Harper Government's idea of Transparency

I have been watching, like many people, all the apparent breaches of transparency in this government over the last..let's say six months. I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not having a bad dream. This is a Prime Minister who's early political career, and even his rise to office, were all centred on the populist Reform Party. Born in the prairies, Reform was meant to address all the undemocratic ills of the Federal Government, and return civility (or start some) and transparency to Ottawa. Am I the only one that remembers this? I doubt it. Yet in the last six months we have witnessed, amongst others: the proroging of Parliament; the refusal to release documents regarding the Afghan Detainee issue;  the apparent political summary execution of the Minister of...well Jaffer's wife; and the public announcement from the Commissioner of Access to Information that her Office was being muzzled. Wow, Reform you say. I don't think even Mulroney got away with that - not that he necessarily sought to.

That brings me to today's blog. As some of you may or may not know I have been fighting with the Federal Government, as well as the Chateau Lake Louise ( the big high-end resort in Banff National Park) over the environmental abuse of Lake Louise. Lake Louise is internationally recognized as one of the most beautiful and prestine lakes in the world. It has been given World Heritage status by the United Nations, and is a protected site by both National and International law. That being said, Lake Louise has been environmentally abused by the Chateau Lake Louise now for atleast a decade. Apparently, according to a Senior Warden in the Park, the Chateau was caught dumping sewage into the Lake in the 1970's, and fined. A recent access to information request on anything to do with this incident resulted in a nil return from the government. According to Parks Canada in Ottawa no such records exist. Interesting. Could be that the Warden, a life long employee at the Park was mistaken, I guess, although you would think that someone would  remember something like that.

Then, as a member of the voluntary Advisory Development Board for Banff, Kootenay, Yoho national parks I discovered massive water losses from the Chateau's operation over the last ten years. Essentially, the Chateau takes water from the Lake, treats it, and then consumes it. The production number should be very close to the consumption number or there are water losses somewhere in the system. I found that, by the Chateau's own numbers, that 510,000 m3 of water was missing as of 2008. To put it into context, that is over 25,000 semi tanker loads of water in seven years. During the following stories in the Globe and Mail, and then other National and International media another allegation arose. Several previous employees of the Chateau's water department came forward with the revelation that the Chateau was dumping waste water (treated water not put through the sewer treatment plant) directly into the Creek. Well that is the quick version of events.

Then yesterday my first set of documents finally arrived from Parks Canada under the Access to Information Act. The request was simple: Any and all documents on the water and sewer distribution systems at Lake Louise. One wouldn't think National Security was involved. Sounds like a fairly straight forward request considering the history of the ongoing struggles to get the Chateau to stop abusing the resource. Apparently not. What I received was an 10" by 14" envelope with 43 pages of documents. Unfortunately, 39 of the documents were completely blank. Nothing. Not even a sentence. There was more ink on the Afghan detainee documents shown on TV. What an absolute slap in the face to Canadian Democracy. Reform you say. Transparent you say. What a mockery. Of course I will appeal to the Commissioner, and hopefully some sense will be seen. Apart from the issue of "who is wagging who's tail?", apart from where is the protection for such a site as Lake Louise, where are the basic Canadian's rights?

Mr Harper if this is your idea of democracy, freedom, and liberty - well, your time of accountability is coming. Hopefully, the cost to this country of ours, not just yours, won't be too steep. As the old saying goes:
"Power. Use it, but abuse it, lose it."

Newfoundland's Debt Anchor

Who new Newfoundland had a debt of 11 billion dollars? I mean outside of Newfoundland that is. Other than being the best place to live in Canada, I would say discovering this debt was the second biggest secret in the country. Coming from Saskatchewan, where their debt of 6-14 billion(depending on who you speak to and what they include as debt) is a constant source of political bemoaning, it was interesting to note that Newfoundland's debt did not appear to be that big of a talking point. Considering Saskatchewan's population is roughly twice that of Newfoundland, and let's say the their debts are roughly equal, people here ought to be pretty concerned.

The cost of serving that debt was enormous and acted as an anchor on the development of Saskatchewan's economy. It was not until the 100-145 dollar per barrel oil that Saskatchewan's economy started to take off. That, and a large investment of Alberta dollars seeking to buy cheap properties up, and flip them for Alberta sized profits. Of course now that they have doubled the price of housing there, and the oil has dropped, Saskatchewan has leveled off economically. That being said, they did start paying down debt with the goal of eliminating the debt. They know that with the growing elderly population, their tax base to support this debt is declining rapidly, and dumping all that debt on the relatively small working population will only cause another exodus to Alberta or elsewhere.

Is there a lesson for us in all this? I say yes. Some of the biggest economic/demographic traits of Saskatchewan are: rural people leaving for the cities; many people working in Alberta; low prices in the farming sector combined with higher input costs (such as fuel); high taxes; inability to attract new people including such critical sectors as health; an over reliance on the provincial/federal government civil service for well paying jobs; and generally people fighting over what they can get their hands on.

Sound framiliar? As a new comer I can only speak from recent knowledge, but what I have seen so far is a very similar path for these two provinces. In Saskatchewan the labour (read government worker) movement is constantly at war with the "right wing" political parties (read anyone who doesn't support them getting on-going increases in pay and benefits). I like to say that when there are only crumbs left these two fight like dogs for their bit. I hope Newfoundland does not share this futile trait with Saskatchewan. If it does, the ability to reduce the provincial debt will be impaired - to say the least. As we can see with Greece, most recently, and the world in 2008/2009, debt is laying waste to our ability to grow. As they say in business, if you are not growing, you're dying. Newfoundland needs to seriously look at creating a debt payment fund and stick to it. Each year pay down what we can, especially when the Canadian dollar is so high. We likely incurred the debt when the dollar was .65 - .85 US. Now at par we can pay down 20% more debt with  the same Canadian dollar.

One thing is certain, at 11 billion dollars, Newfoundland's debt will be an anchor around our neck. If we hope to break the cycle of below average wages, higher than average taxes, and a massive untaxed black market, then the debt has to be the number one priority. Some will say that the economy won't grow without the government (read us) dumping the dollars in. The truth of the matter is a real economy is a private enterprise driven organism. High debt equals high taxes equals less disposable income equals an unhealthy place for business to be.