Hope restored

The motto of our fine province is "spem reduxit" which is Latin for "hope restored". I've always thought that Frank McKenna's greatest accomplishment was in living up to this motto. Regardless of the results, which I think were great, the strongest legacy of Frank McKenna was that he restored hope to New Brunswickers. While we had Bernard Lord laughing off the concept of New Brunswick becoming a "have" province as some kind of joke last summer, Frank McKenna had the very opposite MO. McKenna believed in the great potential that our province has and he made sure everyone knew it. Boosting the morale of our citizens boosts our productivity and ecomony, it fosters entrepreneurism and it is an all around good thing.

This is why I like Shawn Graham's general approach, he restores hope. On Monday, I was a little disappointed with the report of the Self-Sufficiency Task Force. I did not have a problem with their recommendations, but I was frustrated that they did not have a plan to implement some of the more ambiguous ones.

I said then that the best hope would be for the premier to move fast to appoint a standalone deputy minister for self-sufficiency who could develop a strategy and have broad ranging powers to ensure that all deputy ministers follow that lead and move towards the ambitious goal of being a "have" province by 2026. Today, the premier appointed such a deputy minister.

Additionally, Graham announced the immediate implementation of one of the most important recommendations (one that was also mirrored in the Liberal Charter for Change platform) which creates "start-up capital of up to $100,000 for new businesses, and up to $60,000 for business expansion". This should go a long way to undo the damage to business creation done by the recent small business tax increases and should create jobs.

I also am very pleased with this: changing the NB brand to position "the province as an exciting and dynamic place to be, with a competitive standard of living, affordable housing, and top quality education and health services"... this goes back to what I said about Frank McKenna. I think we've all seen the Saskatchewan commercials which are done in this vein and I think very useful. Many people in Ontario and points west view New Brunswick as a backwater. The Maritimes in general are not looked upon favourably, but everyone has a story and reference about PEI (potatoes and Anne of Green Gables), about Nova Scotia (Bluenose, Alexander Keith's, the Cabot Trail), about Newfoundland & Labrador (screech, cod, iceburgs, George Street). When you ask them about New Brunswick, many draw a blank. That is a shame but at the same time it is an opportunity. New Brunswick's canvass in the national imagination is blank, we can do a lot of good by marketing ourselves well.

Other announcements today in response to the Task Force report:

• appointing a commissioner to evaluate municipal strucutre


• Business NB to enter into a deal with ACOA and community development agencies to create one-stop shopping for grants rather than having to file three separate applications
• 
  
• review of policies to make sure they are geared towards self-sufficiency


• a meeting has been requested with the PM to gauge the federal willingness to invest in New Brunswick now to save on equalization in the future


• arranging a summit with business and labour groups


• engaging Aboriginal groups as a part of the road to self-sufficiency

With any luck, this new dpeuty minister and the premier will continue to be proactive and some solid plans to implement the lofty ideas of the Task Force will come into being and we may indeed be on the road to prosperity.

My one hesitation is that the guy who wrote the report recommending the appointment of a deputy minister for self-sufficiency is being appointed to that role. This both seems like something of a conflict of interest and makes me wary as he did not have plans in place when he wrote the recommendations, however the recommendations were put together quickly so this man may be best positioned to understand the thinking behind them and develop broader implementation plans. I'll keep an eye on this...

Self-Sufficiency

So the report is out. I am not really all that overwhelmed by it.

There is nothing radical in it and I believe a radical change on par with Equal Opportunity is necessary in order to turn things around in this province.

Eugene took a shot at me and suggested I might like the report but not so much the implementation. I am afraid my disappointment is coming a little bit early, I do remain optomistic for the implementation however.

The report is largely just common sense recommendations that one would not needed to have spent half a million dollars on a commission to come up with. A lot of their recommendations are common sense. In other cases they say that we need to fix a lot of tough problems, but they do not say how, for instance:

Recommendation 32. Ensure that credential recognition processes for doctors, nurses, engineers and other accredited professions are timely, responsive to labour force requirements, transparent and accountable, with first priority being given to post-secondary institutions in those countries targeted under the Provincial Nominee Program.

That is a great idea, if New Brunswick did not have the problems of credential recognition that other provinces have, then we would certainly dramatically increase the number of skilled immigrants that would move to New Brunswick and therefore have a great competitive edge over the rest of Canada. However, the province has nothing to do with the recognition of these credentials. It is the individual professional organizations for each field that is responsible for certifying people and giving them the right to work in that field. How is the province going to implement this recommendation? This is a good thing, that should be done, but how are we going to do it? I am a regular schmoe and could have told you that we should do this and I might even have a few ideas as to how to do it but isn't that what this Task Force was for?

There are plenty of other lofty ideas which are great but there is no plan to enable them.

I guess we can only hope that this will help:

Recommendation 2. Appoint a deputy minister to be responsible for the self-sufficiency agenda and to oversee its implementation.

If this was done and a stand alone DM was appointed to work out of the Executive Council with broad powers to develop policy and implement this plan, then maybe the agenda would work out. My fear however is that some deputy minister in some department (presumably Business NB) will be annointed as the deputy minsiter responsible for Self-Sufficiency but will continue to be housed in BNB and therefore have no real mandate to execute change in other departments and not have the time to devote exclusively to this agenda due to him or her having to deal with the day-to-day administration of a department.

So in summary, what I read here is a good series of recommendations. However, the best analogy I can come up with would be someone telling you that a pirate left a tremendous treasure in the Bay of Fundy but they failed to give you a treasure map. The Bay isn't that big, but it is big enough that without a guide to find the treasure, you probably never would except for a fluke.

Let's hope that the government takes these recommendations and develops a plan to implement them and does it in short order. That is our only hope.

I have high hopes

On Monday, the Self-Sufficiency Task Force will release its final report. As I have said many times on this blog and in the comments sections of other blogs, I have high hopes for this report.

Say what you will about Shawn Graham, but he has always been a man who has had big dreams, reached high and consistently punched above his weight (he had no chance to win the 2002 Liberal leadership [but won it with 75% of the vote], was sure to lose seats in the 2003 election [but actually quadrupled his total], was never going to survive as leader to the next election [but never faced a serious leadership challenge] and couldn't knock Bernard Lord off in 2006 [but did]).

In appointing this commission he has shown that he stands with leaders like Louis Robichaud, Richard Hatfield and Frank McKenna who are not afraid to think outside of the box and dream big about New Brunswick's future. Bernard Lord was not a member of this group of leaders. It was Lord who compared the idea of self-sufficiency to the liklihood of him becoming a part of the PGA tour. While Louis Robichaud re-invented the province, Richard Hatfield brought together our fractured biculturalism and Frank McKenna made New Brunswick a leader in IT and job growth, Bernard Lord balanced his budgets - from time to time - by living off of a booming Canadian economy and the largest increases in federal transfers to the provinces since the 1950s. In fact, in some years, Lord's "record health care spending increases" were less than the amount of money the feds were giving us earmarked for health. Lord was content to undo the good works of Frank McKenna by moving us more towards reliance on Ottawa and sucking on the federal teet. If Stephen Harper ever listened to Bernard Lord it is no wonder he thought Atlantic Canadians had a defeatist attitude.

When Shawn Graham launched this Self-Sufficiency Task Force he invoked the memories of the Byrne Commission which turned New Brunswick upside down with controversial reforms that today everyone recognizes as good and necessary. This is why I have high hopes.

I hope that I - and you - will be impressed with the recommendations on Monday. And I also hope that we will all be equally impressed with Shawn Graham as I hope he will implement all of the good ideas whether they are popular or not. That is the true sign of a good leader: doing what is right even if it is unpopular.

If you build it, they will come

Maybe I am foolish or overly optomistic, but I've always thought that line from Field of Dreams is a very applicable statement to a lot of things in the world.

