It's been a dramatic summer - climate crises across the world, continuing COVID uncertainty, and now the hype of a federal election.  All of that makes it  easy to forget the push-back of concerned citizens against the neoliberal bias of the Greene Report "The Big Reset"

Here's one submission to ENGAGENL that we think should be shared.  It's an articulate response to the question:  Whose interests does our government really serve?

                                              Response to PERT Report
                                                    The Fishery
                                                Barry Darby and Helen Forsey
                                                 Avalon Chapter, Council of Canadians
 
          
The small Fishery section of "The Big Reset" is profoundly disappointing. It presents a biased and superficial picture of the sector, implicitly belittling the importance of the fishery to our province's economy and society. Of the 300-plus page PERT report, the wild fishery occupies a scant seven pages, with just two recommendations out of the total of 78 (five out of 179 if you count sub-recommendations.)
 
            The report demonstrates a vast ignorance of and indifference to the fishery. Despite the wealth of information and ideas easily available in the public domain, the Team did not do its homework. The report's 82-page Bibliography contains references from various organizations involved in oil and gas, hydro, and mining, but cites almost no fishery-related sources: there is nothing from the Marine Institute, the Association of Seafood Producers, the Fish Food and Allied Workers (FFAW), the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters (CCPFH), or even the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which governs our entire fishery. Not surprisingly, then, the authors show almost no understanding of the realities of our fishery or its context – for example, the considerable difference between the economics of a processing plant and the economics (bioeconomics) of ocean harvesting.
 
            The pro-corporate, pro-industrial, "bigger is better" bias that permeates the whole report is clearly predominant in the fishery segment. As a framework, it presents two contrasting "visions" for the future of the fishery – "a highly capitalized industrial approach with higher incomes for fewer participants," versus "a more traditional lower capitalized industry with more plants and more seasonal work supported by EI." This is a false dichotomy – one of those simplistic set-ups that misrepresent complex issues as either/or choices, thereby excluding from the discussion the rich diversity of possible alternatives. The authors are then able to disparage one view (in this case, the "traditional" one), leaving the other as supposedly the only option – one that fits beautifully with the PERT's overall approach.
 
            The report disparages the way the Employment Insurance system operates and its effect on harvesting. The relevance of this criticism at the provincial level is questionable, since EI is a federal system and harvesting policy is a federal responsibility. But in any case, fish harvesting, like tourism and agriculture, is subject to seasonal limitations, not only in NL but across the country. So of course workers will turn to EI; that's what it's there for.

            Moreover, where EI impacts NL's fish processing sector (provincial jurisdiction), the short employment periods result directly from DFO's establishment of particular harvesting seasons for each species and the province's refusal to permit multispecies processing by all fish plants. But the report does not reflect the distinctions among jurisdictions or the structural problems that arise from them.
 
            It is unreasonable, to say the least, to imply that we should change our fishery so that EI would not be part of it. It's not as if there aren't sensible and informed proposals out there about what could be done to meet these challenges. Rick Williams's book, "A Future for the Fishery – Crisis and Renewal in Canada's Neglected Fishing Industry" (Nimbus, 2019), addresses the EI question specifically and in detail, together with an in-depth analysis of the labour market issues in the Atlantic Canadian fishery. But Williams' book, like other pertinent sources, is not listed in PERT's Bibliography.
 
            Two of the five recommendations in the report's fishery segment – rebuilding NL's fisheries for future generations and taking the lead in research and management – fall into the motherhood category, and mainly in federal jurisdiction. Two other recommendations are mutually contradictory: one calls for increased fish processing, while the other recommends that no new processing licenses be issued.
 
            The remaining recommendation, for equal custodianship of our marine resources with the federal government, was a rallying cry in the 1990s, but has since been largely abandoned as constitutionally unrealistic. Nonetheless, the point is well taken – the Province must indeed strengthen its voice on fisheries issues, push the federal government to listen, and demand that our experience and advice carry their due weight in DFO's decisions.
 
            Beyond those five, however, the report's recommendations on the fishery are most noticeable by their absence. The authors make no recommendations at all on what appear to be some of their key points. For example, they criticize the current harvester-processor collective bargaining model, calling it "anti-competitive by nature" and claiming it ignores quality and other market considerations and can be disadvantageous to plant workers. They applaud transferable quotas and market-driven supply chains, and refer to fish auctions, yet they do not recommend anything. It would have been helpful if they had proposed more balanced and workable collective bargaining mechanisms (such as the single-desk selling used successfully in some agricultural sectors) instead of, in effect, condemning collective bargaining itself and leaving it to government to replace it with something unknown.
 
            The report refers to better fishery management in Iceland and Norway, but again makes no recommendations. This despite the fact that Gus Etchegary of the Fishery Community Alliance met with Dame Moya and attempted to convey to her and her team the clear and feasible recommendations the group has been making publicly for months if not years. Notably, last October, they wrote to Premier Furey urging that a delegation of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians with in-depth fishery expertise visit Norway and Iceland to explore the problems with the North Atlantic fishery, discuss how they do things there, and come back to advise our governments. Surely PERT could have recommended that?
 
            The recommendation to reinstate the threshold requirements for processing licenses is particularly baffling. "The Big Reset" is very big on privatization of government assets and activities. Fish processing is already a private sector domain, yet the report is urging the government to reassert its involvement in this business, right down to defining who can process what species, where a plant can be built, and a host of other requirements laid out in the provincial Fish Processing Licensing Act.
 
            There are also some clear distortions of the facts. In regard to northern cod, the report states that "spawning stock biomass has dramatically declined and current values do not [reach] the minimum needed to support a commercial fishery." However, figures for the past several years show a relatively stable estimated 400,000-tonne biomass, while annual removals barely exceed 2%. In the past we sustainably harvested 20-40% annually, and that is still the case in similar stocks in Iceland and Norway. It is obviously ridiculous to suggest that our current 2% represents overfishing.
 
            Elsewhere, the authors confuse correlation with causality, stating that higher landed prices for snow crab were the result of "collaborative behaviour" between harvesters and processors, when it was simply that the world price went up. In regard to the labour supply, they suggest that efforts to increase employment opportunities by favouring the labour-intensive inshore fleet represents a contradiction with the use of temporary foreign workers in fish plants. But harvesting and processing are two very different labour markets, and there is no contradiction involved.
 
            The report's authors are critical of DFO's recent prohibition of controlling agreements between harvesters and processors. They claim this inhibits vertical integration, and "removes any mechanism for processors to maintain security of supply," without which, they say, the processors have trouble accessing capital. This may be another case of conflating correlation with causality, but if that's a problem in this time of very low interest rates and excess capital, surely it's not up to the government to solve it. And harvesters should not have to submit to outside control in order to access operating capital.
 
            In conclusion, the fishery segment of the report starts from a series of faulty assumptions, proceeds without reviewing a diverse range of sources or checking its facts, imposes its pro-private sector leanings and ignores alternative analyses. Shallow and biased, this report leaves the government, the fishery and the public worse off than before.
***

http://www.barrydarby.com/

​​

​I used to think that capitalistic greed explained most of the world's problems.  But what if it's not as simple as that? 




Have you ever stumbled across an article that somehow managed to explain the increasing insanity of the world to you? That’s how I felt after reading “Could Modern Crises Stem from problems in the Human Brain?” by Lynn Parremore.

The insanity I’m referring to is our collective inability to address our multiple climate and environmental crises. Think of the recent flooding in Asia and Europe, the massive heat waves in Northern Canada, wildfires and drought across the planet, soil and ocean pollution, biodiversity loss. The list could go on and on.

There is clear, mounting evidence that our consumption patterns have both wounded and destabilized the planet.  Yet, it is also clear that our attempts to address the multiple crises we now face are token. We naively think that we can perform some quick fixes, mostly technological, that will somehow put things right.  Why is that? Could it be because of the way our brains have been rewired over the last 150 years?

Our Divided Brain
​
Iain McGilchrist, author of “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World”, has put forth the idea that humans have come to rely too much on the left hemisphere of the brain. This is the side of the brain that thrives on learning facts. The left brain lets us categorize and be precise. These are the attributes of a good engineer or bureaucrat. 

Unfortunately, this organized focus also encourages us to shut off or ignore any data that doesn’t correspond with what we’ve learned or built ourselves. To make sure that the left brain acknowledges and addresses “externalities”, especially large ones like the flow of the natural world, we need the right hemisphere of the brain. This is the intuitive part of the brain – the part that wants to understand how our ideas and constructs fit into broader systems. It’s the part of the brain that keeps us grounded to the real world.

Lynn Parremore, in her analysis of McGilchrist’s work, goes on to explain why and how the left brain, with its emphasis on mastering discrete parts, come to dominate first science and technology, and then economics and finance.

Shifting to Left Brain Analysis

The 19th century Industrial Revolution profoundly changed the way we interacted with the world in that scientists and engineers were encouraged to pay limited attention to the impact of their inventions on the environment. Pollution belching from factories, for example, was an externality to be ignored.

That narrow focus has continued to dominate in many industries, with oil and gas a major culprit. There, it’s not just air pollution. Think of the 170,000 orphaned and abandoned wells in Alberta that our left-brained oil executives are seemingly blind to. To them it doesn’t matter if these wells are leaching toxins. They see their responsibility as simply extracting and delivering oil efficiently enough to satisfy market demands and make a good profit for their shareholders.

The neoliberal economic paradigm that we have followed for the last 40 years has reinforced this blinkered view of the world. For far too many economists there is no place in their fancy mathematical equations for the environment. As for the finance sector, they have created their own casino style bubble world which increasingly has little to do with the main street economy, let alone the environment. Why bother with the real world when you can make oodles of money buying and selling shares, derivatives and other pieces of paper?

Capitalism’s Siloed View of Reality

Both production and finance fit smoothly into the larger capitalist paradigm – a paradigm which those who are still predominantly right-brained will tell you is profoundly short-sighted. Why? Because capitalism deliberately ignores the fundamental limitations of our planet.

Capitalism’s most basic tenet is continual growth. It’s bad enough that this growth has nothing to do with making useful things and everything to do with making money, increasingly for a very small group of people. But the real absurdity of capitalism is that it demands continual growth while at the same time depleting or destroying the resources of our planet.

This shrinkage of the natural world is not even gradual. With a global economy compelled to grow each year in order for capitalism to survive, the biodiversity loss, the depletion of resources, and the pollution that goes along with that, are constantly accelerating.  Yet our capitalist financiers and industrialists, ensconced in their comfortable silos, will fiercely resist any attempt to regulate production or slow it down. That’s that left-brain dominance at work.

As for our political leaders, it's not hard to understand why the majority feel compelled to accept the capitalist version of reality with its notion of growth. How else, they ask themselves, can jobs be created or maintained?  In our province, burdened as we are by crippling debt and high unemployment, that has meant continuing subsidies to the oil companies in an effort to keep them here. One also has to wonder what subsidies have been attached to the purchase this week of the Come By Chance refinery by private equity firm, Cresta Fund Management. Come By Chance is going to become a biofuel facility!

It’s no different elsewhere. Alberta, our richest province, doesn’t have our debt load and has notoriously dirty oil. Nevertheless, they too are passionate about keeping the oil flowing. Norway is the richest country in the world with average incomes twenty percent higher than in the US.  Yet Norway is planning a major expansion of oil exploration in the Arctic.

