far from markets that transportation costs are a killer. A few years ago, hope dawned in the form of offshore oil and gas. Then this recession hit, and the price of oil went from flirting with $147 a barrel at its height to over/under $50. Ouch, imagine the kind of hit your revenues take when your major export's price drops by two thirds.

Last week, Newfoundland came out with their provincial budget and the deficits are back, they're predicting $750 million in red ink next year. That sounds pretty bad.

But wait a minute, isn't New Brunswick forecasting in the order of an $800 million deficit? What gives? How can we be doing even worse than Newfoundland? Has there been a drop of anything we export in the order of the precipitous fall in oil prices?

The answer is no, despite some laughable spin we'll get into another time. So what does this mean? There's an essential difference in our deficit and Newfoundland's: there's can be largely explained by market changes, ours cannot. Theirs is a direct result of a fall in energy prices. Ours is a direct result of government mismanagement.

Move over, Newfoundland, there's a new King of the Hobos in town. In three budgets, we've taken over the title of Confederation's poor cousin. Even more disgustingly, we've done this while spinning a bunch of PR BS about self-sufficiency. We're going the wrong way, both in absolute terms and relative to our neighbour provinces.

It's true that this recession is kicking everyone, but even in a situation like this, it makes a difference how you manage. Shame Graham is quick to note that $300 million of our deficit is due to hits in the pension fund. It sounds good, until you realize the deficit is $800 million. What Graham is really saying is: EVEN IF THE ECONOMY HAD STAYED STRONG, THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT HAS MANAGED SO POORLY THAT WE'D BE A HALF A BILLION IN THE HOLE.

Quick question: if there was a forest fire approaching a village, which house do you think is most likely to come out intact: the one with a built-in sprinkler system, or the one which has already been set on fire by the owner before the main fire even arrives?

Why Should I Care About the Deficit?

2009-03-28T09:16:00.002-03:00

It's a simple formula: Today's deficit = tomorrow's tax increase.

You may think the money you borrow doesn't have to be repaid. Businessmen know better. In the world they inhabit, businesses with cash flow problems are businesses in trouble.

1. Tomorrow's tax increase = today's bad investment climate.

2. Today's bad investment climate = less investment today.

3. Less investment today = fewer jobs today, and tomorrow.

DEFICITS KILL JOBS, BECAUSE THEY KILL THE INVESTMENT THAT CREATES JOBS.

Oh, but you say, if tax rates are lowering, doesn't that encourage investment? Only stupid investment.

Let me give you a practical example. Suppose I offer you a stove that uses a special kind of fuel. Right now the fuel is cheaper than the alternative, but three years from now it will probably cost much more than the alternative. Would you pay money for a new furnace which burns my temporarily cheaper fuel? No you wouldn't. Would you invest in a province which temporarily has a lower tax rate, but which has deficits leading to a higher tax rate in the future? Answer: you would ONLY if you plan to get out before the tax rate goes back up.

In other words, you'll create some short term jobs, but if you're planning to create long term wealth from an ongoing investment, you'll seek a financially stable (low debt/low tax rate) jurisdiction.

Can you see now how the Liberal approach encourages short-term, handout-dependent industries?

Oh but you say, if there's growth, we won't need to raise tax rates, the growth will take care of that. That's true, and also unlikely to happen. The more investment you attract, the further you can spread the tax burden, and the lighter it is on everyone. Deficits push away investment, and the remaining industries know that. What do you think works harder, a horse in a team of 8 or a horse in a team of 4? Who do you think is more likely to be taxed higher in the future, a business starting in a low-debt jurisdiction or one starting in a high-debt jurisdiction.

Psychologically, we tend to heavily discount future events. We'll pay those bills later (or our grandchildren will), so why worry now? This ignores the reality of investment, which is: TODAY'S HIGH DEFICIT IS KILLING JOBS TODAY. Not when the debt comes due, not 10 years from now, but RIGHT NOW.

Worst Government Ever - Part IV, Labour Relations

2009-03-24T17:28:00.002-03:00

This part comes as an important addition to the original series, and it deals with labour relations. The Government of New Brunswick is the biggest employer in the Province, with about 45,000 people on the payroll, including nurses, teachers, NB Power, social workers, general civil servants, and so on. It goes without saying that a huge portion of the annual budget is paid out in salaries to people who provide services.