Scott has a post up about the Graham governments approach to self-sufficiency with heavy reliance on an opinion piece that ran in today's Globe & Mail by fromer Telegraph-Journal editor Neil Reynolds.

Scott has banned comments on his site, so I am forced to respond here on my own blog.

Scott is a strong proponent of supply-side economics, this article also seems to suggest that that is the way to go. SSE is the theory that if you cut taxes, you will both grow the economy and increase government revenue because people with more cash in their hands - due to lower taxes - will spend that money to buy goods and services (which creates jobs) and will put cash back into the public treasury (by the income tax paid by those whose jobs have been created due to the increased purchases and through consumption taxes).

Under the right circumstances, SSE makes some sense. However, the revenues lost from government in decreased taxes is never made up, in whole, by the indirect revenues that those monies create. If the government needs to spend money on infrastructure, then the government cannot afford to make tax cuts. I will concede however that lowering taxes, in the right way which is often not the most popular way nor the way governments lower taxes when they do, is a better job creator than government spending in an attempt to stimulate the economy.

In general, I agree that taxes should not be increased for a plethora of reasons. However, I think it is irresponsible to cut taxes when there is debt to be addressed - both real debt and "debts" such as lacking infrastructure.

From 1999 to 2007, New Brusnwicker's saw their tax rates decrease almost every year - by marginal amounts. However, though their tax rates went down, they probably didn't end up with more cash in their pockets most years. This is because the Tories, while cutting income tax rates dindn't actually cut income tax revenues in a number of years because they allowed bracket creep. In other years, they also dramatically (in some cases doubled) user fees through regulations without consulting the legislature.

I find it frustrating at times that my friend Spinks - as an example, he shares the view of many others - rails against the Liberals for shafting taxpayers, etc, etc because of the $50 million personal income tax increase when, in fact, it really isn't that much different than the increases we saw in many of the Lord budgets. The difference is that the Lord government would showcase a tax rate cut, and still take extra money out of your pockets while you were looking at that pretty gem. Graham's government has chosen to be honest with New Brunswickers and tell them flat out what they are doing; for their honesty they are painted as tax-and-spend Liberals, when in fact they are getting the same effect that Lord's crew did but are doing it through honest and direct means instead of cloak-and-dagger skullduggery.

In any event, I have gotten a little bit of track. The crux of the Scott MacKay/Neil Reynolds argument can be summarized in this quote:

Although it progressed too slowly, New Brunswick had moved in the right direction in the last decade. [in reference to the Lord tax cutting MO]

However, the evidence doesn't back that up. Mr. Reynolds talks about how the Lord method is the right way to go and the Graham way is the wrong way to go. As evidence, he says that New Brunswick's population is slipping - more and more every year. Huh? NEWS FLASH: Shawn Graham has been in power for 7 months; if Lord's plan was so great and working so well, why after 7 years of his stewardship were things getting worse?

We need a made for New Brunswick solution if we are to boost our economy and acheive self-sufficiency. Under the right circumstances cutting taxes could work, but that is not the circumstances we have in our province today.

Reynolds criticizes Victor Boudreau for saying, "this is a transactional budget which lays the groundwork for future transformational change." He called that meaningless bureaucrateese. I don't see it that way. The biggest challenge to the growth of the New Brunswick economy is not its tax structure (neither before nor after his budget) but it is its lack of infrastructure. We need to better prepare ourselves for trade and connectivity with the world. We need roads, seaports and airports to move goods and we need the internet to move services.

The tax increase this year was $50 million. That works out to just under $70/person - if it was shared equally, it would actually be more for the rich and less for the lower and middle class - but let's use it to illustrate a point. What can a person do with $70? Buy two cases of beer OR maybe a blender and a toaster OR half of a cheap bike OR 2/3s of a DVD player, etc. What can the government do with $50 million? Build 50kms of top of the line divided highway OR hire 500 doctors OR build a school or two.

New Brunswickers cannot afford to have their government trim the fat and cut taxes just ot the point where the province breaks even. We need a government that has the means to invest in the infrastructure necessary to grow our economy. Schools grow our economy in the long term. Well equiped and well staffed hospitals grow our economy by attracting immigrations. Roads grow our economy by making it more feasible to trade with the relatively far away major population centres.

A minor tax increase that doesn't change New Brunswick's ranking among other provinces (there are still just as many with lower taxes and just as many with higher taxes) is well worth it if we can make the improvements in infrastructure needed to make long term economic growth.

Blogger seeks Liberal nomination

All,

The following is a public service announcement brought by yours truly, nbpolitico.

Last week there was some coverage in the mainstream press and a lot of coverage among blogs of the story of James Curran, a blogger in the Niagara region who had clinched the Liberal nomination in his riding but was arrested hours before on charges of fraud.

I am hopeful that this will not scar Canadians perception of the relevance and credibility of bloggers, something that is growing more-and-more every day.

To that end, I would like to encourage you all to offer your support to Rachel Décoste who will be a candidate for the Liberal nomination in the riding of Ottawa-Orléans this coming Sunday.

Rachel, like me, was a Gerard Kennedy supporting blogger and you can find her blog here. I had the pleasure of meeting this impressive young woman at the leadership convention in Montreal and hope to see her become an MP in the not too distant future.

Rachel is a very intelligent woman. She speaks 4 languages. She is a woman when the Liberal Party and the Commons itself are in desperate need of more ladies. She is an engineer, a trade that is sorely under represented in parliament. And, even without all that, she would be a great candidate. She has passion, she has vision, she has big dreams for her riding and for her country.

And, moreover, for bloggers of all political stripes, I think it would be in our interest to see a grassroots, real blogger elected to the House of Commons.

Therefore, I invite all of you - even if you aren't Liberals - to drop by her campaign site and make a donation.

She is a competitive candidate for the nomination but she is in a tough fight. She is up against four men: two former MPs, a former president of the riding association and a city councillor who happens to be the son of another former MP. It is a tall order, but she has proved remarkable organizational skill and is probably one of two (at most three) viable candidates in this race.

As anyone who has worked on a campaign before knows, every little bit helps, and your support would mean a lot to me and to bloggers. I am sure it would mean a lot to Rachel too but this is an unsolicited public service announcement that I am making on my own intiative wihtout her direction or consent.

$5, $10, $50 or even $1100 (yeah right) ... make your mark and make it count.

Just a little background for you who are interested in donating:

• donations less than $200 are private and your name will not be listed in financial disclosures - your anonymity is safe


• under the new fundraising rules there are three "pots" of fundraising, though the limits were dropped from $5400 to $1100 by the Tories, it is actually $3300 per party. Under the old rules you could donate a blanket $5400 per party to any of its arms. Under the new rules, you can donate $1100 each to a central party, $1100 cumulatively to a party's ridings, candidates and nomination contestants, and $1100 cumulatively to leadership contestants in a given cycle.

Therefore, even if you have contributed $1100 to the Liberal Party of Canada, you can still give to a Liberal candidate like Rachel. Even if you have given $1100 to Conservative ridings and candidates, you can still give a candidate of another party, like Rachel.

Let's make a difference... help her out.

A responsible response to power rate increases

I want to commend the Graham Government for their decision today concerning the increase in power rates.

A lot of people, including the opposition Conservatives, have been very wary of the widely expected increase that was announced yesterday and comes in just under 10%.

Last year, when NB Power asked for an increase of 11.4%, seeing an election on the horizon, the Lord Government announced a lot of surprising measures. Many of which they had specifically rejected before as irresponsible financially and bad in terms of policy. Most notable among these was the widely known HST rebate program and a cap of 8% for a rate increase, regardless of whether the Public Utilities Board thought it was warranted and in conflict with their previous orders for NB Power to break even. Everyone knew these actions were inconsistent with the principles of conservatism and with the past statements of the Lord Governmemt and were made solely because they had a minority government (Tanker was still sitting as an independent).