What's noteworthy in all three cases, although less so in the case of Alberta, is that the effects of climate change have not yet hit these locations hard.    This  suggests that if the silo we are in is still comfortable our left-brains simply don't want to shift paradigms, no matter what the forecasts. 

Why is "degrowth" never talked about?

After decades of ignoring or denying climate change, the finance and business sectors finally are beginning to acknowledge that the multiple environmental crises around the globe might be connected to irresponsible human activity.  Unfortunately, their solutions are, not surprisingly, left-brained. Very much in the news is carbon trading – a practice that essentially allows an entity to pay another to avoid meeting its ethical obligation to reduce emissions. This coupled with green technology, not just wind and solar energy, but also more dubious “solutions” like nuclear energy, electric cars and biofuels is supposed to reverse the trend.  

What’s never mentioned as a way forward, but should be, is "degrowth". Apparently, it’s unimaginable to our left-brained experts that we reduce production and consumption. How would capitalism survive? Think of the loss of profits that would cause. Think of the loss of jobs.

Loss of profits, yes. Loss of jobs, not necessarily – or at least not if the economy were to be reoriented towards services that respond to community and environmental needs. There are historical precedents for that, most notably the 1930s New Deal in the US. Here in Canada, innovative Bank of Canada policies financed the infrastructure development that put unemployed Canadians back to work.

Of course, both of these initiatives were government led and controlled, which is probably why our finance and business leaders ignore the precedents. They don’t fit the prevailing neoliberal paradigm with its view that only the private sector knows what is good for the economy. No hints of socialism are apparently to be tolerated, even in times of crisis. That would mean shifting the frame, something which the over-confident left-brains of our corporate leaders don't like doing.

Instead we will probably continue to behave "as if" things are not as they are.

The absurdity of our "as if" philosophy of the world

The accelerating pace of disasters worldwide suggests we are already in deep trouble. Yet o​ur interventions progress at a snail's pace, are done half-heartedly,  and often get sidetracked or sabotaged.  Iain McGilchrist would probably say this is inevitable when you let left-brained expertise trump right-brained wisdom. 

​If his analysis is right we will continue to behave "as if"  things are not as they are, simply because it's inconvenient to do otherwise.   For a good rant on the absurdity of this myopic view of the world, check out Phil Leeke's recent article "The Philosophy of As If".

So how do we move forward?  If we are going to meaningfully address the existential crises we now face, we need to take our heads out of the sand, acknowledge that what is convenient may not be balanced, rethink our consumeristic priorities and choose leaders with  courage and vision.

​And we need to start thinking about how we think!

Marilyn Reid

If you want to learn more about the degrowth movement, check out Jason Hinkels’ book, How Degrowth will Save the World , or Timothée Parrique’s   Ph.D thesis, The Political Economy of Degrowth.

Newfoundland and Labrador has substanatially lower income tax rates than the four other eastern provinces.  Yet, even though we are encumbered by huge debts, government is reluctant to raise taxes.  Why is that?

Is it  because our political leaders think tax increases will cost them votes in the next election?  Or is government simply predisposed towards the alternative approach - downsizing public institutions through privatization of public assets, more public-private partnerships and more contractual labour?  

We believe that privatization, in all its different forms, is not a "solution" we should impose on future generations, especially since that future is looking increasingly precarious. We also believe  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would be willing to pay higher taxes for a limited period of time to get us out of the mess we are in.   

Below is our letter to government expressing these points of view.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Premier Furey, Minister Coady and the EngageNL Team

                                  An argument for increasing taxation across all tax brackets

There are three approaches government can take to digging our way out of the financial mess we are in. The quick fix is the privatization of government services, more P3s and increased contractual work. This is the preference of the business sector.  The second approach, favoured by community action groups, is revenue generation through strengthening local industries and transitioning to a green economy. The problem there is that many of the initiatives suggested require substantial investments from government at a time when government is painfully short of money.

The third route is revenue collection through increased taxation. This letter argues that government should give more thought to this direction. Here are some points to consider.
 
1.  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are currently paying provincial income tax at lower rates          than in the other Atlantic provinces and Quebec.

The following 2020 statistics are based on calculations done through Intuit Turbotax. 

​ 
Note that, in all but the lowest income category, residents of our province are paying less provincial tax than in other eastern provinces.

Assessment: Given our current fiscal crisis, it is appropriate to raise our personal income tax contributions  to rates comparable with those of other Atlantic Canadian provinces.  

2.  Most of the top 10% of tax payers in this province will continue to pay significantly less tax               than in the other four eastern provinces.

The 2021 budget speech “committed to protecting lower income and more vulnerable citizens from shouldering the burden of our financial challenges.” The issue is what tax bracket the government considers to be “lower income”.  Here is what government proposed in the 2021 budget speech. ​

​Note that while there will be tax hikes they only start when incomes reach $135,973 and then by a mere 0.5%. It is not just our vulnerable citizens that will be protected from tax hikes. It’s 95% of the tax filing population.

Note also our lower tax rates for the top 5%. New Brunswickers pay 20.3% on amounts over $160,776. Nova Scotians pay 21% on amounts over $150,000, and Quebeckers a whopping 25.75% rate on any amount over $108,390. Consider also that those provinces are not in crisis.

Assessment: Government’s very modest tax hikes suggest that revenue collection is not a priority in addressing our fiscal crisis. Should that be reconsidered?

3. A flat tax across income brackets, as recommended in the PERT report, is inappropriate.

Government chose correctly not to act on the PERT report’s recommendation that all income tax brackets be increased by a flat rate of one percent. The following example illustrates why this would have been unfair.
​
After deducting federal and provincial taxes as well as basic cost of living and rent of a one bedroom apartment, a single person (under 60 years of age) living in St John’s and making $30,000 a year would have $81 left over each month for discretionary spending. A one percent tax increase would eat up approximately 16.7% of that amount. By contrast someone making $100,000 would be left with $4,117 to spend monthly, based on the same criteria. A one percent tax increase would represent just 1.8% of a discretionary income 50 times as large.

These differences obviously diminish as one proceeds up the income scale, but they are still there. Increasing tax credits for low-income earners, while a good idea, doesn’t fundamentally alter the biases of a flat tax.

Assessment:  We need to think carefully about how to fairly distribute tax increases.

3. What might an incremental increase in taxation look like?

It is important that all of us in this province feel as though we are contributing towards resolving our fiscal crisis. We are in this together. That means introducing a tax increase across all income brackets. However, for low-income earners that can be mitigated by introducing an income tax reduction of $250 on incomes of $30,000 and under, with partial reductions thereafter.
​
As a base for discussion here is what those tax increases could look like. 

To view how these tax increases would compare with taxation in the other eastern provinces see the appendix.

For those who believe these tax rates are unfairly high for high income brackets, it is worth pointing out that those who invest in the stock market or in property are already being given very generous capital gains deductions. Is this really justifiable given that the evidence shows that these investments are now increasingly being used, not to invest in the real economy, but rather for speculative activities?

Assessment: Government should not be timid about taxing those of us who can afford to contribute more.    
 
4. Does the PERT report suggest a governmental bias towards privatization and/or private sector        management of public infrastructure?  

Government chose to appoint Dame Moya Greene, with her background in privatization, deregulation and public-private partnerships to lead the Premier’s Economic Recovery Team. This raises the question of whether government was predisposed from the start of the process to give the private sector more ownership or control of assets traditionally in government domain.

The shift in that direction began in 2017 when Government announced plans for the first five public-private partnerships in our province. This was done on the advice of what many consider to be a seriously flawed analysis of their benefits by consulting firm, Ernst and Young. Ernst and Young’s bias was hardly surprising. Private sector advisors simply don’t want to talk about the disadvantages of P3s.

One advantage of tax increases is that they can always be easily and quickly reversed. Privatization and P3s cannot, due to, among other things, restrictive clauses in treaties like CETA. Moreover, while privatization gives government one large bulk payment, probably at fire sale prices, tax hikes continue to provide revenues every year.

Assessment: Tax increases should only be introduced as an alternative to privatization or P3s, not as an add-on to them.
 
5. The Provincial government should increase the corporate income tax rate by two percentage           points for large corporations.

The PERT’s recommendation of an increase of two percentage points is appropriate for large corporations. That includes oil and gas, mining, banking and real estate/leasing, Not only are these corporations highly profitable, but to a large extent their profits leave the province. That is not true of home-grown businesses.

Assessment: Small businesses with incomes up to $500,000 should be exempt from this tax increase.
 
Conclusions

The legacy of the Conservative government that preceded the election of the Liberals is Muskrat Falls. It is a project that should have been halted in its infancy but wasn’t because government was unable to admit they had made a mistake. Might the legacy of the current government be another long-lasting misjudgment in the form of privatization and more P3s?

 Elsewhere governments, have become disappointed with their privatization and P3 experiences and are pulling back. For example, in 2018 the UK government decided  to abandon the P3 model altogether, after hearing this conclusion made by the parliamentary committee commissioned to evaluate it.  “It is unacceptable that almost 30 years since the first PFI (P3) projects were initiated, the Treasury cannot produce evidence to support its claims that PFI is worthwhile for any reason, apart from the fact that it takes debt off the balance sheet.”

Taking debt off the balance sheet may favour governments seeking re-election, but is it in the long-term public interest? Here in Canada five auditors-general have already made the point that costs under P3s are ultimately often much higher than had the work been contracted out.  Should we not take heed in this province and proceed with caution, especially since there are alternative directions we could take?

Taxation is one such direction – a direction that makes sense for another reason. We live in a world of unprecedented and rapid change. Where that change is going to take us is by no means clear.  However, it is certainly arguable that government needs more time to assess, adjust and plan for the future. Tax increases are not a “solution” to our problems. But they can be an effective respite measure that will give us the space to think through how we can build a stronger Newfoundland and Labrador.  

I’m grateful for the opportunity to put that perspective forward and hope that you will consider it.

Marilyn Reid
Member of Democracy Alert and the Avalon chapter of the Council of Canadians

Here's what we wrote to the premier and the minister of education.

Dear Premier Furey and Minister Osborne,

“The big reset” report has challenged government to make a number of difficult decisions with respect to implementing an economic recovery.  Stakeholders and the public have been invited to provide input through Engage NL.    

We are retired teachers who have responded specifically to the 16 recommendations in Section 8:  K-12 Education.  Our intent is that the suggestions outlined below and in an attachment to this email are made available to interested stakeholders for discussion. 

We hope you and your staff find this to be interesting reading. 

Comments on Recommendations in Section 8 of The Big Reset

Administration


“Streamline the administrative structure by eliminating the two school districts with a goal to spend less on administration and reinvest that money directly at the school level.”
 
At the fiscal level we understand government’s decision to integrate the English School Board into the Department of Education.   However, there are trade-offs that may negate the advantages.  New Brunswick got rid of elected school boards in 1997, only to restore them four years later in response to public pressure. Prince Edward Island disbanded its English-language school board in 2015 — but is now in the process of bringing it back. As for Nova Scotia, there is already considerable frustration among parents, a mere three years after the province eliminated its school boards. 