Obviously, managing “the wage bill” is very important for any competent government that wants to balance the books. But according to the Shawn Graham Government, it is more important to be liked than to be right.

Recently, the SGG announced that all government workers would be subject to a two year wage freeze. This came directly on the heels of the cowardly leaked announcement that they had mismanaged spending so badly that they were actually going to table a budget for next year with an $800 million deficit. This is roughly the equivalent of adding $1,000 to the Visa bill of every single person or baby living in New Brunswick. And we all know how easy it is to pay those bills off.

So when the government announces there will be a 2 year wage freeze, everyone of course thinks back to Frank McKenna and his famous “0% increase days” in the recession of the early 1990’s. We all remember Premier McKenna bravely announcing that that the economy had gone down the tubes, and that everyone, and I mean everyone, was getting no increases for a couple of years until the province got back on its feet. This was announced weeks after the then Liberal government had signed a contract with the Nurses Union, a very powerful lobby group in New Brunswick. Many protests were had, but in the end the voters did not punish the McKenna Liberals because people recognized it was a bad time but everyone was being treated the same. It wasn’t right of them to negotiate in such bad faith, but no one could successfully argue against the decision on that basis alone.

Fast forward 15 years and now we have the Shawn Graham Liberals in exactly the same position. Unfortunately, we are quickly learning that Shawn ain’t no Premier McKenna. Because just like in the early 1990’s we are facing a global economic recession, and everyone has to bite the bullet. And just like Premier McKenna, the current bunch of bananas just signed last month a big fat juicy contract with the powerful nurses union. And just like Premier McKenna, they have announced a 0% wage increase policy. But the BIG difference between the two is this: Frank imposed the wage freeze on everyone at the same time and during the economic crisis. Whereas Shawn “I like to be liked” Graham has decided to postpone the wage freeze for anyone who just signed a contract.

What does this mean? Well for 5,800 nurses it means that even though we are having an economic crisis today, right now, they are still going to get every penny of their new contract increases until it expires - - - in December of 2010. At that point (probably once the crisis has passed) then they are supposedly going to have a two year wage freeze.

But wait there’s more. The nurses weren’t the only ones to get in under the wire. The major health care workers union, representing 8,300 employees signed in late September (just as the economy was starting to unravel) and guess what - their members are going to get increases of 12% to 50% over a four year period ending in June of 2011. Then they will supposedly have a wage freeze.

But wait, there’s even more. The nurses and other health care workers aren’t the only ones who have signed a fat juicy contract with the SGG. In December Smiling Kelly Lamrock signed an even bigger and longer contract with 7,500 teachers, a contract that does not expire until February 2012 - at which point - you guessed it - they will supposedly have a two year wage freeze.

Just to recap, here’s the situation. Shawn Graham has announced a wage freeze on all government workers, with the small print that it doesn’t apply to those who have recently signed a contract. In fact, they have recently signed big fat juicy contracts with HALF OF THE GOVERNMENT - so those folks won’t get wage freezes for another two years, or three years, or four years. Does anyone really believe any of those people will have their wages frozen in 2012 - long after the recession is over?

The result is two classes of government workers - those with big fat juicy contracts and those who are frozen. But hey, it’s totally worth it if Shawn doesn’t have to stand on the steps of the legislature with a bullhorn, like Premier McKenna did, and explain his decisions to an angry mob. Right?

Letter from a New Brunswick Ex-Pat

2009-03-23T13:57:00.003-03:00

On behalf of the thousands of New Brunswick ex-pats who would someday like to return home, I would like to thank Shawn Graham for making that a fantasy.

I left New Brunswick just as the Graham Government came to power and raised taxes back in 06/07. I am only viewing this government from afar.

Thankfully.

Looking at the latest budget it looks like he is actually just giving back some of what he took a few years ago and he had to go borrow money to do it. Awesome. You should all feel really good about that one.

As it stands right now, New Brunswick has a debt of approx $8 billion dollars. That will rise to $10 billion before the liberals finish this term. That means the debt is more than what the government takes in on an annual basis annual revenue is approx $8 billion).

Add to this that a very large chunk of what the province pulls in for revenue comes from Ottawa in the form of transfer payments, and that equals a province that will be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy around 2009. Great place to live. Your great grand kids will be paying interest on this decision.