This year, NB Power has asked for an increase of 9.6% (one which would probably have been unnecessary or at least lower if not for the irresponsibility of the Tory intervention last year). Spinks has wrongly suggested that this is the government's fault and should be seen as the same or similar to the income tax increase and rightly pointed out that this will mean more revenue for government (in terms of the HST collected on the hgiher power rates).

The government response has been tempered and logical. Rather than irresponsible policy u-turns, the Graham Government is going to invest the increase revenues of $37 million into new programs which will be developed to ease the burden on low income earners and to prevent it from driving businesses out of the province.

The fact that this increase will not change the fact that New Brunswick has the lowest electricity rates in Atlantic Canada and that the government is going to take any monetary benefit it gets from the increase and give it back to the consumers seems far more reasonable than the Tory reaction which was to cripple NB Power by slashing its needed revenue and launching a flawed HST rebate program which they never implemented, planned or developed.

An interesting coincidence?

A friend of mine in Ottawa pointed this out to me and I had to share it with you thought it is a bit off topic.

There are four daily newspapers readily available in Ottawa, the front page of three of this has this image of the Virginia Tech murderer, as given from example on the Ottawa Sun:



The image on the fourth daily, the Ottawa Citizen, was of this eerily similar pose of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien:



According to the caption this is a file photo. Interesting that they would have chosen to run this picture when a similar pose by a killer was being run on the wire and inevitably on some of the Citizen's competitors papers.

I am told on every street corner in Ottawa, you see three pics of the killer and then one of the mayor in the paperstands all sharing the same pose.

Sounds like a pretty sick dig at the Ottawa Mayor by the Citizen...

Laughable

Ladies and gentlemen, we all owe Jeannot Volpé a sincere apology.

Whether you like the Liberals or not, like the Tories or not, hate 'em, whatever. I think the whole world is unanimous in the opinion that Jeannot Volpé sucks as opposition leader.

Well it seems our opinion was unfair.

Volpé doesn't suck, it appears, his poor performance is not his fault.

He would be doing a fine job and the Liberal government would probably have fallen by now if it wasn't for those darn kids Wally and Joan. They've been spying, according to Volpé, and reporting the plans of the opposition to the government.

I think Joan McAlpine-Stiles put it best when, as paraphrased, she said "if the Liberals were able to predict Tory tactics in question period, it's probably because Volpé has been asking the same questions for the last three weeks."

How pathetic can he get? I have said before that I've been quite impressed with Bruce Northrup. I also heard Mike Olscamp in detail for the first time today during estimates and he seems like an incredibly bright guy and strong performer. I've also said before that I think Claude Landry is a pretty strong guy.

I think the whole front bench of the Tories should walk to the back row and let these newcomers take over. Then we might have some substantive debate in the House and the Liberals might see their 50 point lead in the polls narrow a bit.

Defection reaction

So the reaction to the double defection of Mr. Wally Stiles and Mrs. Joan MacAlpine-Stiles is pretty massive, as one would expect.

I was waiting for and pleased to see a story on their past strong oppositon to the Liberals. I was surprised to see that there really isn't anything substantive there. Other than their reasons for running for the Tories in 1999 - against a totally different set of Liberals - and some fighting of auto insurance in 02-03, there doesn't seem to have been as much bad blood as I thought.

Among bloggers...

As seems typical of any and all floor crossings, the blogosphere is largely opposed. Here is a sample of some of the reaction:

If they want to (cross the floor) that’s fine but go to the voters and get their blessing. The voters elected you as PC’s not Liberals. - Spinks

(W)hy don't we have the right to recall our elected politicians? I'm not saying that the people of the respective districts are not happy with this. I am, however, saying that if the electors are not happy, they should have recourse before 2011. - Rob commenting at Spink About it

I'm no fan of government wasting money nbpolitico, that is true but having democracy is never a waste of money. - Spinks responding to my comment that a by-election would cost a lot of cash, deprive the the ridings of a representative during the legislative process and possibly/likley return the same MLAs anyway.

"If (the defectors) were real Tories and true leaders, then one of them would have stepped up to the plate and run as a successor to Bernard Lord in the next New Brunswick Progressive Conservative leadership race (rather than quit over dissatisfaction with an interim leader)" - Scott, the sorry centrist

"Of all the reasons to cross the floor, claiming you were unappreciated ranks down there with "my former party is too tough on those who create child porn". Seriously folks, you're in opposition. Nobody appreciates you in opposition." - Eugune at To Be Annnounced

The defectors...

From the Telegraph-Journal page A1:

"It was probably the peace and quiet [while on vacation in February] where we could really think about our futures and how we could best represent our constituents in our respective ridings," [Wally] Stiles said. "That was probably the determining time where you say, let's do this and get this done, enough is enough."

[Joan] MacAlpine-Stiles said she was blown away shortly after the Liberals took power in October how accessible the cabinet ministers were and how attentive they were to her concerns, specifically on resolving the ongoing issue surrounding pensions of former Moncton city police officers.

"I don't think it was one person we specifically spoke to on this. When you are going to make a decision of this magnitude that impacts your futures, we kept this to ourselves," she said.

[...]

MacAlpine-Stiles and Stiles said they have never asked for a position and one was never offered. They both have said repeatedly the decision to switch allegiances was strictly on principle against the negative tone espoused by the current Conservative leadership.

"There hasn't been a focus, it has been more of a personal attack on the government members and that to me is, I can't be part of that," MacAlpine-Stiles said. "That was one of the determining factors. You don't try to make other people look bad in order to make you look good."

[...]

Stiles said he is most concerned about how people in his rural riding of Petitcodiac will take the news. The three-term MLA won with a massive majority on Sept. 18 and while he acknowledges his move will not be popular with some Tory stalwarts he said it may also win him some new votes in the future.

"I heard - my team has heard (in the last election) - look, 'I would really like to vote for Wally but I could not vote for Bernard Lord.' You don't know how many times I heard that. I think people's voting habits have changed, I think they actually vote for the person and not the party," Stiles said.

From the Times & Transcript page A4:

The couple had been spending a lot of time soul-searching, having felt under-valued by some of their fellow caucus members.

"The last little while we were almost treated like skunks at a garden party," said Stiles.

Neither politician wanted to give details about the way they were treated by some members of the Tories. However they both said they were treated as a "liability," rather than an "asset."

"You can't represent your people and feel that the party you're a part of is not doing constructive things but working on the negative side constantly," said MacAlpine-Stiles.

"You get to the point where you just can't "... that's not just what it's about, and you feel that you have to do something to change that and if you're not able to do that within your own party, then I guess that's when you make the decision."

From the Daily Gleaner page A1:

"The Liberals are blessed with a leader who is clearly focused on the future, and not the past," MacAlpine-Stiles said.

From their former colleagues...

Interim Tory Leader Jeannot Volpé said he was not shocked by the announcement. Volpé said he saw the writing on the wall when Stiles did not win a caucus position as Opposition whip, a post he held when the Tories were in government.

and

Volpé said the defection isn't a complete surprise, although he had expected the couple to wait until the end of the legislative sitting to make their announcement.

"I knew that it was coming, we saw quite a few signs that they were not happy since last fall," he said. (see my comment on this later...)

Rothesay Tory MLA Margaret-Ann Blaney said she believed the floor-crossing was about money.

"I think they had the For Sale sign out. Wally Stiles said to me two weeks ago, 'I can't afford to be in Opposition.' So I think what they got was two for the price of one."

Government and Opposition backbenchers earn the same basic salary. The only way the two former Tory MLAs could earn extra money, aside from being named to cabinet, is sit on additional committees and collect per diems. However, committee assignments have already been handed out so it is unlikely MacAlpine-Stiles or Stiles will be in line for extra cash any time soon. (the news article does a good enough job tearing MAB's comments apart, I'll not comment)

"When you have bad apples in a basket, maybe it's a good thing to dump those two bad apples," said Paul Robichaud, Tory MLA for Lameque-Shippagan-Miscou.

Robichaud said the caucus supports Volpé and there's no division between the Tory members.