One problem is that the elimination of school boards puts a lot of responsibility on school councils - perhaps too much. It’s worth noting the UK’s experiment with academization. Twenty years after its inception, the original premise of assigning more local democratic control (and money) to schools by delinking them from local educational authorities is gone. In its place is large scale private sector management of schools by multi academy “charitable trusts”, some of whose CEOs make huge salaries.
Critics say academy schools are unaccountable to local communities and local parents. Scandals are emerging and there is growing evidence that while some schools benefit (usually those in wealthy neighbourhoods), far too many see a deterioration in performance. 

Is it your intention that principals and school councils take on additional responsibilities once the English School Board is eliminated?  If so, given the difficulties encountered both in Canada and abroad, we believe that government should proceed with caution.  
 
 
“Adopt a shared services model for HR, IT payroll, maintenance, etc.”

Does the decision to integrate the English School Board into the Department of Education mean that all services will be centralized in St. John’s, or will there continue to be branch offices in Labrador and Central and Western Newfoundland? 

In our opinion, centralization of all services in St. John’s will be seen as yet another abandonment of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. We believe it is essential that service centres or regional offices be maintained in order to meet the needs of students in rural areas of the province. 

Before deciding what responsibilities these centres should have, we would recommend consulting with Maritime jurisdictions to ascertain what the principal objections have been to school board elimination.  Don’t repeat their mistakes.
 
“Dissolve volunteer school boards and replace with one volunteer Provincial School Advisory Council.”

Is the suggestion here that the volunteer Council is going to be appointed rather than elected? If so, and the Council is structured so that volunteers represent a province wide cross section of interested parents, plus representatives from educational partners (i.e., higher education institutes, the NLTA, community groups, etc.), this could work. However, if appointees are chosen predominantly from one grouping (i.e., the business sector) it is our opinion that the focus will be too narrow and collectively biased towards particular approaches.
 
“Ensure principals, vice principals and other supervisory staff are not members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association.”

Neither the cost saving nor the administrative benefits of this recommendation are clear to us.
The argument put forth is that “being in the same union puts administrators in conflict with the people they supervise”. Why? Running a school should be based on collaborative management. Before insisting that principals and other supervisory staff do not belong to the NLTA, let’s ask these administrators what they think of the idea.
 
Modify policies to allow schools to welcome community experts, particularly in areas where teachers do not have expertise, such as entrepreneurship, coding and emerging technologies.”
 
Teachers have always had the flexibility to welcome community experts into the classroom for presentations and discussions. However, that might not be what “welcome” means in the above recommendation. Could this be a disguised attempt to begin to replace teachers with unqualified, cheaper “experts”? That phenomenon has become increasingly common as a way of cost cutting in both the British academies and American charter schools. The danger is that once you start hiring unqualified experts where do you stop?
 
A sensible approach would be to put more emphasis on technological training and coding in the Faculty of Education’s curriculum, both at the B.Ed. and M.Ed. levels.
 
“Change school opening and closing hours to an eight-hour day for teachers, so that they can use some non-teaching time during the work day for professional upgrading and collaboration.”
 
Lesson preparation, marking, and administrative tasks guarantee that teachers are working most evenings and parts of the weekend. To suggest that they should spend a minimum of an extra five hours a week on “professional upgrading and collaboration” implies a lack of understanding of teacher responsibilities and workloads.
 
Furthermore, the argument that increasing the length of the school day will save money by eliminating the need to hire substitute teachers is not strong. In reality, teachers frequently do not take any in-service days throughout the year. The opportunities simply aren’t there.
 
That being said, teachers are arguably not getting enough exposure, not just to new support technology, but also to alternative educational philosophies and instructional perspectives. A compromise solution, worked out between the NLTA and the Department of Education, might be to introduce two days a month of extended hours province wide for teacher in-service training.
 
That, however, will only be productive if considerable effort is put into organizing and scheduling quality in-service sessions. This should be a collaborative role taken on by the Department, School Board(s), the NLTA and the Faculty of Education.
 
Curriculum and Teaching
 
“Adapt the curriculum to better prepare children for the advanced technological economy, provide them with needed skills in math, science, reading and computer science, and promote self-managed learning and entrepreneurship.”
 
Question: In order to make room to emphasize the above skills, what is going to be deemphasized in the curriculum?
 
In the late 1990s the senior high social studies curriculum was radically changed to prioritize economic education. Courses like Business Enterprise, Consumer Studies, Entrepreneurship and Career Education were pushed. At the same time, every single course that offered students the opportunity to talk about governance and democratic responsibilities (Democracy, Global Issues, World Problems, etc.) disappeared from the curriculum. The effect was dramatic. In the 2011 federal election only 29% of NL eligible voters aged 18 to 24 actually voted. Newfoundland and Labrador had by far the lowest voter turnout of young people among the ten provinces. It was an embarrassing statistic.
 
To their credit, the Department of Education, after intervention from concerned citizens, made considerable effort to put a solid foundation in citizen education and political education, both global and local, back into the senior high curriculum. But it took time. Before making major adaptations to the curriculum, think very carefully about what gets deemphasized or lost.
 
“Hire an independent expert to conduct a review of Memorial University Faculty of Education’s curriculum and graduation standards to ensure that all new K-6 teachers can teach math, reading, basic technology, and computer skills. “
 
The PERT report asserts that “the new reading and math specialists added in response to Now is the Time were necessary because K-6 classroom teachers no longer graduate from Memorial with adequate skills to teach these subjects.” What the report overlooks is that 22% of NL students have officially diagnosed “exceptionalities” that could impede learning of these subjects in the regular classroom.
 
The inclusion of students with special needs in the regular classroom began on a large scale in 2009. It has, on the one hand, been an undeniable victory for equality and human rights. However, the cross-province consultations with local communities that preceded the writing of the Now is Time report revealed that “Parents and educators alike were unanimous in voicing concern that all students, not just those with exceptionalities, are being under-served with the current model of inclusive education.”
 
Is it possible that frustrated parents are blaming the teacher for an inclusive education model that is not working? Any review of the Faculty of Education that does not evaluate the enormous, new pedagogical challenges related to teaching English and Math in an “inclusive” classroom setting will be shortsighted.
But does government want to do that? The conclusion of any such evaluation will be, in our opinion, that a lot more resources need to be invested in inclusive education.
 
“Better use technology to supplement learning options.”
 
According to Now is the Time, the 2017 Premier’s Task Force on Improving Educational Outcomes, only .08% of NL students are identified as being gifted despite research claims that approximately 10% of students are in this category. That suggests that our public education system could do a better job at educating our brightest and best. One solution in some schools has been to offer Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses where students can earn university credits while at high school.
 
This opportunity can be expanded by making these courses available on-line to gifted students in schools where enrolment is too small to run classes.  Rural students would particularly benefit. Find the teachers with the talent and enthusiasm to take on the challenge, organize appropriate school space (probably in the library), and then encourage our most able students across the province to sign up for these on-line courses.
 
 
“Assess the education system to identify the current gaps in education related to the changing labour market and the new economy.”
 
Job descriptions are changing in an unpredictable manner and at an unprecedented pace, thanks to exponential advances in information technology and robotics. Foreseeing what the next generation of work will look like is going to be a huge challenge. Indeed, it’s very possible that there is going to be a significant shortage of jobs across sectors.
 
The PERT report rightly emphasizes building and strengthening the computer skills students will eventually need in the new digital economy. What is not acknowledged is the negative impact social media and texting are having on the way young people communicate.
 
Greater emphasis on the development of critical thinking through the median of oral presentations and debating could improve those important verbal interpersonal skills. A modern approach, one that incorporates computer skills, could be to encourage student video productions on different topics. That does assume, however, that the technology would be there for students who, for example, don’t have access to a cell phone or computer. Our understanding is that these “on-loan” resources aren’t available in some schools at present. That needs to be addressed.
 
Community Outreach

“Review School District policies related to community use of school properties to ensure greater alignment with community and regional needs.”
 
Schools can play an important role in strengthening the communities they serve, and there is a real need for community meeting space. However, it has to be affordable. At present, space can be rented in schools, but liability and security concerns require that a custodian must be on duty. This means the price is often too high for not-for-profit community groups.
 
The challenge will be to find creative ways of filling available space, (and not just gymnasiums), so that costs can be shared. There are other Canadian provinces school and community facility sharing models that could by adopted for our province (i.e., British Columbia’s school/community library facilities practices and policies).
 
“Enhance partnership approaches with Indigenous governments, organizations, and communities to ensure culturally appropriate curriculum and school approaches for all children to promote understanding and reconciliation.”
 
Good idea.
 
 
“The Provincial Government should ensure non-teaching professionals in the school, particularly educational psychologists and guidance counsellors, are working to their full scope of practice and in coordination with health authorities. Supports should be offered to children who need them as early as possible.”
 
We agree. The provincial referral system is not working at the moment, with families sometimes having to wait years to get proper support for their child. This raises the question of why in-school assessment is not enough to initiate support for students at risk.  Work needs to be done on widening job descriptions to suit educational needs. 
 
 
“Add social workers to the K-12 system to connect families and students with broader community supports and services to address underlying issues impacting attendance.”
 
While full attendance is a commendable objective, we would point out that, at 94%,  Newfoundland has the highest high school graduation rate of all provinces. We are succeeding better than any other province at persuading at-risk students to spend extra time in high school in order to receive a graduation diploma.
 
 
“Formalize an approach for community-based partners to work with youth to offer alternative education settings for 16- to 19-year-olds who are struggling in the traditional classroom.”
 
It makes good sense to us to strengthen partnerships with not-for-profit groups like THRIVE. The challenge is to find community partners outside of metro areas.
 
In the past, (1980-2010) separate co-operative education programs were designed for both special needs students as well as students in mainstream classes. These programs provided workplace experience through collaboration with local businesses. Some of these programs were phased out because of trends, liability issues, as well as changes in curriculum and workplace practices. Almost all of the courses that remain (1120, 2122, 2220 or 3220) must be developed locally. Should more centralized effort be put into this?
 
 
“Replace the current approach to career development with methods to connect community and local employers to students. This needs to start in younger grades with a more focused approach starting in Junior High School.”
 
Schools have always had the option to invite community members into the schools to give presentations. It’s not clear to us how you would replace this approach in younger grades.
 
 
“Enhance partnership approaches with Indigenous governments, organizations, and communities to ensure culturally appropriate curriculum and school approaches for all children to promote understanding and reconciliation.”
 
Good idea!
 
Conclusions
 
Per capita spending on K-12 education in our province is higher than in other Atlantic Canadian provinces for a very simple reason – our geographical size.  The NL education system has to service an area almost six times the size of New Brunswick and more than seven times the size of Nova Scotia.  Meanwhile our student population is much lower, slightly more than half that in Nova Scotia and close to three quarters that of New Brunswick. 
 
Our point is that, given our demographics, there is no easy fix to lowering expenditures in education. We need to tread carefully before quickly adopting integration models from other parts of Canada. It is important to explore the reasons why these models have failed or are failing.   
 
We appreciate the hard work done by the PERT team, and that they chose to make so many recommendations on K-12 education.  While we may have different or opposing perspectives to some of their suggestions, we see their effort as important in stimulating discussion and debate about the future of education in Newfoundland and Labrador.
 