I am not an economist but when you spend more than you make that normally spells trouble.

I seem to recall that the New Brunswick debt was going down, albeit slowly, throughout the late 90's and into 2006. Well goodbye to ten years of fiscal stability - IN A BIG WAY. In one budget Shawn is borrowing 10% of what the province spends on an annual basis. He has completely erased years of prudent financial management.

Thanks man.

The self sufficiency vision sure is taking a licking in this budget. How can anyone stand in front of a mirror and say New Brunswick is on a path to self sufficiency? This is a joke of the highest magnitude. A province that will have a debt that exceeds its annual budget cannot ever dream of self sufficiency.

It is now official – New Brunswick has now become the new Newfoundland. There are little to no job opportunities, small business is taxed to pieces, the province is almost crushed under the weight of a ballooning debt and there is no vision or leadership that would entice anyone to come home or for any young person to stay. Just check the stats of out migration from New Brunswick, they will only accelerate in the coming years thanks to this budget.

The only part of Shawn’s self sufficiency agenda that will become a reality is that thousands of young New Brunswickers will become self sufficient when they leave. The province has already established a great reputation for its great young people that go live somewhere else.

On the plus side - years from now there will be a fantastic retirement business to be had when we all come back from a successful life somewhere else.

I really love New Brunswick. It is my home and I would like nothing more than to move my family back. This will not happen with buffoons like Shawn Graham ruining a once great province.

Folks - do yourself a favour and chuck this bartender/substitute teacher who calls himself a premier out

Ducks Are People Too

2009-03-19T19:24:00.002-03:00

Did anyone else notice that last week, the same day he announced he was freezing the wages of 45,000 workers in New Brunswick and that we have an $800 million deficit - Shawn Graham also created a brand new $1.5 million program for ducks. That's right, the very same day he announced the province is broke he also signed an agreement with Ducks Unlimited to give them $1.5 million - that apparently we don't even have in our bank account - so that they can make better homes for ducks.

What the hell?! I can understand where Shawn used to be the Chairman of Ducks Unlimited NB he feels like he wants to give them something - but does this guy have a single clue about making decisions? Has he looked up the word "timing" in the dictionary?

Not angry yet? Try this on for size - this week we found out that the new program the Liberal Government created to help people afford to heat their homes in the winter HAS RUN OUT OF MONEY. They had to turn away almost 4,000 people who had applied. But guess what - Shawn only put 0.5 million dollars into that program. Yes you can do the math - ducks get 3 times as much money for their homes as people do under the Shawn Graham Liberals. What a bunch of bananas!

St. Paddy’s Day Massacre - Brought to you by the Church of Self Sufficiency

2009-03-17T16:30:00.003-03:00

The New Brunswick government delivered the budget today.

Massacre may be an understatement.

Here is the rundown:
Runaway Deficits
Hundreds of Civil Servants Fired
Higher Unemployment
Higher Debt

The 3/4 of a billion dollars in overspending is nothing more than Deferred Taxation. We are presently unsure to whom we are deferring it, but some possibilities include our kids, our grandkids, the rich, the poor, the middle class, our neighbours and friends. Pick who you think it will be.

This budget will go down in history as the worst budget this province has ever seen.

Worst Government Ever? – Part Three

2009-03-08T09:55:00.000-03:00

Taxation

This is the third in a three part series, examining whether the government of Shawn Graham can pull off an historic feat, becoming the worst government in New Brunswick history.

Finally, the biggest power of the provincial government is controlling our taxes. As already mentioned, the Graham Gang sent quite a clear signal to the national and international business community in their first budget when they raised business taxes by 500% - many of them just packed up and left. Now the Graham Liberals feel bad however, and they want to give some of that back, as the Premier has suggested that now they believe in lower taxes and as much as $100 million could be returned to us. That's great, except that the original tax hike was more than $135 million, and when you add in the new fee increases worth more than $15 million for driver licenses and marriage certificates, we still seem to be paying more than we were before.