He also said there were times the Tory caucus would meet and then hold a second meeting once the couple had left the room. (uhhh if this is true, can you blame them for leaving?)

From their new colleagues...

Business New Brunswick Minister Greg Byrne was one of the Liberal cabinet ministers who played a role in opening the doors to Graham. Byrne said it was clear to anyone who watched the assembly how the Conservatives were isolating the two MLAs and that became more obvious as they began speaking to them personally.

Byrne said the final deal was brokered Monday when the two Tories met with Graham and a few senior advisors. Once that meeting concluded, Byrne said the Liberal caucus was asked whether they would welcome the two Conservatives and he said the reaction was unanimous.

From academia...

Tom Bateman, a political scientist at St. Thomas University, said Volpé and the Tory brass will have to accept some responsibility for the floor-crossings, which could hasten the process to elect a leader.

"What this might do is chasten the party establishment a little bit and force it to concentrate perhaps a bit more deeply on the leadership selection process and get that right and make sure that we've got renewal built into the mechanics of leadership selection," Bateman said.

From me...

I gave my preliminary thoughts yesterday. In general, I think that the idea of floor crossing is okay if it is done for noble reasons. Unfortuantely, so many of us have become so cynical that no one believes there are noble reasons for anything any more.

Here is the summary of the key points and inferences I've made from the above:

• Like it or not, it is bad news when two of your caucus members leave your party, full stop. Volpé says he had seen this coming since the fall, why didn't he do anything to stop it!? He is really a failure as leader.


• Paul Robichaud says they held the real caucus meetings after Wally and Joan left the room. If that is true, can you really blame them for wanting to leave?


• Volpé says that Wally Stiles wanted to leave because he was not elected as opposition whip. I think Volpé is very confused because the legislative seating arrangement up until yesterday had Stiles sitting in the chair designated for the whip and he was listed on the government website as such as well. Moreover, this was published in the newspapers and was in a news release listing the Tory critic responsibilities back in October, that release has mysteriously disappeared from the PC website.

I think by the looks of it the reasons for their departure were sincere and, unless one of them is appointed to cabinet shortly, then they will have done it for no gain and I think that that is honourable.

I think it is pretty funny that even a floor crossing, which most people find widely distasteful, cannot even be properly criticized by this opposition. Three Tory caucus members commented and they all either made no sense in their criticisms (Blaney - they are doing it for money, but will not be paid more; Volpe - he was mad about not being whip, but he was the whip) or justified it (Robichaud - we had private caucus meetings from which they were excluded). I mean honestly.

I do think however that I have finally come up with a position on floor crossing which I think would be a good balance. We should allow recall of MLAs who cross the floor and perhaps under other circumstances. I am opposed to free wheeling recalls and automatic by-elections, but perhaps we can find a compromise with a combination.

Whoa!

Shawn Graham's majority just got a little bit more comfortable. Tory MLAs Joan MacAlpine-Stiles and Wally Stiles have crossed the floor.

I am blown away by this I must admit. The couple, both first elected in 1999, were married as MLAs in 2005. Joan served in Lord's cabinet from the beginning to the end including in a lot of high profile roles. She was minister of municipalities (99-00), business (00-01), family and community services (01-03, 05), tourism (03-06) and status of women (06). Wally was government whip for much of Lord's term - both before and after Tanker had the job - as well as caucus chair at one time. He also served as chair of the only important standing committee chaired by the government - crown corporations - and as chair of the special committee on auto insurance before the 2003 election. I've always had a lot of time for Wally Stiles and thought he was far more qualified to enter cabinet than the 2003 additions of Wayne Steeves, Brenda Fowlie and Tony Huntjens.

I am surprised though to see this because floor crossings are pretty rare in New Brunswick. Other than people going to sit as independents, I think the last floor crossing was when Peter Trites went from the NDP to the Liberals in 1987.

I am also surprised because Wally represents one of the safest Conservative seats in New Brunswick. It was one of 3 seats to go PC in 1991 and was the seat the then PC leader Dennis Cochrane chose because he thought he could win it even with the party in shambles. It went to the Liberals in 1995 but only due to a huge vote split with CoR, the result was Lib 2398, CoR 1673, PC 1650. Perhaps the two are planning retirement? Wally is very popular Petitcodiac, but he'll have to work a lot harder to win as a Liberal and he certainly won't get the 69%, 61% and 65% he got in 1999, 2003 and 2006 respectively.

The Liberals have gone from having 1 of 4 Moncton seats in February to 3 of 4 in April and from 2 of 7 Greater Moncton seats to 5 of 7. Very huge shift.

One must wonder if MacAlpine-Stiles is heading to cabinet soon due to the shortage of both women and Monctonians in the cabinet. I would imagine Chris Collins is a littel depressed this morning. She would be a natural fit for Local Government as she was a long time Moncton city councillor and held the job under Lord in the early months of his government. Thus she could join the cabinet without a need for a shuffle. Finance Minister Victor Boudreau doubles as Local Government Minister and could just shed this portfolio for her.

I will be curious to see the reaction to a floor crossing however, a lot of folks are turned off by them, while I am of two minds.

I am also very curious to see how Stiles, who was one of the most vocal critics of Shawn Graham's leadership abilities before the last election, eats his crow.

UPDATE: FYI Spinks has a post up on this as well. The thrust of his arguement is a call for a by-election to allow the voters to "ratify" their decision to cross the floor.

Prediction

Fred Thompson will win the Republican nomination and has a very good chance of becoming president on January 20, 2009. Should Thompson face Clinton or Obama, I believe he is guaranteed the win, however should Southern charmer John Edwards win the nomination it will be a closer race.

Dumb

For those of you who haven't seen the announcement, there is a deal between Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion to help May gain a seat in parliament and defeat Peter MacKay.

The Liberals will not run a candidate in Central Nova where they got 10,349 votes in 2006, while the Greens will not run one in Saint-Laurent—Cartierville where the Greens got 1,810. Hardly a fair trade. The Liberal gain nothing, as far as I can see, from this deal. The Liberals were also negotiating from a position of strength. The only chance May had of winning in Central Nova was for the Liberals to back down. I can see the symbolism of the leaders not opposing each other, however we need more than symbolism.

What Dion should have asked for, and it would have been fair of him to do so, would have been for the Greens to not field a candidate in Ottawa Centre.

The Green focus is clearly to elect May as an MP, Dion has given her a big boost in this quest, but in exchange for mere symbolism. In the last election, the Green candidate in Ottawa Centre received 6,766 votes and the Liberal candidate lost by a margin of 5,153. A deal like this would have been a fair trade. The deal we saw is dumb.

Very annoyed.

Also, who wants to bet that a Liberal runs as an independent and finishes strongly. See the 2000 election in Random-St. George's, NL where the party forced the nomination of Tory-turned-Liberal Bill Matthews, the Liberal who was to win the nomination ran as an independent and finished a strong second. Rural folk in particular don't take kindly to being told they can't have a candidate and I doubt Liberals in Central Nova will take this sitting down.

Caisse populaire pretty popular with Tories

I understand that there is a fair bit of anger around the blogosphere about the "$60 million bailout" for the Caisse in Shippigan and the Tories seem to be riding that wave.

According to T.J. Burke today was the eighth straight day he took questions on the subject - I'm surprised it was not much more.

Today it was all Shippigan all the time and every single question during the 30-minute period was about this issue. The theme today was that Burke should resign for prejudging the RCMP investigation into the accounting of the Caisse.

I'd like to point to some of the facts which seem to be misunderstood first before getting to the heart of the cry for resignation.

1) It was not a $60 million bailout. There was only $31.5 million for the Shippigan Caisse, the rest of the money was to top up the Caisse stabalization fund which had been underfunded by the Tories which was in part why $31.5m had to be handed out over and above the ordinary budget.