Let us proceed with careful, balanced thought in our efforts to improve K-12 education in this province.
 
Marilyn Reid, M.Ed
Retired teacher and community activist
Sharon Halfyard Ph.D.
Retired teacher and educational film and video producer
 
Cc’d  MHAs
         NLTA President
         Deputy Minister of Education

This May 20th ON THE GO interview with Professor Mark Blyth of Brown University challenges the austerity recommendations of the PERT report.  Excellent questions by Ted Blais and compelling answers by Dr. Blyth make the interview well worth listening to.

​Well done CBC!

Our sister organization The Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians has come up with some very sound reasons why our province should not participate in any more P3 (Public Private Partnership) projects.  You can find them in this  letter to our MHAs.

May 13th

Dear Member of the House of Assembly; 
​
We extend both our congratulations on your election to the House of Assembly and our admiration that you would take on this challenging role at a time when our province has so many problems to deal with.  

The specific focus of this letter is to urge you to take a stand against any further Public Private Partnerships (P3s) for upgrading infrastructure in our province.  We cite three reasons:

1.    There is increasing awareness that P3s are not in the public interest.  For example:  In Canada  five provincial auditors general have said that P3s cost taxpayers substantially more. They have also found that, instead of transferring the risk to the private sector – one of the main justifications for privatization – provincial governments usually end up assuming all the risk. Similar concerns exist in Europe.  In 2018, the European Court of Auditors reported widespread shortcomings in European P3s and the British government announced that it would no longer sign on to P3 projects.                                                                                                      
2.    Various reports show that P3s do not adequately benefit local economies. The initial investment required is often too high for local businesses to participate as anything other than minor players. Meanwhile, the profits leave the province. It can also be extremely difficult to cancel P3 contracts even if there is massive mismanagement.   
                                                     
3.     P3s shift the costs of infrastructure projects to future governments. That’s an unfair burden to place on tomorrow’s taxpayers. We believe it is self-serving to assume that the economic prospects of our children and grand-children are going to be rosier than those of this generation. 

We would also like to draw your attention to a recent report on P3 projects in this province by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.  The report judged consulting firm Ernst and Young’s seven to twelve percent assessment of savings using P3s to have been both optimistic and flawed.  The CCPA documented many biases in the EY assessment, which is not surprising given that the company had a vested interest in promoting the projects.
​
In conclusion, we don’t disagree with much of the PERT report's analysis with respect to the extent of our province's economic problems. We recognize that something has to be done. Hard choices have to be made.

However, the emphasis on privatizing public assets and public services goes against growing evidence worldwide that this is not in the economic interests of the public.   The PERT report is, to us, reminiscent of the kind of IMF directives that have been imposed on indebted Third World countries over the last 70 years.  Consider where that got those countries – loss of sovereign decision making and increased dependency on mega projects, backed and controlled by elite corporations.
 
We urge you to explore alternatives to the privatization “solutions” implicitly promoted in “The Big Reset”. There has to be a better, more progressive way forward. 

Marilyn Reid and John Jacobs
for Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians
http://avaloncouncilofcanadians.weebly.com/

A combination of advances in automation, COVID19, and globalization threaten to radically shrink employment opportunities in Canada.  Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer.  What are we going to do about disappearing jobs?


​
​In a recent article for Social Europe, American academic Branco Milanovic suggests that working from home during the pandemic could radically change the demographics of work.  He postulates that “as performance of a job becomes divorced from physical presence at the work-post, it will open many jobs to anyone with a Wi-Fi connection around the world.”

In other words, just as 20th century globalization very quickly offshored working class manufacturing jobs, our pandemic world could kick start the large-scale outsourcing of previously “safe” middle class jobs.  Why pay Canadian wages when you can get the work done for a fraction of the cost elsewhere?

The Hollowing out of the Middle Class

Whether or not that will happen is still conjecture.    What we do know, however, is that the next wave of AI advances won’t just focus on replacing traditional working class jobs.  Expect many jobs that require a post-secondary education to disappear.   
​
Here’s a list of the kinds of jobs that are already in the process of being automated: 

• Customer service agents
• Market analysts
• Sales managers
• Programmers
• Auditors and book-keepers
• Radiologists
• Middle managers
• Researchers
• Insurance underwriters
• Paralegals

The new reality is that any job whose routine can be learned will be at risk of being replaced by robots and algorithms.  The jobs that will remain safe are those that focus on non-routine task which involve perception and mobility. These are the jobs at the high and low end of the income scale.

At present, low paying non-routine jobs are largely service occupations involved in the assisting or caring for others.  The sad irony is that they are often the workers we need the most during times of crisis. 

High paying non-routine cognitive occupations include upper managerial consultants, professionals,  and technical experts. Middle management, on the other hand, is steadily being replaced by algorithms. As Yale professor Daniel Markovits, author of The Meritocracy Trap, points out in The Atlantic, top managers no longer work their way up through the ranks.  They are increasingly parachuted in from the top with a mindset to cut bureaucratic waste - a euphemism for jobs.

In other words, our middle class is being hollowed out, with a very small group moving up, and an ever larger group moving down the income ladder.  Millennials, already the principal victims of the corporate world's enthusiasm for precarious work, will probably be the hardest hit.

The Exponential Growth of Automation in the Work Place

According to a 2020 survey by the World Economic Forum, one half of the time spent on tasks at work in large companies will be done by machines by 2025.  To put that in perspective, in 2016 only 29% of those tasks were automated. The WEF prediction doesn’t stand alone. Multiple studies done prior to the pandemic -- by the McKinsey Global Institute, Oxford University and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, among others — assert that there is massive and unavoidable change afoot. 

The pandemic, not surprisingly, is accelerating that change.

Big Business’s “Solution” to Growing Job Losses

The business world presents retraining as the only option to address the looming unemployment crisis.  There are three problems with that approach.

First, retraining programs have a very poor outcomes record. A 2019 report from the US White House Council of Economic Advisors found that “government job training programs appear to be largely ineffective and fail to produce sufficient benefits for workers to justify the costs”. The same is probably true for Canada.

Second, given the speed and scope of advances in automation how do you know what jobs to retrain for?  

Third, companies deploying automation and AI say the technology allows them to create new jobs. But, according to a report from Time Magazine, “the number of new jobs is often minuscule compared with the number of jobs lost.” There are going to be too many people looking for too few jobs.

The sobering reality is that Big Business doesn’t care about job losses.  I like to think that small local businesses do.  But, like workers, they too have been pummeled by COVID19. More than 200,000 Canadian small businesses could shut their doors permanently due to the pandemic according to a recent survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Meanwhile, Wall Street “minted 56 new billionaires since the pandemic began” with the largest gains in wealth amongst the Big Tech companies and their owners. Here in Canada “the country’s top 20 billionaires have amassed an average of nearly $2 billion each in wealth during six of the most economically catastrophic months in Canadian history.”

A Radically Different way Forward

The solution to the looming job crisis is not to retrain people for jobs that will probably continue to be replaced by advances in automation.

The solution is to create and value non-routine jobs that cannot be displaced by automation.  Big Business is not going to be interested in this. It won’t be profitable enough. The creation of non-routine jobs will have to be a government financed initiative.

It's an initiative for which there is an historical precedent.  It wasn’t the private sector that lifted Canada out of the 1930s depression.  It was government spending - spending that built our province’s infrastructure and created jobs across the country over a 38 year (1938-1974) period. All of this was managed without the federal government incurring large debts thanks to an innovative, but deliberately forgotten, use of quantitative easing.

But let’s be clear.  Government funding does not mean handing out government money to big corporations in the manner of the provincial government’s gift of over $300 million to oil companies, supposedly to protect NL oil workers’ jobs – jobs that are actually going to be impacted heavily by automation in the future. 

The money would go to jobs that build community and strengthen the environment.  There’s a growing movement advocating for the development of this kind of “People’s Economy”, where jobs could be devised, created and run, not just by governments, but by community and environmental groups. If you are curious about how it could be administered, check out this short video.  Or take a look at how the  this Toronto neighbourhood is working towards that goal.  

Conclusion

There is no historical precedent for what is happening to jobs. Throughout human history workers have always been needed to fuel the economy, even if they did that as slaves.  That’s about to change.

We can either acquiesce to that change, maybe even get some sort of basic income supplement to fend off the hard times as jobs collapse.  That’s certainly what the corporate world would prefer.   Or, we can redefine work and in doing so begin to create a different economy.

Acquiescence will, in my opinion, lead to powerless poverty, massive long-term unemployment,  weakened democracy, and an economy dominated and controlled by monopolies and the oligarchs behind them. It will be a mistake to assume that this will be benevolent leadership.  


On the other hand, it’s doubtful that our political leaders will have the will to challenge the corporate economy in even the smallest of ways.   The neoliberal ethos that government should stay out of the market has permeated parliamentary and civil service culture for the last 30 years. 

Change will only happen if we, the public, loudly demand it. That will require political activism, something that we Canadians are not very good at. 
​
But there is a lot at stake.  And the timing is right.

Marilyn Reid

 ​Universal Basic Income, which is a federal guaranteed monthly payment to individuals, is a hot topic at the moment.  It’s also a confusing one.    Some groups want to restrict accessibility to people on low incomes while others insist that everybody should receive it. Some want it to be administered in conjunction with other social services while others see it as a replacement of these services. 

Most of the discussion focuses on the immediate effect it will have on people’s lives.  Very few people are looking at the long-term impact.  That’s the major focus of this blog posting. 

But first, let’s look at the cost of UBI.   

According to a 2020 study by the conservative think tank, the Fraser Institute, a monthly federal payment of $2000 to Canadians between the ages of 18 and 64 would cost $464 billion a year.  Per capita, that is similar to estimates  by a recently released study on UBI commissioned by the B.C government.

This is an enormous amount given that the federal government only brought in  $338.8 billion in revenues in 2019, and ran a deficit of $19.8 billion. As for taxing the rich more to pay for UBI, the Fraser Institute study estimated that collecting the entire disposable income from those earning over $250,000 a year would be sufficient to cover only 25 percent of the program’s cost.  

The extensive use of tax havens by corporations would also make it very difficult to get money from that sector.

Given the cost, if we get UBI, the monthly payment will, in all probability, be a much lower amount. However, even a $600 version of UBI would still represent over 40% of government expenditures and could come with cuts to existing programs. It’s why so many anti-poverty organizations and left wing think tanks are opposed to UBI. They believe that low monthly payments, coupled with a contraction of government services, could exacerbate poverty rather than reduce it.

They have a point. But what worries me even more is what UBI could mean for future generations.  Here are five questions I think UBI advocates who genuinely believe the program will lead to a better world need to grapple with.           
                    
 Will UBI be an obstacle to finding solutions to the looming job crisis that is predicted?

A 2013 report out of Oxford University estimated US job losses of 47% over the next few decades due to advances in automation. This was backed up by a 2020 survey of large businesses done by the World Economic Forum.  Business leaders estimated that the time spent on current tasks at work in their corporations by humans and machines would be equal by 2025.    
 
This scenario suggests a need for government to actively begin creating jobs in the manner of the New Deal during the Great Depression. But where will the money come from, both now and in the future, given the massive financial commitment government will be already making if we get UBI?

 Who really profits from UBI?
 