This is a great example of the Shawn Graham "re-back-tracking" on an issue. Because before the election he never talked about raising taxes. Then right after the election they paid someone to do a study that said we could have a major million dollar deficit and that they had to raise taxes to fix the deficit. Only, when the final results came in there was no deficit but a major surplus of more than $200 million. But then they said they were going to keep the taxes high so they can pay for more government services (and pay people more salaries and bonuses). Recently Shawn Graham announced that NB is actually (for real) running a $300 million deficit and worse news ... it's going to be even bigger next year. But now that the deficit is real he also feels it is the right time to lower taxes, and spend an extra billion dollars on capital projects that only provide temporary jobs, which will make the deficit bigger and leave more money for our kids to pay off.

So to summarize: If you have a fake deficit you have to raise taxes. If you have a real surplus - you keep the extra tax money anyway. But if you have a real deficit then that's the time to cut taxes and increase spending. John Maynard Keynes must be rolling in his grave.

To give the government some credit – even a stopped clock is right twice a day - they did decrease the tax on gasoline by a few cents per litre after they got elected. The fact that research done by the Moncton Times & Transcript shows we still seem to be paying the same prices as people in Nova Scotia, despite our lower taxes, probably only means that the oil companies are now using our tax breaks to collect extra profits. But hey, oil companies are people too.

Worst government ever? - You be the judge.

Worst Government Ever? – Part Two

2009-03-04T12:19:00.000-04:00

The Economy

This is part two of three parts, outlining how the Graham government is in the running (the lead?) to become the worst government in New Brunswick history. A big feat, but definitely attainable if the current direction does not change.

How about supporting New Brunswick businesses and industries like forestry - maybe they are having more success in that department? Try this on for size: within six months of being elected they raised business taxes by 500% and chopped spending on silviculture. Probably it's not a coincidence that within six months after that first budget four major international forestry companies closed their operations in New Brunswick pretty much devastating small communities like Bathurst and Miramichi. And after years of operation our textile mills have recently closed up shop throwing hundreds more out of work.

However, not all is gloomy on the business front. Shortly after the election a prominent Liberal was given a grant to start up a houseboat business. And if you just happened to be the Liberal campaign manager, then your marketing and communications business has received lots of new government contracts. Suppose you're a former Liberal cabinet minister who's into lobbying: you probably spent two years raking in the cash and now you have a top government job in charge of "strategic priorities". Likewise if you own a failed golf course in Moncton with a board of directors stacked with card-carrying Liberals then don't worry, the government will bail you out. And, let's say you own a bar business in partnership with your son the Liberal MLA, and you take the government to court for charging you too much taxes and you win - that could be worth a cool million dollars too.

Of course, the economy is driven by energy and this may well be the saving grace for the Graham Liberals, as a number of private sector companies (who thankfully don't need this government's help) are poised to deliver on some mega-projects such as a new LNG plant and an oil refinery. On the other hand, the energy projects that the Premier and his ministers do have some say over, those being managed through NB Power, have not been as successful. So far the refurbishment at Point Lepreau nuclear is months late and only $100 million over budget. And as for "Lepreau II", well AECL doesn't even have the reactor design approved yet - so don't hold your breath on that one. Did we mention the one New Brunswick company that had a contract to work on the Lepreau refurbishment recently filed for bankruptcy? So much for local benefits.

Worst government ever? - You be the judge.

Worst Government Ever? Part One

2009-02-26T09:45:00.001-04:00

Part One, Liberal Policy

Speculation and serious talk is starting to grow across the province of New Brunswick - are the Shawn Graham Liberals the worst government - ever?

Now the term "worst government ever" is relative, since it's not easy for anyone except a hard core historian to judge whether the current gang has made more mistakes and bungles than any other government in the past 200 years. But even looking at the last 50 years it's hard to imagine a new government getting off to a worse start and back-tracking on more commitments. And even "re-back-tracking" on some of them.

They're not responsible for a global economic meltdown (as far as we know) but just look at all the different sectors and departments the provincial government is responsible for overseeing and there is already a clear pattern of total incompetence.

The biggest department in our provincial government is health. It accounts for more than 40% of the provincial budget. And it's a mess. The Liberal decision to amalgamate all the health boards into two - one English and one bilingual, was the equivalent of waving a big red flag in front of an angry bull. Louis J. Robichaud created equal opportunity, Hatfield perfected it, McKenna entrenched it in the Canadian Constitution, and Lord re-wrote the Official Languages Act without a single murmur of protest. In two years the Graham Liberals have provoked a constitutional challenge that will split English and French communities in this province for the next decade. Over what? The number of hospital boards - smooth move.