2) Spinks in particular likes to point out that the income tax increases bring in about as much revenue as this expenditure. That is an interesting coincidence but it is not fair to claim that is why taxes went up. This is a one time expenditure but tax revenue will be up in all subsequent years, we got lucky this year - and stand to continue being lucky for a few more years - thanks to high zinc and other resource prices. The reason taxes are going up is to be prudent in managing a growing budget which will inevitably go in to the red if revenue doesn't increase.

3) The Liberals are not being fiscally irresponsible by giving a grant instead of a loan. The non-partisan provincial comptroller - appointed by the Tories - told both the Lord and Graham governments that a loan could not be given. The Caisse was on the verge of bankruptcy and giving a loan to an institution that doesn't qualify under proper loaning practices would have done severe damage to the provincial credit rating. The Liberals had three options: a) do nothing and be on the hook for $90m of deposits thanks to Tory legislation protecting 100%; b) provide an irresponsible loan and damage the provincial credit rating causing the cost of interest on existing debt to go up; c) provide a grant as they've done which is the option costing the province the least in the long run.

Now to the heart of today's QP.

Apparently last week Burke told the press that they wouldn't be in this situation if the Tories had not been incompotent and had dealt with the issue at far lower cost in 2004 when they first became aware of it.

The Tories claim that this is prejudging the investigation by assigning blame to the previous government and that Burke should follow in the steps of his "very close friend" Andy Scott who resigned as Solicitor General of Canada in 1998 for prejudging an RCMP investigation into the pepper spraying of protesters at a demonstration at the APEC conference in Vancouver.

The Tory comparison is pretty weak and any claim they had to Burke needing to resign is shaken by it.

Let us compare the situations.

Scott was the minister responsible for the RCMP and there was an ongoing investigation on which Scott made statements indicating precisely what its conclusion would be.

Burke is not the minister responsible for the RCMP (for matters in which the RCMP is engaged as a provincial police force, such as this, Public Safety Minister John Foran is responsible) and he was commenting in general political terms about actions or inactions of the previous government which would not be the subject of an investigation, if one is pursued (currently there is a complaint, the RCMP have not decided to investigate) into accounting practices inside of the Caisse over which the government has no direct influence.

So the Tories think that because Burke - who made some theatricle political comments about a situation that will not be the subject of an investigation, if one is undertaken, by a force that Burke has no authority over - should resign because Scott - who made direct comments about a then ongoing investigation by a force over which he had final authority - did.

I mean, come on guys.

Speaker lays down the law

Eugene McGuinley, like many speakers, came to office with high hopes of restoring order, professionalism and decorum to the often raccous debates in the legislature over which he presides.

I am a student of parliamentary procedure and am often greeted with surprise when I explain the power that the Speaker has. That is to say, he is essentially, all powerful.

When the House is in session, it is up to the speaker to enforce and interpret the rules. In New Brunswick, "The Speaker shall preserve order and decorum and shall decide questions of order (...) No debate may be permitted on any such decision, and no such decision shall be subject to an appeal to the House."

Among the power of a Speaker is to cancel a session of the House or to remove and/or punish a member if things get out of hand. That includes ANY Member from the premier to the leader of the opposition to a freshly elected backbencher. I've often thought that this should be something that is used more frequently so as to restore decorum.

In recent times, the only occassion I recall of a member being thrown out of the New Brunswick legislature is when Elizabeth Weir called Bernard Lord a liar and refused, after three requests, to withdraw the comment.

Today, when things got quite heated during question period, Speaker McGuinley interupted the proceedings to put the House on notice that he is going to start throwing people out if they are out of order. Good for him. I hope he follows through.

I am sure when MLAs start to realize the unfortunate prospect of having to explain to their constituents why they were thrown out of the House for being so unruly, particularly when going door-to-door during an election campaign, I think they may shape up.

UPDATE

The transcript for today's Question Period has come out and here is what the Speaker had to say:

Hon. Eugene McGuinley (Grand Lake-Gagetown), Speaker: I have called for order too many times, and it has been ignored here this afternoon. I am not going to tolerate that kind of conduct in the House. We want to be following parliamentary rules here. We want this to be run like a Parliament, not like a playroom. I am warning the member for Restigouche-la-Vallée that I will not accept that kind of mockery of the system. I have asked for order, and the member kept repeating his interruptions to the minister who was responding, to the extent that I could not hear and understand what was being said.

This is not a threat, this is a promise. If members on either side continue to ignore the rules of the House, that will not be tolerated. I will be asking members to leave the Chamber for the duration of the day when that happens. I have been very lenient. When the week starts this badly, thank heavens it may be a short week. What will it be like when the week ends? In fairness, I am letting you know that, from here on in, the rules are going to be a lot more strictly adhered to. I will not be afraid to impose sanctions on people who disregard the authority of the chair.

The Tories finally get a good issue

Though I am a big supporter of the Graham government, it is far from perfect. It has gone back on some promises, such as to not appoint a political person as NB rep to Ottawa, the HST rebate, etc. It has implemented some bad policy such as Business New Brunswick cuts and a major hike to the small business tax. However, overall, it has done a very good job in my view.

I have criticized the Tory opposition a few times before because rather than go after the government on these substantive issues, they have led their attacks on fronts where there is no substantive problem but a possible hook for sensationalism.

Today they've got an good issue. They always say that people vote based on pocketbook issues, and what pocketbook issue could be closer to the hearts and mouths of New Brunswickers?

Today, opposition leader Jeannot Volpé led question period off by grilling Finance Minister Victor Boudreau on the possible increases in the cost for beer.

Credit Union details come to light

Folks, you aren't going to believe it! The Lord Tories "implemented" a policy that was illthoughtout and not properly budgeted in order to win votes.

No, I'm not talking about the shadow toll fiasco that continues to cost NB taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to pay for out of province drivers to use our best roads.

No, I'm not talking about the deathbed conversion by the Tories in 2003 to fixing the insurance problem that they failed to fix and saw New Brunswickers hosed by insurance companies for three more years.

No, I'm not talking about having an agreement-in-principle for Orimulsion but a failure to sign that deal and then going ahead with retrofitting a powerplant anyway and then finding out the other party is no longer willing to sign the deal.

No, I'm not talking about dramatically increasing adminstrative costs at NB Power to enable its priviatation and then backing down when that option is unpopular.

No, I'm not talking about allowing a city to negotiate a deal with a third party that the province will have to pay for and then, without participating in the process, ratifying the deal after the fact by pushing legislation through the legislature.

No, I'm not talking about undertaking unsustainable tax cuts and making up for the lost revenue through the back door by increasing gas tax by 50% and doubling of user fees.

No, I am not talking about 3 out of 7 budgets being called, essentially, lies by the Auditor General because they claim surpluses where deficitis exist.

No, I'm not talking about the HST rebate that was supposed to cost $45 million + adminstration that was budgeted for with $13 million and had no administrative plan.

I'm talking about another fiasco. It has been revealed that the reason for the for the $60 million payout to save the Shippigan credit union is because of Tory legislation that put the province on the hook for any failures in these organizations.

Worse, the Tories left the position of Superintendant of Credit Unions vacant for over three years which is what allowed this problem to come into place and then, because it was popular, and probably saved them a lot of their Francophone seats which they were expected to loose, they came up with the bizarre policy of protecting all assets to be lost by a credit union as opposed to the national standard for banks and province-by-province for credit unions which is up to $100,000.

Spinks says this should be some kind of a loan. But that obviously doesn't make sense. Thanks the the legislation passed by the Tories, there Credit Union has two options: 1) take the money the government is offering or 2) fold, have the government reimburse everyone who losses money and then open a new credit union. There is no option here but to stabalize the credit union. Moreover, it has been revealed in the legislature today that some of this money may be paid back, however the comptroller has said that it would be inproper to account for it as anything but an expense as there is no guarantee it will be paid back until such time as the credit union returns to profitability.

Spinks also says there should be an investigation of fraud, etc, well, because we thankfully have filled the long standing vacancy in the office of the Superintendant of Credit Unions it will be.