The billionaire class (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elan Musk, etc.) are in favour of Universal Basic Income.  So too are 120 Canadian CEOs and business owners. And why wouldn’t they be? Maintaining consumption in the past has always been tied to employment and adequate wages.  Those UBI monthly payments, not just to people who need the money for basic needs, but to many in the middle class who don’t, will stimulate and subsidize consumption even as the automation related layoffs roll out. There will also be very little pressure to raise wages for two reasons. One is the monthly top-ups workers will be receiving. The other is the growing surplus of laid-off workers, many of whom will want to find work.  Expect  higher profit margins for owners and shareholders with UBI.
 
Where there are winners, there are always losers. One that UBI enthusiasts are perhaps not considering is the environment – an environment that is already deeply scarred by too much disposable stuff. Should government be facilitating this by promoting the consumption of more stuff? UBI for everybody will do that.

Will UBI lead to greater inequality?

In the past, reductions in inequality happened because workers were able to collectively threaten to withdraw their labour. Just as outsourcing jobs to other countries shifted that power dynamic between workers and employers in 20th century Canada, so too will the automation revolution. Only this time it won’t be just blue-collar work that is affected.  Algorithms are expected to substantially reduce middle class jobs, including managerial positions. 

The effects could be long term. The speed of IT breakthroughs has no historical precedent and is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace.  We really don’t know where it’s going to take us. If we don’t focus on creating new and different jobs, jobs that can’t be replaced by robots and algorithms, we could end up with a huge, powerless, unemployed and underemployed underclass.  A worst-case scenario would take us right back to the massive inequality and exploitation of the 19th century when 10% of the population owned 90% of the wealth.

Do we really want to leave the responsibility for job creation entirely to the private sector?  In choosing UBI with its huge costs that is exactly what we are doing.           
                    
Will UBI weaken democratic government?

It isn’t just that UBI deprives government of the funds to create jobs, or introduce a national pharmacare or dental care program, or put much needed money into affordable housing, public transit, day care, etc.
​
In prioritizing payments directly to people rather than through institutions, UBI reinforces the neoliberal belief that “the Greater Good” is best achieved through individual effort. I worry that UBI will lead us further down the path that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher articulated when she said “There is no such thing as society”. Milton Friedman, the principal articulator of the belief in market control of human destiny, was an advocate of Universal Basic Income.  That should raise alarm bells.

Is there a better way that government can spend money to help people?  

In January 2021, a report commissioned by the BC, NDP government  to assess the viability of introducing UBI in B.C. was published.  More than 40 experts participated in the 518 page study which in the end rejected UBI as a way forward to create a more just society. Researchers made 65 recommendations that included reforms to social services, taxation, labour standards, housing, disability assistance and income support.

It is an excellent report, but what it doesn’t do is directly address the job losses predicted through advances in automation. An approach that does do that, is a Job Guarantee program to all those who want to work, paid for by the federal government, but designed and administered at the local level by local groups.

​This is not workfare. The emphasis would be on jobs that care for communities and the environment they live in – jobs that can’t be replaced by robots.   For an understanding of what this kick-start to a “people’s economy” might look like, you could check out our short eight minute video. It’s based largely on the work of American academic Pavlina Tcherneva.

Conclusions
 
Sigmund Freud said that “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Of course, he meant that the work has to be meaningful. Much of the work in our consumer-oriented society does not meet that criterion.  The work place has become far more exploitative and precarious than it was 50 years ago when I and other baby boomers entered it. 
 
The consequences are sobering.  According to a 2020 report by the Parliamentary Budget Office, the top 10% of the population now owns 56.5% of Canadian wealth, the top 20% holds 73.5% and the bottom 40% just 1.2%. As for income, the above BC report claimed that one in three single BC working age adults were living in poverty.   Expect those statistics to worsen as robots and algorithms continue to displace jobs.
 
UBI enthusiasts, in my opinion, are too optimistic about long-term outcomes. The underlying UBI assumption is that the future will be governed by the same norms that apply in the present, and that

• enough jobs will still be there for those who want them.
• wages will not stagnate and could rise as workers have the option to turn down lousy jobs.
• public services won’t be cut or privatized.
• UBI payments will be sufficient and keep up with inflation.
• unions will still have some power.
• the majority of those who aren’t working and can’t find work will be content with this, thanks to their monthly UBI income.
• Government’s ability to act in the public interest will still be there.

What if the above suppositions ultimately end up as wishful thinking? That could happen.  What UBI supporters are not recognizing is the ways in which UBI, albeit unintentionally, will strengthen corporate power at the expense of democratic choices.  The consequences could be both unforeseen and unpleasant, as the corporate world rarely acts benevolently of its own volition. History has shown us that.

I understand the attraction of UBI.  At first glance it seems so fair and egalitarian.  But, for all of the reasons I’ve detailed above, I believe it could be a Trojan Horse.  There has to be a better way to reduce poverty and growing inequality.


​
Marilyn Reid

On February 24th a private member's bill on Pharmacare was voted down by the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois.  Do the bulk of our MPs really not want Pharmacare?  That seems unlikely.  Our letter to the Telegram suggests that there were other factors at work.   

Letter to Telegram:  Why was the Private Member’s Bill on Pharmacare defeated?

During the 2019 federal election the Liberal government promised to “take the critical next steps to implement national universal Pharmacare so that all Canadians have the drug coverage they need at an affordable price.” This came after a 2017 report from the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated that a universal Pharmacare system would save Canadians more than $4 billion a year.

On February 24th the Liberals appeared to renege on that promise by defeating a private member’s bill that would have introduced a legal framework to allow the federal government to begin negotiating arrangements with the provinces.

Newfoundland and Labrador consistently scores last among the provinces on measures of overall health. Given that reality, we find it hard to believe that our six Liberal MPs are not in favour of Pharmacare. Is it not much more likely that the Whip system was in play, as it so often is in Canadian politics? Canada apparently has the most rigid party discipline of any nation that uses the British Westminster system.

That discipline extends not just to the Whip. As MUN professor, Alex Marland, points out in his recent book “Whipped”, it goes right through party infrastructure. Politicians have described (anonymously) their role as “useless”, “that of a lackey on a leash”, “jack-in-the-box who pop up to vote” and “invisible”.

Our question is: Who whips the Whips? Because, if decisions and policies are being developed exclusively in the back rooms of the Privy Council and Prime Minister’s Office in conjunction with powerful corporate lobbyists, then our democracy has become a mere façade – a façade behind which lurks Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Pharma and other Bigs.

It’s one of the reasons we support Proportional Representation. PR is not a perfect system. Nevertheless, those coalition governments it tends to produce at least make it harder for corporate elites to influence policy to the extent that they do here in Canada.

As for our MPs, we feel for them. The travel inconvenience and career uncertainty are bad enough. But to then realize that your ideals and those of your constituents have so little influence in Ottawa must be profoundly discouraging. Pharmacare is probably just one of many disappointments.

This is not the way democracy is supposed to work.

 Marilyn Reid,
The Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians.

 
“The changes unleashed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.”
                                        Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum (2017)
 

The changes Klaus Schwab is referring to are technological -- major advances over the last decade in artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, blockchains, biotechnology, quantum computing, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and more.

The speed of these breakthroughs has no historical precedent and is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. According to a 2020 survey by the World Economic Forum, one half of the time spent on tasks at work in large companies will be done by machines by 2025.  To put that in perspective in 2016 only 29% of those tasks were automated.

Looking at this from a consumer perspective, the Fourth Industrial Revolution promises us cheaper and more convenient access to all sorts of new stuff.

The peril, however, is unprecedented job losses.

There is much talk of retraining for the new digital age. While retraining is important, it is difficult to see how automation is going to create anywhere near enough jobs to make up for losses. Moreover, there is always the risk that the retrained jobs will themselves get automated.  We just don't know how far this automation revolution will take us.

The CEOs of industry understand that. It’s why so many of them are now coming out in favour of a Universal Basic Income, in which all residents (say between 18 and 65) receive monthly payments from government, regardless of whether they have a job or not. 

This, understandably, can seem immensely appealing to those stuck in precarious work where all too often you are underpaid and undervalued. But UBI does nothing to address the root of the problem, which is job destruction.

Unless we address this, there is the real danger that we will end up with a very small group of people with much sought-after high-tech skills that do very well, and a whole lot of people who don’t. A worse case scenario is a marginalized underclass of permanently undervalued and underemployed citizens.

One obvious solution to this dilemma is to create jobs that the machines can’t do. These would be the jobs that enrich our sense of community and fellowship - jobs that bring us together and deliver meaning to our lives.

The private sector doesn’t do a very good job at creating that kind of work. The desire to make every more money gets in the way. But government could.

What if, instead of a Universal Basic Income, we offered to everybody who wanted it a Guaranteed Basic Job? What if we made the focus of those jobs community and environmental improvements? What if we allowed local communities to decide what their needs and wants were? 

Two authors have both written and spoken extensively about that very possibility. Pavlina Tcherneva outlines how the jobs could be created in “A Case for a Job Guarantee”, and Stephanie Kelton writes about how a job guarantee could be financed through Modern Monetary Theory in “The Deficit Myth”.
​
As for us, we’ve made an eight-minute video summarizing why Canadians should consider a Federal Job Guarantee, how it could work in practice, and how it could be financed. Please consider checking it out. 

We live in a time of unprecedented crises – climate change, biodiversity implosion and now our pandemic.  Unprecedented crises demand unprecedented action. A federal job guarantee with an emphasis on grass root participation may not be a sufficient answer to the multiple crises of our age.  But it is a good first step.  

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is increasingly a buzz word in conversations.  The concept of giving all adults, both those who are working and those who are unemployed, a monthly income seems both fair and egalitarian.  As a short term solution to crises like our current COVID pandemic it makes perfect sense. 

But there are some sobering implications about making UBI a permanent fixture of our economy – implications that are explored in this eight-minute video, entitled “Could Universal Basic Income be a Trojan Horse?"  We invite you to check it out.

​Did you know that among the ten provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest percentage  of rural communities without banking services?   It's actually a  situation that is getting worse across the country, as the big banks shut down more and more rural branches.

That very inconvenient problem could be solved by giving Canada Post banking status.  It's not a new idea.  There has been a cross country push for postal banking for almost two decades - a push that is, not surprisingly opposed by the banking sector.  

Our partner group, the Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians has made a short eight minute YouTube video exploring the reasons why rural Canadians both need and deserve postal banking.  It asks the question:  Why does the federal government consistently refuse to address the problem? 

We bet you can guess the answer. 

  You can check  out the video here.

Community groups in Newfoundland and Labrador are worried that that is exactly what is going to happen.  Here is what the local Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians had to say in a Nov. 4th Letter to the Telegram. 

 
                                 The Trouble with Bubbles

With the word “bubble” now so trendy, this seems a good time to critique the bubbles surrounding leadership in our dominant political parties. 

The Goliath of our troubled political bubbles belongs, without doubt, to the Conservative Party.  We had a Conservative government ensconced in a bubble with a powerful premier at the centre, obedient minions in the civil service, and an entourage of business interests who cared only about immediate profits.  No one outside that bubble was listened to. Result: Muskrat Falls. 