The health reforms introduced by Mike Murphy and Shawn Graham have so far produced the following results (in addition to the language wars): a hospital was re-opened in Perth-Andover as a campaign promise and now doesn't have the staff to treat scrapes and scratches; a new crown corporation bureaucracy was created in Saint John in order to "create efficiencies" with no new efficiencies yet created; a consultation board was created in Moncton that so far has consulted nobody; and a hospital board was located in Miramichi where even the CEO they appointed refuses to work. And the new medical school in Saint John is already two years behind schedule. Guess what? The Graham Liberals have only been around for two years.

Education is the next biggest department that is run by the provincial government - how are things going there? Does anyone remember the French immersion fiasco of last summer when Minister Lamrock decided he knew a lot more than his own experts and decided to undo 40 years of programming because he wasn't satisfied with the results. The end of that disaster was that instead of starting French Immersion in Grade 1, now kids start in Grade 3 - wow what an improvement.

Bernard Lord started an ambitious program to give laptop computers to all students in grades 7 and 8 - a program modeled after a very successful program in Maine. It started with a pilot program in six schools and was going to spread across the province before the Liberals were elected. Last month Education Minister Lamrock announced an exciting partnership with Microsoft which is going to be piloted in just two schools - maybe they should call it the incredible shrinking pilot program. And is it just a coincidence that one of these pilot schools is in his Liberal riding and the other in the Liberal riding of the Minister of Post-secondary education?

Speaking of post-secondary education - the Premier was hell bent to reform how the province controls universities and colleges, and he proudly created a special commission to study the issue. And they did. Their recommendations had people around the province out in the streets in protest to the crazy convoluted new system they were proposing. Shortly after Premier Graham asked the university and college presidents to write their own report - which they gladly did. So far not a single recommendation has been implemented.

Social programming is another big responsibility of the provincial government - and this was an early commitment of the Graham Government to tackle the relationship with non-profit organizations. He even hired Claudette Bradshaw - a well known Liberal who travelled on the campaign bus as Shawn's French tutor, but also a person who is highly regarded across Canada as an expert in poverty and NPO issues. She was paid over $100,000 to produce a report that was so excellent that this year the Liberals have started a whole new consultation process. Again, no recommendations have been implemented.

No one will ever forget the fate of Paul Durelle from Kent County, who froze to death after being cut-off from NB Power electricity to heat his home. Before they got elected the Liberals said they were going to do a lot of things to make home heating more affordable and to force NB Power to not cut off their clients. Did Mr. Durelle ask the Premier for assistance - we apparently will never know because the Premier's Office does not seem to have any records of the calls that his family say he made there. Of course, 55,000 people did make use of the $100 in winter heating assistance the Liberals provided their first year in office - but that program must have been a victim of its own success because this year they cut it by 90% and asked the Salvation Army to do the work for them.

Worst government ever? - You be the judge.

Election Fever

2009-02-24T11:01:00.001-04:00

There seems to be a growing mood in the capital that the Graham Liberals are considering an early election, to avoid going to the polls in the fall of 2010, when the economy could be feeling very recession-like. Some are predicting as early as this May.

Here are the reasons Graham should go to the people:

1. The feeling is Alward does not have his organization in place, and would be caught flat-footed. Probably correct, but could change quickly.
2. The Tories are effectively broke, the Liberals have cash.
3. Some members in the liberal caucus have evidently indicated they are not interested in re-election. Namely, Eugene McGinley, Roly McIntyre, Stuart Jamieson and TJ Burke. A series of by-election losses could cause the liberal advantage in the house to shrink.
4. The Liberals could very well win Madawaska-la-Vallee, providing some momentum.
5. The budget deficit is spiralling out of control. Once the electorate gets a feeling that there is something like a spending plan being designed but nothing like a repayment plan being considered, they will be furious.