Also, I think it is dispicable that the Tories are alleging that this is a "sweetheart deal" being undertaken because former Liberal premier Camille Thériault is the president of the Credit Union Federation.

Is it 1976 all over again?

As I watch the results of the Quebec election roll in, it appears as though not only my predictions but those of pretty much every person that made them are dead wrong.

I can't help but think of the 1976 Quebec election. For those of you not as nerdy as I, I will explain the background on that.

It was at that election, when the PQ made a surprise majority win, that the most memorable moment in Quebec or even Canadian politics occured in my mind. A PQ organizer came to the microphone and explaimed, weeping, "Radio-Canada a projeté un gouvernment péquist MAJORITAIRE!" She was overwhlemed by emotion as was the room, the supporters hugged and cried. I have never seen people so visibly moved by the result of an election.

Fast forward 30 years and a few months to the 2007 election. The ADQ supporters aren't crying - yet - but they are certainly shocked and overwhelmed with joy.

The result: a one-man party, led by a former Liberal, with ideas completely opposed to the mainstream of Quebec politics surging from nowhere, surprising all of the pundits, to form a government. Oh whoops, I'm still talking about 1976. That's right, in those days the PQ had 6 seats and was led by Réné Levesque, a former Liberal cabinet minister who was the only thing that gave the party any credibility. They went from 6 seats to 71 and majority government.

As it stands now, it looks like the Liberals and ADQ will fight for first in the mid-high 40s while the PQ is stuck in third in the mid 30s. But what about the long-term ramifications? A party winning 30% of the vote and 35-ish seats probably shouldn't be having its obituary written, but lets look back to 1976.

In those days we had a centrist federalist party called the Liberals and a rightist automist party called Union Nationale. In the distance was a separatist party, the Parti Québécois. When the PQ surged into government the Union Nationale, which had won office only 10 years before, promptly disappeared from the political map despite having been the dominant force in Quebec politics for 40 years.

This time we have a centrist federalist party called the Liberals and a a separatist party called the Parti Québécois. In the distance is a rightist automist party called Action Démocratique. Could history repeat itself in reverse? Could the ADQ replace the PQ, which formed government only 9 years before and like the UN before it dominated politics for the better part of 40 years before its disappearence? Is the PQ over and is Quebec returning to its pre-1973 right vs. left alignment?

Quebec prediction

This is just for fun, I am totally guessing with these numbers and running on my gut without any analysis whatsoever.

Parti québécois 57
Parti libéral du Québec 51
Action démocratique du Québec 17

However, Charest will continue as premier in exchange for implementing some policies of the ADQ similar to the arrangement between the Liberals and NDP in Ontario from 1985-1987 when the standings were PC 52, Lib 48, NDP 25.

Budget retrospective IV and concluding remarks

In this last response, I will cover the points "did the Liberals *really* budget for all of their promises and what was the Grant Thornton report talking about when it said there would be a $300 million shortfall." Following that, I will have some brief comments on the premier's speech in closing the budget debate and my overall thoughts on the budget as a whole considering all of the previous analysis.

Part Four

As I mentioned in a post some months ago, the Liberal promises were priced at $200 million for year one, including some one-time big ticket items like Saint John Harbour, the Marysville Bypass, Task Forces on self-sufficiency, the non-profit sector and post-secondary education, capital construction of a number of new projects, etc.

The $200 million gets spread out over two fiscal years, one presumes, because the government took office half way through the fiscal year.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, based on fiscal transfer figures revised by Ottawa after the 2006 budget, New Brunswick should have been heading for a $320 million surplus in 2006-07 if the books had been properly done. Therefore, even if the Liberals delivered on their full $200 million, there should have been lots of fiscal flexibility left over.

Some things, however, like the HST rebate, were not properly budgeted for by the Tories when they presented their last budget in March 2006. The Liberals mistake was not promising too much, but instead believing in the financial statements made public by the Tories which proved to be flase.

The Grant Thorton report showed that there were major financial challenges however, including the $500+ million final payment for the TransCanada from Woodstock to Grand Falls which the Tories had failed to budget for.

The result - the Liberals could have gone a wholesale promise breaking spree, ran a deficit, raised taxes through the roof, cut programs to death, or some combination of these.

I think they made the best choice of these options, in general, by abandoning and modifying some promises, raising taxes - by-and-large - moderately, and undertaking some program cuts.

Shawn Graham said something that really resonnated with me in his budget speech today:

I am not prepared to hit the pause button on our province's progress while we wait for someone else to determine our fate. So we have to look at what changes we can make here in New Brunswick.

Rather than hiding the challenges, our government is being open and transparent with New Brunswick residents. We are being open about the challenges and we are being open about how we are going to address them.

We have been upfront about the 5 factors that contributed to addressing the fiscal challenge: eliminating the HST rebate on home energy fuel costs, implimenting new revenue measures, directing departments to acheive program administration reductions, constraining overall government spending growth and revenue improvements since the release of the Grant Thorton report this past December.

Choosing these measures was difficult but necessary and I have to say that no government looks forward to raising taxes. But if our province is committed to standing on its own two feet, we must be able to pay for the services that we provide as a province. The tax reductions that had been made previously were not sustainable.

We cannot have amongst the lowest tax base and the lowest tax rates in the country and at the same time expect to provide our citizens with quality public services that are comparable to elsewhere in the country.

It is important to point out that even with the modest increases, New Brunswick still has the lowest personal income tax burden in Atlantic Canada, the small business corporate income tax rate remains the third lowest in Canada and our income threshold matches all other provinces except Alberta and the general corporate income tax today is the fourth lowest. Our government is committed to being competitive and we will remain competitve but most importantly we will become self-sufficient.

That's why we're being upfront with these tax increases and that has not always been the case with previous governments. Governments who raised revenues by not indexing tax thresholds, or through fee increases that went through cabinet behind closed doors. We are not interested in taxation by stealth, we are bringing these changes here to the floor of the legislature for debate. It doesn't get more transparent than that.

I remain very upset by the Small Business tax hikes and I think that other taxes or program cuts should have been found instead, however, I would vote for the motion that passed today which reads "that this House approves, in general, the budgetary policy of the government" (emphasis added) and I certainly prefer balancing the budget in this fashion to the doubling of fees that happened twice under the Tory government without debate or public or legislative input.

I am so sick of Margaret-Ann Blaney and other news...

Spinks has a post up about the most recent shenanigans of Margaret-Ann Blaney and an unfortunate comment by Roly MacIntyre that has allowed her to get out of the controversy over her flawed remarks.

MacIntyre called Blaney "Barbie" during Question Period yesterday which sounds quite vile, but deserves some context. Elizabeth Weir was the one who started calling her Barbie and use to call her it almost everyday and it is now a common nickname for her around the legislature and when Elizabeth used to say it on the record it was never considered sexist. Moreover, Blaney never protested when it was used informally and infact, I believe, referred to herself as such on a few occassions.

This isn't the first time she has taken something completely out of context, feigned being the victim, and tried to make political hay of it.

In 2000, when she was Transportation Minister, there was a big scandal because her riding association sent out a letter saying that if construction companies didn't donate, they wouldn't get road contracts. It was a huge bru-ha-ha and everyone expected she would resign but the Times & Transcript had an editorial cartoon of two construction workers, one with a bulge in his pants, and the caption was "Is that Margaret-Ann Blaney in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" She threw a big spell, cried on the floor of the legislature, and the story became about the cartoon and not her unethical campaign contribution solicitations.

In 2005 when she was Minister of Training & Employment Development, she appointed a bunch of Tory partisans with no qualifications to the Human Rights Commission and I think the Workplace Safety Commission. Mike Murphy went on a lengthy rant about it and listed off a bunch of occupations that would be suitable backgrounds for the appointment and said something along the lines of "we don't need dog catchers, garbage men and weather girls deciding on workplace accidents and discrimination cases". She, a former weather news broadcaster, claimed Murphy was making a personal and sexist attack by criticising the qualifications of female weather broadcasters. The story about the bad appointments went away and "weathergirl" became the story.