Then there were the Ball government’s bubbles.  Probably the most memorable is that first incredible, 2016 budget attempt that put a levy tax of 1.2% on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians struggling with incomes less than $25,000, but only .45% on those making $200,000 or more.  It was quite an amazing demonstration of how those in bubbles of privilege, even when well meaning, can have little understanding of the economic reality of ordinary people.

Already there’s evidence that similar blinkered, bubble trouble may thrive with the new Furey government. An example is the Task Force recently commissioned to spend the $320 million allocated to the province by the Trudeau government.  The federal money came with two loosely worded conditions  -  that it  be used to support laid off oil workers and  that it  reduce carbon emissions.  For those of us who thought that meant training and channeling workers into green economy jobs, dream on. 

What we got was a Task Force in which 19 of the 21 appointees came with strong links to the offshore industry.   We’ve also got leadership in both the Liberal and Conservative parties itching to make sure that as much of that money as possible goes to helping the oil sector stay in the province.

We shouldn’t be surprised.  The oil sector is very, very good at getting money out of governments.  According to a 2019 International Monetary Fund report, when you include damages done to the environment and atmosphere that the industry doesn’t pay for, the subsidies to oil in 2017 were a staggering $2.13 trillion or 2.7% of world GDP that year.  And that was a typical year.

Like other community groups, we do understand that the government is between a rock and a hard place, and that, at this point in time, we need to slowly transition away from our dependence on oil.  But that transition may ultimately be necessary, like it or not.  Choosing to minimize exposure to other points of view and other directions is what we don’t need.

Prioritizing one “solution” above everything else is exactly the kind of bubble trouble that gave us our Muskrat Falls mess. 
 
Marilyn Reid, on behalf of the Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians

The 21st century has seen a dramatic shift away from steady work with benefits and into precarious work.  With that has come stress, uncertainty and increased debt load for many people.

So what changed?  What went wrong? Could it be globalization? 

This eight minute video, made by the Avalon Chapter of the Council of Canadians, argues that there is a cause-effect relationship between “free trade”, trade agreements  and precarious employment. It questions the motivation of government in signing trade agreements that do not appear to be in the public interest.  
​
We hope you will consider watching it. 

For those of us who are opposed to Public-Private Partnerships, the appointment of Dame Moya Greene to  chair the Economic Recovery Team is a little unnerving. This letter to the Telegram by Helen Forsey articulately expresses our concerns.  We couldn't have said it better.

               Difficult decisions by others usually means more pain for us   

​While the appointment of a highly qualified woman to chair the economic recovery team is very welcome, I am somewhat wary of the establishment background that Dame Moya Greene brings to the task (“Meet the woman tasked with helping chart Newfoundland and Labrador's fiscal recovery,” Sept. 5, The Telegram.)Greene’s history with Transport Canada, TD Securities, Canada Post and the U.K’s Royal Mail all suggest a high level of comfort with neo-liberalism, the market-oriented policy framework that typically embraces deregulation, privatization and austerity.

In recent decades, neo-liberalism — formerly termed neo-conservatism — has largely taken over in political circles, shaping government policies for the worse without our even being aware of it.
Classic neo-liberal approaches include bottom-line corporatism, privatization and public-private partnerships (P3s) — all core aspects of Greene’s professional record.

The be-all and end-all of the neo-liberal management credo is “efficiency,” and Greene apparently buys into it lock, stock and barrel.The important thing, she says, is to ask: “Is the corporation efficient?”

But “efficient” for what purpose?

Businesses exist to maximize profit, and efficiency can help.

Public services, however — health care, schools, the post office — exist to serve the public, and profit-oriented efficiency often contradicts that purpose.

Moreover, as John Ralston Saul has pointed out, efficiency and democracy don’t go together well. Democracy, he says, “is intended to be inefficient.”

As for privatization, Greene claims that what matters is not “who owns the shares” but whether or not the corporation is efficient.

Again, though, efficient for what purpose?

During COVID-19, profit-motivated cost-cutting by privately owned long-term care homes in other provinces sacrificed people’s lives on the altar of efficiency.

Eugene Forsey — the late trade unionist, constitutional expert, senator, Newfoundlander, and my father — described privatization as “the biggest international romp ever mounted by the rich for skinning the poor.”

In a 1980 article in Macleans magazine, he wrote: “Neo-conservatism, of which privatization is the first instalment … is just a slick, high-falutin’ synonym for something very far from ‘neo’ and much closer to the very old ‘Every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost.’”

When the powerful warn of “painful and difficult” decisions to come, it tends to indicate that the outcomes will indeed be painful for us as citizens, especially for those already struggling to make ends meet or cope with sexism and racism.

While political consequences may make things difficult for the decision-makers, the actual pain will likely be reserved for the rest of us.
​
Helen Forsey
St. John’s

Real transformative change often happens when there is a crisis.  

It was the Great Depression that pushed the US government under Franklin D Roosevelt to constrain and regulate the banking elites that had caused the financial collapse.  In Canada, government under Prime Minister McKenzie King implemented even more radical steps, first by nationalizing the Bank of Canada, and then, by using its money creation powers, to finance a golden period of public infrastructure growth in our country which lasted from 1938-1974.  

As you can see from the graph below that golden period was financed with minimum debt load to the Canadian people.  In fact, it was only when we abandoned using the money creation powers of the Bank of Canada that our national debt exploded. 

What the Canadian government did would be called Quantitative Easing (QE) today.  But it’s a form of Quantitative Easing very different from what governments are currently using to rescue and stimulate economies savaged by the Covid19 pandemic. 

The current and prevailing Quantitative Easing model  assumes that money injected into the financial system will trickle down to Main Street and the small businesses and workers that populate that economy.   Except that it doesn’t.  Research from Europe, the United States and Great Britain suggests that over the last 12 years of their experiment with QE, it has been the rich that have profited the most.

That kind of profiteering and self-interest is not what we need during the present crisis. Instead, we need a Quantitative Easing framework that serves the needs of ordinary people.   Check out our YouTube explanation of how one could work.

We thought this blog by the local chapter of the Council of Canadians was worth publishing, as it echoes our worries about the creeping privatization through P3s of public services.  Prior to the election of the current NL Liberal government there were no public private partnership agreements in our province.  We now have four.  We do not want our water infrastructure to join that group.    Read on to find out how that could happen.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
 
According to media reports, St. John’s, Mount Pearl and Paradise have to collectively come up with $250 million to upgrade their waste-water infrastructure.  At the provincial level, NL municipalities could be looking at an overall cost of $600 million to meet the new federal regulations.  The big question for all of us is where the money for these upgrades is going to come from.

Our concern is that NL municipalities may be forced into some sort of public private partnership (P3). This posting explains what P3s are, why we are opposed to them, and how we think a P3 agreement might  be imposed  on us.


Part A:   A brief history of P3 agreements
Part B:   Why we oppose P3 agreements for waste-water infrastructure
Part C:   The role of the Harper government in promoting P3s
Part D:   The role of the new Canada Infrastructure Bank in P3 promotion
Part E:    Will our province  be Ground Zero for the privatization of waste-water infrastructure?
Part F:   The Blue Community Movement

Part A:  A brief history of P3 agreements

In a typical P3 agreement a consortium of private sector players finances the project and provides the architectural, constructional and management expertise. A tightly bound contract is drawn up between government and the consortium. Then, over a 20 to 30 year period the private sector group reclaims the money from the public, either through tolls (P3 bridges and highways) or by directly charging governments (water infrastructure).

Public private partnerships have been pushed as a solution to funding  infrastructure upgrades since the 1990s. At that time, governing parties in the richer countries saw P3s as a way of shifting budgetary expenses to future years.  This camouflage of expenditures allowed governing parties to look more fiscally responsible as elections approached. 

In the Global South the story was different.  International organizations like the World Bank imposed privatization of one sort or another on governments, by making them a condition of a country’s loan agreement.

In spite of the propaganda spouted by so many financial institutions, water related P3s have not for the most part been a success.   Maude Barlow, our honorary chairperson at the Council of Canadians, and a former senior advisor to the UN on water related issues states it succinctly. “Private water and wastewater services employ fewer staff, cut corners on source protection, provide poorer customer service and charge higher rates.” 

Unfortunately for poorer countries with heavy debt loads, re-municipalization is not easy, given the continuing enthusiastic support of privatization by the international financial institutions. It’s a different story in richer countries, however.

France,  is a particularly interesting example of the recent pushback against P3.   The country is the home of the two  largest water corporations in the world (Veolia and Suez). Yet, since the year 2000 more than one hundred French municipalities have taken back public control of water.

At a broader level, the European Court of Auditors have detailed widespread shortages and limited benefits in EU public private partnerships.

 

Part B:  Why we oppose P3 agreements for waste-water infrastructure

The concern of our local CoC chapter is that, just as the rest of the world is seriously questioning and retreating from the privatization of water, Newfoundland and Labrador may be forced into accepting a “P3 solution” for waste-water upgrades.   Here are six reasons for our opposition to going the P3 route for waste-water infrastructure.

1.  P3s constrain our human right to public water and sanitation.
In 2010 the United Nations recognized the human right to water and sanitation as an essential part of the right to life. The Human Rights Council further clarified that governments have the primary responsibility to deliver these new rights. P3s obstruct and limit this responsibility.

2.  P3s lead to the loss of public control.
Given that P3s effectively grant monopolistic power to private sector consortiums, we should take note of what has happened elsewhere in the world. As Nicholas Shaxson, author of The Finance Curse, explains in his critique of P3s in Great Britain:

 “The top down state sets long term performance targets, which can never cover all the possible eventualities. The highly complex contracts are impossible to monitor effectively and influence in a changing world. The players constantly try to shirk and wriggle out of commitments and whenever there is a clash, the government which has outsourced its expertise to private actors gets dragged into bargaining games it can’t win. Government has lost its ability to understand what is going on.”

3.  P3s impose additional costs and burdens on taxpayers and the local economy.
US research indicates that private  providers of waste-water infrastructure charge on average 63% more than governments for service delivery. 

 Unfortunately, there are no Canadian statistics yet available on P3 waste-water projects. However, cost analyses have been done on other P3 projects (health care, transportation, etc.). As a result, six auditor generals, (Ontario, BC, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan as well as the federal auditor general) have made extensive criticisms of the additional costs of the P3 approach.  

Keep in mind also that the “partnership” between government and the private sector is rarely a partnership with local businesses. That’s because local businesses generally do not have the resources to meet the financial requirements of a P3. Instead, the partnership is invariably with powerful corporations with no emotional ties to local communities. That means that almost all profits will leave the province. Furthermore, in order to increase profits, P3 management often cut back on workers and benefits. That can have an effect on quality control.

4.  Risks remain with the public sector.
Canadian auditor generals also concluded that instead of transferring the risk to the private sector – one of the main justifications for privatization – provincial governments usually end up assuming all the risk in P3 arrangements.  In other words, it’s public risks but private profits. 

5.  P3s could lead to permanent privatization.        
Did you know that there is a ratchet clause in the CETA trade agreement between Canada and the European Union that states that once a service has been privatized it cannot be re-municipalized as long as CETA exists? Water delivery is exempted. Waste-water is not. Currently, the perception is that government has the option of taking back control at the end of the project term. Under CETA, maybe not.  It’s impossible to predict how any challenge to re-municipalization might play out in an ISDS court. 