Here are the reasons why Graham will not go early:

1. The public is election-weary, federal elections in 04 / 06 / 08 and provincially in 03 / 06. For the (wo)man on the street, this is seen as too many elections. Throw in the recent municipal elections, and people are downright sick of campaigns. At least those that vote.
2. The election is scheduled to happen in September 2010. Going early could look like opportunism, which it is. Almost worked for Harper, but does Graham want to be compared to Harper?
3. The Liberals raised taxes and the deficit (before the economy softened, I might add), and are too short of time to reverse those terrible decisions with typical Liberal here-is-some-of-your-money-back-aren’t-I-a-great-person crap.
4. The Auditor General has recently stated the obvious, we are going to run enormous deficits. Big numbers scare people, and half to three quarters of a billion dollars (the possible deficit in the next fiscal year) is a big number.
5. Power is better than no power, and he can hang on for another year at least and hope things get better.

Summary:

If Graham rolls the dice and Alward runs on the mantra of Tories lowered your taxes and reduced the debt, Graham could be in trouble. But Alward needs to move quickly and decisively.

And Mr. Premier, Happy Birthday

Time to Sell NB Liquor

2009-01-24T07:18:00.003-04:00

Given the recent news NB Liquor is going into the beer production business with Moosehead Breweries of Saint John, now would be a good time to discuss the benefits of privatization.

The government's terribly run liquor monopoly normally trots out the lie that without them, funding for education and health care in New Brunswick would be jeopardized. They have now enlisted Joel Levesque of Moosehead to help them spread this nonsense, and shame on Moosehead for this.

With a long and storied history, Moosehead is a New Brunswick success story. However, current company leadership has become so beholden to the government of New Brunswick that they have forgotten their customers.

Instead of using their considerable political influence to fight for a reasonable mark-up on beer in New Brunswick, they have taken it upon themselves to propagate the lie that high beer prices and a liquor monopoly fund health care and education in New Brunswick.

I used to think NB Liquor was the worst run government liquor distributor/retailer in the free world, but evidently they heard some jurisdiction in newly-freed Kazakhstan was going to be even worse, so they took this department to new levels of ludicrosity. I know ludicrosity is not a word, but it seems to fit the situation.

Disclaimer*
Contrary to popular belief, staff at NB Liquor stores and head office are not to blame for the sorry state of affairs. They know how bad it is first hand. Most employees at NB Liquor are good people struggling to make a living, just like the rest of us. This article is not aimed at them. It is aimed at our political leaders and their patronage appointments that make the idiotic decisions there.

There used to be three reasons why the government of New Brunswick needed to be in the booze distribution/retailing business:
1. Control
2. Money
3. Patronage

This article will deal with the first two so you can then call your MLA and they will deal with the third once and for all.

1. Many years ago, the good people of New Brunswick were very scared of alcohol and thought government controlling the distribution and retailing of it would lead to limits on the spread of it through society.

ANBL has succeeded in limiting the spread of reasonable prices and good selection, but beer, wine and spirits are now everywhere, so this has failed. Evidently overcharging and providing crappy selection will not stop man's lust for a pint, glass or dram, so we do not need NB Liquor control.

2. Many years ago, the good people of New Brunswick realized that the government controlling the distribution and retailing of alcoholic beverages would raise a great deal of money.

They were correct.

Now government could sell off licenses to real businesses and still tax the product (less abusively hopefully) and still make more money than currently (see Alberta example if you do not believe me). So, if it really is about money so the children can learn and be healthy as NB Liquor and Moosehead say, privatization is the answer. Tell your friends you support it for the children.

3. We are left with patronage, now the only real reason to keep NB Liquor. Where else do you put washed up campaign managers, Party Executive Directors and Chief's of Staff to Premiers? Why the presidency of NB Liquor would be great! There they can travel the world, visit wineries, eat great meals in exotic locales and press the flesh with the elite of the world.

Now to be honest, if I had any real shot at the presidency of NB Liquor, I too would want to keep it a government monopoly. But alas, I will never get to spend my time hanging out with famous wine makers in Italy, France, Australia or Chile, or cool movie stars like Dan Akroyd and salmon-fishing-pros like Lorne Michaels.

But in the real world, selling ANBL is the only solution. It will work for consumers, health care, education and small business.

The only losers will be the current crop of political organizers that will miss their shot at the cushiest of government appointments (short of a Senate seat).

Welcome

2009-01-18T12:59:00.002-04:00

Welcome to my blog, hopefully you will find something here that interests you, and I do hope you will contribute.

I am new to this, so will take any advice you offer, but will not necessarily listen.