Just now, she was taking heat for making a ridiculous accusation that the Minister responsible for the Status of Women was incompetent and should resign because she was allowing the Liberals to bring in policies that would give cash only to full time university students, arguing that it is discriminatory against single mothers who can only go to school part time. So she has seized on the Barbie comment despite the fact that it is widely used as a name for her around the legislature by men and women alike of all parties and by herself.

Enough is enough. She has the distinction of being one of two ministers ever dropped from a Bernard Lord cabinet over the course of more than 7 years. I think you can imagine why.


Still working on finishing up my lengthy ramblings on the New Brunswick budget and will hopefully finish them today as the premier will be wrapping up the budget debate tomorrow. For my thoughts on the federal budget, please see Calgary Grit as we seem to be on the same page.

NB Budget parts 2.5 and 3

In my second budget post the other day, I claimed I was going to cover capital/infrastructure spending and didn't, however it doesn't really fit in with "part 3" so I will carry on where I left off in Part II first and then get in to Part III.

Capital Spending

Traditionally we actually have two budgets in New Brunswick. The Capital Budget (i.e. construction) is introduced in the fall to allow time for tenders to go out so construction can begin at first thaw. Then the ordinary budget comes out in March. However, as was the case in 2000 after Lord took office, and again this time after the Liberals took office in October 2006, the capital budget was delayed to coincide with the main budget.

Most capital expenditures fall under two departments: Supply & Services, which builds almost all of the buildings for government, including schools and hospitals and Transportation, which builds roads.

Here is the breakdown by department with capital spending:

Agriculture & Aquaculture
$400,000

Education
$1,000,000

Health
$10,000,000

Local Government
$500,000

Natural Resources
$2,436,000

Regional Development
$15,200,000

Supply & Serivces
$101,298,000

Tourism & Parks
$500,000

Transportation
$724,350,000

So capital expenditure under the Transportation department accounts for 85% of all capital spending and an impressive 10% of all government spending period. Building roads is a good thing and I am glad to see this figure. However, unfortunately, this isn't all going into roads. More than half of it, $408,800,000, will be paid to the road builders of the Grand Falls-Woodstock highway upon compeletion as part of the agreement drafted by the former government.

Here is how the big ticket items break down:

Transportation:
General Bridges $25,000,000
General Roads $49,500,000
Rural Roads $20,000,000
Canada-New Brunswick highway agreements (TCH mostly) $573,562,000
Border Upgrades (St. Stephen-Calais bridge mostly) $38,000,000
Routes 11 & 17 $5,000,000
Urban Bypasses (Marysville/Route 8 mostly) $6,288,000
Vehicles for the government fleet (including maintenance of existing fleet, fuel, etc) $7,000,000

Supply & Services:
New construction for Agriculture & Aquaculture, Education and Health $67,569,000
Maintenance of old facilities for Education, Health, Legislative Assembly, Post-Secondard Education, Training & Labour and Supply & Services $30,979,000

Others:
Marshlands (Agriculutre & Aquaculture)
Equipment for schools (Education)
Equipment for hopsitals (Health)
Improvements in unincorporated areas (Local Government)
Musquash Watershed and NB Trails (Natural Resources)
General capital projects, funds to top of the provincial share of gas-tax funded infrastructure, and infrastructure under the Canada-New Brunswick Rural Municipal agreement (Regional Development)
General improvements (Tourism & Parks)

This all seems pretty standard and reasonable.

Now for.... Budget Retrospective, Part III

For my next installment on reviewing the budget, I will be looking at "whether or not the budget really is balanced".

When is a budget balanced?

That should be a fairly easy question, but sadly it is not. Let's take a look at the past few budgets for an example:

2007-08:
Revenue: $6,811,506,000
Expenditure: $7,167,486,000
Difference: -$355,980,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $37,097,000

2006-07:
Revenue: $6,258,293,000
Expenditure: $6,345,284,000
Difference: -$86,991,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $22,224,000

2005-06:
Revenue: $6,109,314,000
Expenditure: $6,105,325,000
Difference: $3,989,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $98,880,000

2004-05 (This budget had the inspiring title "Living Within Our Means")†:
Revenue: $5,877,004,000
Expenditure: $5,877,581,000
Difference: -$577,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $54,281,000

2003-04:
Revenue: $5,515,807,000
Expenditure: $5,620,843,000
Difference: -$105,036,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $7,464,000*

The Auditor General rejected this figure saying, regardless of any accounting measure, the best real picture was a deficit of $101,036,000.

2002-03:
Revenue: $5,355,426,000
Expenditure: $5,414,074,000
Difference: -$58,648,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $21,352,000*

The Auditor General rejected this figure saying, regardless of any accounting measure, the best real picture was a deficit of $58,648,000.

2001-02:
Revenue: $5,170,492,000
Expenditure: $5,135,736,000
Difference: $34,756,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $34,756,000

2000-01:
Revenue: $4,834,833,000
Expenditure: $4,813,542,000
Difference: $21,291,000
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $21,291,000

1999-00:
Revenue: $4,779,097,700
Expenditure: $4,766,852,300
Difference: $12,235,400
Stated Surplus (Deficit): $42,245,400

As you can see, of the last 8 budgets, only 2 of them have stated their surplus/deficits with the magic formula of SURPLUS = REVENUE - EXPENDITURE. In fact, the Liberals, while in opposition, went so far as to try to embarrass the government by passing a motion which said, "a deficit occurs when expenditures in a fiscal year are greater than its revenues." By that standard, this budget is in the red and running a deficit of $355 million.

However, looking at the numbers above, you will see that in 1999-2000, 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 the budget was, more-or-less, in sync with the magic formula of SURPLUS = REVENUE - EXPENDITURE. If 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 this was true as well if you take the word of myself and the Auditor General. The Tories used some fuzzy math in these years, which the AG rejected, in which they argued that money they had paid down on the debt in previous years could instead by accounted as being carried over so, essentially, they accounted for the surpluses of previous years twice - first by calling it a surplus in the previous year and paying it on the provincial debt and second by saying that if they were not increasing the debt by more than they decreased it in previous years, they were simply carrying the money over for future use.

However, all of this changed with 2004-2005. This is when the previous PC government, under the recommendation of the Public Sector Accounting Board, an arm of the Chartered Accounts of Canada, changed the accounting of capital assets. The explanation released by the Finance Department at the time explains the justification for this.

I am much more comfortable, in general, with the magic formula of SURPLUS = REVENUE - EXPENDITURE. However, I am not an accountant and this is an accounting matter. If two New Brunswick Auditors General, a PC and Liberal government, the Chartered Accounts of Canada, the Goverment of Canada and the governments of most provinces are okay with it, I guess I should wake up and smell the coffee that has been brewed by the experts.

There is one noticable benefit to this accounting measure. In recent years, as running a deficit has become a horrible sin for governments, the amount of infrastructure construction and improvement has been cut like everything else which would, if not turned around, put us in dire straights in a few years when this infrastructure begins to fail.

Since this measure has come into place, the capital budget of New Brunswick has gone up considerably, which I think is a good thing, and this has been offset in the books by this expert designed and approved accounting method.

This in particular explains why this year their is such a difference between "SURPLUS = REVENUE - EXPENDITURE" and the stated surplus of the government; the expenditure includes A LOT of capital construction and improvement and that is offset, in part, by the accounting measure.

So, is this budget balanced? According to the experts, yes. According to arithmetic and the motion passed by both parties in 2005, no.

I think I will err with the experts and declare this a balanced budget.