6.  P3s unfairly disadvantage future generations.
Under a P3 arrangement, the initial financing of projects is done by the private sector. In the past this has allowed governments of the day seeking re-election to look more fiscally responsible as project costs are pushed into the future. The neoliberal rationale for this decision has been that as the economy continues to grow it will be easier for future generations to pay the cost. Except that we now know that talk about future growth may be just a fantasy, particularly in our province. We would argue that this transfer of extra cost obligations to a future generation is no longer (if it ever was) an honourable option.  
 
Part C: The role of the Harper government in promoting P3s

Way back in 2012 the Conservative government under Steven Harper introduced new regulations for waste-water infrastructure. These regulations, which were to come into force in the years leading up to 2020, required secondary processing standards for sewage treatment. Around 40% of Canadian municipalities were affected by this legislation at estimated costs between $18 billion and $24 billion. Here in our province, 90% of municipalities are theoretically required to upgrade at a cost of around $600 million. We say theoretically, because small communities will probably be exempt, simply because the effluents they dump into the ocean are below the threshold amount designated for upgrades.

While we acknowledge the need and importance of upgrading waste-water infrastructure in our province we are suspicious of the real motives of the Harper government. After all, this was a government that deliberately gutted regulations related to Canada’s lakes and rivers, effectively leaving 99% of them unprotected.

Consider the following two points:  

• Shortly after introducing the new regulations, the Harper government required all governments making infrastructure upgrades with costs over $100 million to go the P3 route. What is worth noting here is that, at that point in time, P3 consortiums were rarely interested in projects under $100 million.
• Only around 20 municipalities across the country had entered into P3 arrangements for water or sewer infrastructure. Cities and towns across the country were clearly resisting P3 pressure.

Can you see a connection here? Create the circumstances under which municipalities must spend money on infrastructure, and then either require them to go the P3 route or limit other funding options.  We don’t believe it is a coincidence that so many sources for federal grants have been canceled or allowed to run out over the last seven years.

Part D: The role of the new Canada Infrastructure Bank in P3 promotion

The present federal government has withdrawn the insistence that public infrastructure projects over $100 million go the P3 route in order to access any federal grants. That’s good. What the Liberals have not done, however, is provide adequate funding through grants or loans so that municipalities can make the required upgrades to waste-water infrastructure. That doesn’t jibe with the Liberal campaign promise back in 2015 to spend money on building and strengthening Canadian infrastructure.

Many voters envisioned that 2015 campaign promise as some sort of FDR New Deal where government would incur debt and then spend it throughout the country by subsidizing infrastructure projects, either through direct grants to lower levels of government or through loans to local businesses and municipalities. But that’s not what we got – not at all!

During their first term of office the Liberal government formed the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB). This is a crown corporation completely controlled by the private sector. There appear to be no government representative on its board of directors and civil society groups have very little access to its deliberations and policies.  

The CIB’s declared mission is to build Canadian infrastructure through public private partnerships.  But is that the way it’s really going to play out?  We can’t help wondering how many CIB promoted P3s are going to end up capturing and controlling already existing public infrastructure  -  infrastructure like our waste-water systems.  Furthermore, given the corporate control of the CIB’s board and administration it’s hard not to conclude that CIB sponsored P3 contractual agreements could be significantly biased  in favor of the private sector consortia and the big corporations they represent.

The CIB’s  goal is to leverage private sector P3 investments of up to $140 billion over the next ten years.  To that end the federal government has committed $35 billion to be spent over that time period.  A small amount may go to municipalities. For example, Mapleton, Ontario was recently loaned $20 million to be put towards waste-water infrastructure upgrades.  But here’s the interesting part.  The caveat was that the $20 million was to be used  to “attract private capital expertise” through a P3 agreement.

If the CIB’s money is not being spent on directly financing infrastructure projects, where is the bulk of it going?     It turns out that a large part of the $35 billion federal investment in the CIB is to be used to subsidize the borrowing costs for corporations bidding on P3s. That’s to be done by loaning consortium partners money at a lower rate than they could get on their own in the money markets. As a co-investor, the CIB can also mitigate some of the unexpected risks a consortium might face by injecting capital at key points.

All of this makes P3 projects, even smaller ones like Mapleton (population 11,000), appear a lot less risky for the private sector. But still, the private sector would really prefer larger projects - which is why there is increasing reference to the concept of “bundling” on P3 promoting Internet sites.
 In the past, the term was used to refer to the bundling of different partners within a particular consortium. The new talk however, is of persuading communities to bundle together. A practical example would be if Lewisporte, Twillingate, Gander and Grand Falls bundled together as partners in order to encourage a P3 investor to come in at a lower cost option.

Worse case scenario:  The majority of municipalities needing upgrades across the province agree to bundling in the interests of saving money.

Part E: Will our province be Ground Zero for waste-water infrastructure privatization?
There is, of course, the possibility that our fears about the privatization of waste-water infrastructure are unfounded. P3s for waste-water management have not to our knowledge been formally proposed.  That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t eventually be slid onto the table. 

Certainly, the federal government is pushing municipalities to do something. As reported in a CBC article, in some cases town managers in NL municipalities that don’t have an infrastructure upgrade plan in place have been threatened with $500,000 fines and two years in prison. The federal government is obviously well aware that our towns are several hundred million dollars short of having the money to make the required upgrades. Why then this bullying unless it is to push communities into a corner where they believe P3s are the only way out?

That raises questions about how much support municipalities that want to resist a P3 “solution” are going to receive from the provincial government.  There are reasons for pessimism.

First, it is very possible that the present Liberal government is, itself, in favour of a P3 “solution” for our waste-water infrastructure crisis. Since taking office in 2015, the Liberals have gone the P3 route for the proposed mental health hospital, the new prison and two nursing homes.  By contrast, there were no P3s in Newfoundland and Labrador prior to 2015. The Liberals may also argue that they simply can’t find the money given the current fiscal problems the province faces.

This fiscal dilemma is further complicated by a federal government that appears to be ideologically slanted towards some sort of privatization of public infrastructure. Does that mean they won’t consider other strategies like actually loaning federal money to our municipalities or pushing into the future the 2020 deadline? Who knows?

The one bright point is that we have a minority government with potential opposition to the P3 route from the other parties. But will they come out against P3s and will they look for other solutions?

Water related infrastructure is very possibly the next frontier in the private sector’s quest to gain greater control of Canada’s lucrative public infrastructure delivery.  If that is so, our province, thanks to its dismal fiscal situation and the many communities needing upgrades, may well be Ground Zero in that power shift.

Part F: Joining the Blue Communities Movement

 Did you know that, in the developed world, Paris, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Los Angeles and many other cities have become Blue Communities?  

The Blue Community movement was initiated back in 2009 by the Council of Canadians in partnership with CUPE and the Blue Planet Project. Blue Community members commit to three things.

• recognizing and protecting water as a human right
• protecting water as a public trust by promoting publicly financed, owned and operated water and waste-water services and
• banning or phasing out the sale of bottled water in municipal facilities and at municipal events.

This Fall, Los Angeles became the first American city to become a Blue Community.

We would like Newfoundland and Labrador municipalities to consider joining the 27 other Canadian communities right across the country in becoming a Blue Community.  But let's be practical.  First, we have to acknowledge that there may be forces in the business community and in government that are going to push  privatization at us through a P3 agreement.  

If and when that push come we have to be ready to say NO to any  P3 agreement on our water infrastructure delivery.

Privatization through public-private partnerships (P3s) was the silent elephant in the room during the emergency meeting held earlier this month between municipal counselors, MHAs and MPs. The September 6th meeting was called because Newfoundland and Labrador municipalities have to find $600 million in order to meet the looming deadline for upgrading our waste-water infrastructure to federal standards. Another $400 million will eventually be needed to upgrade water infrastructure.

With a federal election coming up next month, it’s not surprising MPs didn’t want to talk about P3s at the meeting. But make no mistake: both the federal Liberals and Conservatives are strongly in favour of them.

Under P3s, a corporation or consortium of corporations provides the initial financing of an infrastructure project. It then runs the project for two to three decades, charging governments for management and services rendered during that period.
​
There are compelling reasons why municipalities should try to resist the P3 route for waste-water improvements.  To find out what they are, check out our article in THE INDEPENDENT.

A local social justice group, the St. John's Chapter of the Council of Canadians, has recently taken a strong stand in support of Municipalities NL's request for a ban on single-use plastic bags. They've even done a visual survey of plastic bag consumption at local supermarkets around the  Avalon Peninsula. The results were a little surprising. Just 12% of shoppers in the sample used only reusable bags.  Another 4% had a combination of reusable and single-use bags.  


Why are we writing about this as well? What do plastic bags have to do with  our primary interest, which is the erosion of democratic principles both in and outside government?  Lots!  We've taken a good look at how the Liberal government has handled the request for a ban and we don't like what we see.  
 
The first question has to be: 
 
Is Municipalities NL's request reasonable?
 
Did you know that every year Newfoundlanders and Labradorians go through an estimated 100-120 million plastic bags, manufactured for single use? Only 3.5% of these bags are returned to retailers by shoppers. The rest end up pretty well everywhere. 

According to a recent UN report on global plastic bag pollution, these largely unrecycled bags will take hundreds of years to decompose. The bags won’t just deface our landscape. They will contaminate our soil and water. They will choke and kill wildlife on land and sea, and poison those creatures that manage to initially survive their ingestion.  

We now know that plastics are reaching the human food chain as well, thanks to a small but groundbreaking study published in October.  The study found microplastics in the guts and feces of all of their human subjects.  The researchers concluded that the source of this contamination was, not just fish, but, perhaps even more worrying, plastic packaging including drink bottles.  The implications are huge.  Statisticians are estimating that as much as half of the world's population may be contaminated. 

Governments are gradually waking up to the scope of the problem.  Two months ago the European Parliament voted to implement by 2021, not just a ban on single-use bags, but on a wide variety of other  single-use plastic packaging, To put that enormous undertaking into perspective, nearly 50% of the plastic waste generated globally is plastic packaging.

the European Union can do this because it is a powerful economic unit that crosses borders.  Most countries don't have that kind of control, given that plastic packaging seldom originates in the country in which the product is sold.   Countries can, however, exercise control over single-use plastic bags, and more and more are choosing to do so.  According to the United Nations report cited above around sixty nations have now instigated bans or levies on plastic bag use.  

In June of this year PEI became the first province in Canada to introduce legislation banning single-use plastic bags. The law will be implemented gradually, with a fee or levy of 15 cents per bag starting July 1, 2019. The fee will increase to 25 cents per bag on July 1, 2020. As of Jan.1, 2021, businesses could face fines for distributing free, single-use plastic bags to customers.

In light of all of the above, we believe that Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador showed both vision and leadership back in 2015 and again in 2017 when they asked government to introduce a similar province-wide ban.
 
Who is for and who is against a plastic bag ban in our province?

Municipalities NL is not alone in its request for a ban.  Few people know that back in 2016 the Liberal Party itself  passed a non- binding motion urging the government to implement a complete ban. The Leader of the  Opposition, Ches Crosbie has also come out in favour of a ban.
 
Then there is the government’s own report on management of single-use plastic bags. It points out that curbside recycling programs across most jurisdictions do not accept or want single-use plastic bags.
 
Government’s refusal to publicly commit to a ban is, of course, exactly what industry groups want. The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, the Canadian Plastics Association, the Retail Council of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses have all contacted government lobbying against a ban. They are suggesting that alternatives to a ban can be found.

What does the recycling "industry" not want us to know?

Just what those alternatives might be is very unclear given that bag recycling is not an economically viable option. According to figures cited in a 2013 article in the The Huffington Post, the estimated cost to recycle one tonne of plastic bags was $4000, while the market price for the  same tonnage of recycled bags was a mere $32.

Those shockingly mismatched statistics hint at a dirty little secret the recycling industry doesn’t want us to know. Large amounts of North America’s plastic trash have for years simply been shipped offshore to countries that were willing to accept it, presumably for other trade concessions.

China, a country with the biggest “mismanaged” plastic waste problem in the world has been the main recipient of our plastic garbage. But, since last January China has been refusing to take, not just single-use bags, but a number of other “dirty” plastics. The fear is that other countries will follow suit. Increasingly the talk is of a looming plastic waste crisis that will not likely be easily solved without extensive, complicated inter-jurisdictional collaboration.

Three years after the request for the ban government is still waffling.  Why?

We at Democracy Alert acknowledge that plastic packaging is an inter-jurisdictional problem given that so many packaged products are not made where they are sold. Single-use shopping bags, however, are another matter. They represent a straightforward local problem with a manageable solution in the form of a ban that’s been tried in various ways in multiple jurisdictions. It is a solution that won’t cost a lot of money to implement. Nor will it have a negative impact on jobs in the province. There’s even a well thought through blueprint of how it could work thanks to the PEI example.
 
Of course, Government knows all that. Yet  it is now pretty obvious that we're not going to get that ban.    Government started  preparing us for that reality last summer during Acting Minister Andrew Parsons'  ON THE GO interview with CBC . Our favourite quote was “Most single-use bags aren't single use.”    While there's some truth there, we would like to know how exactly  a dog owner using the bag a second time as a pooper scooper will make a further dent in those 100 million plus bags we consume.
 
Minister Parsons also said

• “This is just one tiny thing,  where we’re  dealing with 0.2% of the litter that’s going out there.”
• “We want to work with everybody.”
• “We want to look and see what’s going on across jurisdictions.”
• Government is “looking at some of the other alternatives we can do.”

 
Government's latest pronouncement, as cited in the community newspaper The Compass last month, is  less waffling and perhaps more easy to interpret.  “As a result of meeting (with different stakeholders) industry has indicated a willingness to work with the province on a plan to significantly reduce plastic bags.”
 
We read that as no ban in the near future and no recyling of existing bags.  What we are going to get, we suspect, is a voluntary levy - something like a token five cent charge on plastic bags.  We notice that many stores have already started doing that.  

What is wrong with Government's corporate driven "solution"?

From a practical perspective, if government had read the UN report with an open mind they would know that a five cent charge on plastic bags is not going to make much of a difference.  There are good reasons why PEI is starting with a 15 cent levy.  

But that is not what upsets us the most.  

Government didn’t get the request for a ban from some special interest  group that arguably might have a narrow agenda. The request for a ban came from democratically elected municipal leaders representing the same population of voters as those that elected provincial MHAs. That in itself should have given Municipalities NL's request enormous clout. 

 Our municipalities are also the organizations best placed to understand the scope of the problem since they are responsible for garbage collection and cleanups. They obviously made the request for a ban after considerable discussion. That too should have given their request tremendous clout. 
 
And let's not forget that government's  own report made it very clear that there  was no  recycling solution to the plastic bag problem. 
 
 Apparently none of this appears to have  mattered to our government leaders.  Not even the will of their own party membership has swayed their bias towards a corporate "solution". 
 
What's our conclusion?  With an election coming up next year we might want to take a good look at the extent to which our elected leaders seem to be joined at the hip to the corporate sector  -  so much so that they can't even perceive their own bias. 

There's something wrong here. 

The answer is LOTS!    

​Three different provinces are decisively  moving towards proportional representation.
British Colombia

British Colombia  is in the midst  of  mail-in referendum which started on October 22 and will last until November  30th. Voters will be asked two questions on the referendum ballot.

• The first question asks if we should keep the current First Past the Post voting system or move to a system of proportional representation.
• The second question asks voters to rank three proportional systems: Dual Member Proportional (DMP), Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), and Rural-Urban Proportional (RUP).

If a majority of voters choose proportional representation in the first question, the proportional representation with the most support on the second section will be adopted. You can learn more about  how this will happen on the BC government website.

Prince Edward Island

​​Prince Edward Island will be holding a referendum attached  to the 2019 provincial  election.  The question will be "Should Prince Edward Island change its voting system to a Mixed Member Proportional voting system?'' 

Why Mixed Member Proportional?  Back in 2016 Mixed Member Proportional was the preferred choice on a non binding PEI plebiscite on whether or not to change the electoral system.

Quebec

​​On October 1st, Quebec held an election.  Three of the four parties now represented in the National Assembly, including Coalition Avenir Quebec  which has a majority government, have signed an agreement declaring that they will support changing the province's voting system to a proportional representation system.  Where Quebec differs from the other provinces is that there will be no referendum.  The change will simply be legislated.

We  suspect that those of you are reading this blog are already firmly in favour of proportional representation.  Nevertheless it's always useful to have information that you can use when promoting electoral reform among friends and colleagues.   Here is an excellent website responding to some of the supposed flaws of proportional representation systems.

On Friday, April 6th, hearings took place at the Beothuck Building on Crosbie Place to establish who would have standing to appear at the Muskrat Falls Inquiry. Democracy Alert, in partnership with  The Council of Canadians and the Social Justice Cooperative, was one of twenty-two groups looking for standing 

What does Muskrat Falls have to do with three groups that have no expertise in finance or engineering? What could we possibly hope to contribute?

Look carefully at the Terms of Reference for the Inquiry and you’ll see that they largely confine participation to what the Commissioner, Judge Richard Leblanc, referred to at the hearing as “the business case” of Muskrat Falls. What’s missing is an examination of the culture in government that allowed Muskrat Falls to progress in the way that it did.

Our groups felt that it was important to cast a light, not just on the specific bad decisions that had been made, but also on how the different institutions of government had failed to constrain these decisions. In other words, were our democratic institutions behaving the way they are supposed to in a healthy democracy?

We suspected that our chances of being granted status were slim. We were right. Here’s what Judge Leblanc had to say to another participating group even before we actually spoke to our request. “You know, we talk about the democratic deficit. …….but this inquiry is not about deciding what the democratic deficit is, if there is one. I, to be quite frank, based on what I’ve seen to date, in terms of what I have to get through, I’m going to be lucky if I can get through what I have here. And I’m not minimizing the importance of that (concept of democratic deficit), but I also have to be mindful of the mandate given to me.”
​
Unfortunately the very specific mandate that Judge Leblanc refers to means that, in all probability, the following questions are not going to get asked.

How informed was discussion in the governing parties and in the House?

Where did the power rest in the governing parties throughout the progression of the project? Were too many of the big decisions made behind closed doors? Was the role of ordinary MHAs largely that of uninformed cheerleaders? Did MHAs have doubts? Were their concerns listened to? How much information did they have?

As for the House of Assembly, was debate meaningful or was it mere theatre? Did the questions and debates have any kind of impact on government?

How easy was it to speak truth to power in the Civil Service?

What was expected of civil servants in matters concerning Muskrat Falls? Were there risks to one’s career of being anything less than a cheerleader for the project? Has the NL Civil Service become so politicized that its professionalism is at risk? These were some of the concerns that were raised by former civil servants with whom we spoke before making our submission.

Why was there so little objective analysis of Muskrat Falls decisions from experts?
​
In the end, the most meaningful criticism of Muskrat Falls has come from outside the system – from ordinary people who have had no choice but to make themselves into experts on the project.

The former editor of this publication, Justin Brake, along with the Land Protectors and the Grand River Keepers have risked criminal records to record the human impact of the project on those living close to the dam. Then there are the efforts of people like Dave Vardy, Des Sullivan, Ron Penney, Cabot Martin and others to uncover and expose financial, engineering and environmental irregularities. All of these efforts have been selfless and hugely time-consuming.

There’s something not quite right about that. We live in a primarily rural province with little more than a half million people. Where is the expertise supposed to come from in holding government accountable, if not from our publicly paid intellectuals? Why was there, for example, not more criticism of the project from Memorial University faculty? Is there a culture of restraint in speaking truth to power at MUN?

Judge Leblanc’s Ruling

In our concluding statement we acknowledged that we understood that it was not the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry to put democracy on trial. But we argued that “it is important to at least find some space to talk about the culture in the different levels of government that have enabled all these decisions to go through.” That was the missing ingredient we wanted to bring to the commission.

Judge Leblanc’s response in his formal rejection of our application for standing was unequivocal. “While the applicants submit that it is not sufficient to merely conduct an investigation into the project circumstances related to sanction, construction and oversight, that is precisely what the Lieutenant Governor in Counsel has mandated this Commission to do.”

Our post-hearing observationsPerhaps we should be grateful that we didn’t get standing. Persuading past MHAs and civil servants to tell their story either in print or in person at the Inquiry would not have been easy. We would have had to work very hard in the gathering of witnesses and information.

And yet, should we not protest Terms of Reference that exclude or, at least, make it difficult to question the democratic process that allowed a project that was probably badly conceived right from the start to steamroll ahead? That exclusion raises issues about whether government actually has the will to self-correct.

Here’s how we think things are going to go down.

The Commission of Inquiry is going to do their job as they determine it according to the Terms of Reference. We are fairly confident that they will establish that inappropriate measures were taken throughout the project.

Then it will be business as usual in government. We will continue to be dominated by parties that choose to rule rather than govern. In other words, the players will change but the way power is wielded in this province will remain unchecked – with very little protest from the people.

Instead, our anger will focus on blame. In line for public condemnation are senior management at Nalcor and various premiers, maybe even a few cabinet ministers. It has started already.

That focus on blame may seem justified, but will it come at the expense of taking a good hard look how our democratic habits enabled our Muskrat Falls fiasco?

We are arguably overly partial to strong leaders and grandiose gestures in this province. Amongst those of us who vote there is an intense loyalty, especially outside of St. John’s, to the two major parties. That lack of competition from other parties gives the Liberals and Conservatives excessive power through constant majority governments.

We register our disappointment in government by not voting. Newfoundland and Labrador consistently has the lowest voter turnout of any province both in federal and provincial elections. That was even true in the last provincial election in spite of the looming crisis.

Muskrat Falls is an enormous crisis with huge economic fallout. There is already talk of seniors on low income spending their days in the mall so as to avoid putting on the heat at home. Young people increasingly feel they have no choice but to leave the province in search of work. Small businesses worry that people will not have the discretionary income to buy their goods or services.

And then there are the people of Labrador living in the shadow of the Project itself. We can only imagine their stress load and the sense of injustice and betrayal they must feel.

In our opinion, all of this has happened because something went very wrong with the democratic process in our province. The Terms of Reference of the Commission of Inquiry deny us the opportunity to explore that connection.

That seems short-sighted at the very least.

Taken from an article in the Independent