Budget retrospective, part deux

I missed Jeannot Volpé's speech in response to the budget yesterday but the Tory criticism seems to largely focus how it "destroys" the legacy of the Bernard Lord government by undoing their tax cuts. I hate to agree in part to this statement, but as I said in my first budget post, the small business tax cuts were the only legitimate legacy Lord left New Brunswick and it is gone. However, especially having re-did the math, I don't think it is that bad on the personal income tax side or on the big corporate tax side. The problem rests with the small business tax hike which I strong oppose.

Anyway, moving into by budget retrospective, today I will cover departmental spending changes and capital/infrastructure spending.

Departments with spending going up

Agriculture & Aquaculture (+10%)
> Increase almost all in Agriculture programs
Energy (+47%)
> Increases across the board
Efficiency NB (+67%)
> Administrative costs do not increase, but program funding raises by 78%
Fisheries (+34%)
> Increase across the board
Intergovernmental Affairs (+13%)
> Administrative costs cut by 14% and Trade by 15%, but North American relations budget increased by 48%
Premier (+40%)
> According to the Liberals in the press, it is because some of Lord's staff's salaries were paid by other departments but all are paid by the Premier's Office for transparency. The Tories do not deny this, but say that that accounts for only half of the increase of $500,000. I wonder if the remainer may be Claudette Bradshaw's task force which is called a "premier's task force" and, unlike the Self-Sufficiency Task Force, isn't listed as a budget item under general government.

Departments with spending more or less the same

Attorney General (+1%)
Education (+6%)
Environment (-2%)
Executive Council (+2%)
Family & Community Services (+8%)
Finance (+3%)
Health (+7%)
Human Resources (virtually no change)
Justice & Consumer Affairs (+5%)
Local Government (+2%)
Natural Resources (+2%)
Post-secondary Education, Training & Labour (+4%)
Public Safety (+4%)
Supply & Services (+3%)
Tourism & Parks (+2%)
Transportation (+4%)
Wellness, Culture & Sport (virtually no change)

Departments with spending going down

Business New Brunswick (-23%)
> Decrease is all in "Business & Industry Development", which is slashed by 45%, while the adminstration of the department and monies for the population growth/immigration secretariat go up.
"General Government"(-13%)
> Cutting of the Advisory Council on Seniors ($216,000), decreasing the Public Service Internship Program by 38%, cutting Communications New Brunswick by 5%, no one-time expenditures for Harbour Clean-up and Credit Union stabalization,
Legislative Assembly (-24%)
> MLA committe stipends drop by over 7%, less cost for Elections' agencies because non-election year,
Regional Development (-21%)
> Cuts in actual departmental spending are only 1% and it is all focused on adminstration, the rest of the decrease is due to less capital and special spending this year due to the completion of projects.

So we see some unusually high jumps in a number of departments and some unusually high drops in a number of departments. Some are explained away rather easily. Energy is the top priority for the government and that explains the increases for the Energy Department, the Efficiency Agency and perhaps in part the hike for North American relations.

All New Brunswickers who whine about the salaries of MLAs should see they are taking part of the hit by having their committee "top up" payments cut by 7%.

Agriculture and Fisheries increases are inline with the Liberals longtime complaint that services for New Brunswickers in these areas declined improperly when the Tories merged the two departments.

I think that the Premier's Office increase is relatively fairly explained but I will be curious to see where the specific money is being spent when we see main estimates.

The problem comes up in the other priority of the government: job creation. Businss New Brunswick takes a big hit - the biggest in real cuts - of any department. Why? Regional Development, despite appearences, is not really cut but the BNB cuts on their own are unusual. Throw in the cuts to the Trade arm of Intergovernmental Affairs and one is left to wonder what the approach is and how it syncs with "making job creation a priority again".

Budget retrospective, Part 1

REVISED

I was going to do up a big post today digesting some of the comments of others on the budget, crunching some of the numbers and offering some of my viewpoints. However, this is proving to be rather impossible to do all at once because the number crunching, at least in terms of income taxes, has been way more complicated than I would have thought and I have a lot more to say than I would have thought.

So, this will be the first in a multi-part series. In Part 1, I will cover the increasing taxes in the budget.

Future editions over the course of the next few days will cover departmental spending changes, capital/infrastructure spending, whether or not the budget really is balanced, did the Liberals *really* budget for all of their promises and what was the Grant Thornton report talking about when it said there would be a $300 million shortfall.

Before I get into the true meat of "Part 1", I am going to over a brief background on my thoughts on the budget which is relevant to this part and will be to all subsequent parts.

The budget, on the surface, has a surplus of $37.1 million. Therefore, some have argued, there could have been $37.1 million less in tax hikes or spending cuts or some combination of the two. I don't think that that is a valid argument. Finance Minister Victor Boudreau admitted in his budget presentation the following:

In late-February, the province received confirmation that because of significantly higher world zinc prices resulting from strong demand, which are expected to remain high, metallic minerals tax revenue will reach an unprecedented level. The value of zinc produced in New Brunswick increased from $408 million in 2005 to over $902 million in 2006. For 2007-2008, revenue from the metallic minerals tax of approximately $70 million is anticipated. In comparison, this revenue source has averaged $4 million annually over the past two decades. This is a significant, extraordinary development.

If current volume levels and prices are sustained, this could potentially translate into revenue windfalls over the next several years. This will not be long-lived, however, as the operating life of Brunswick Mines is expected to run its course by 2010.

Translation: We are getting off lucky because we have a resource commodity which has a high price, but this is not a cash cow for life and if we don't buckle down now, we'll have to see way bigger tax increases and spending cuts a few years down the road. Keeping the budget balanced and thus giving us breathing room going ahead is a good idea, we should not be running just barely in the black or barely in the red, the province has a debt to pay and at least one big source of revenue is going to disappear so just barely meeting our expenses is not good enough.

Now I have already taken the Liberal Party to task for cancelling the HST rebate. It was bad policy and I support its being cancelled, however the Liberals did say they would keep it during the campaign and today say they never made that promise. That is untrue and unfair. They should have admitted their mistake, and quite fairly thrown a lot of blame on the Tories for claiming the rebate was ready to go when they didn't actually plan to prepare it at all, and said "we're sorry but this has to go". Or at least kept their word and implemented the bad policy. Claiming they didn't make the promise to slither away from breaking a promise is not cool and I will not condone it.

However I see my friend Spinks is pinning to the Liberals a trio of items which he portrays as screwing the people. a) the aforementioned HST rebate cancellation, b) the income tax hike I will get into later and c) a lack of a cap on property tax assessments. The third one is unfair. The Liberals have never supported the cap because it is bad public policy and it doesn't make any sense at all. However, the Liberals have addressed the issues of raising property assesements by increasing the unconditional grant to our municipalities, something the Tories promised twice but instead slashed it and then froze it forcing the municipalities to up property taxes - their only other source of revenue. Boudreau's budget gives our cities, towns and villages an extra $1.3 million in transfers which should go a long way to addressing property tax increases.

So anyway, I got into a bit of a rant there, but now let's get into some of the research I have been able to do on the tax increases.

Part 1 - Tax Hikes

Raising taxes is never popular and I don't think any government of any stripe would do it unless they thought it was absolutely necessary because it is politically unpopular and dangerous. I'll begin with income taxes which are the most relevant to everyone because almost everyone pays them.

As I mentioned yesterday, each of New Brunswick's four tax brackets will see an increase. The first bracket, for income under $33,450, goes up 0.44 from 9.68% to 10.12%, the next bracket, for income up to $66,902, goes up 0.66 from 14.82% to 15.48%, the third bracket, for income up to $108,768, goes up 0.28 from 16.52% to 16.80% and the highest bracket, for income above $108,768, goes up 0.11 from 17.84% to 17.95%.

Now to explain how this works, if you make $109,000 you don't pay 17.95% on all of your income, you pay each portion at each threshold. So, if that was your income, you would pay the lowest rate on $33,450 of your earnings, the second rate on $33,452 of your earnings ($66,902-$33,450), the third rate on $41,866 of your earnings ($108,768-$66,902) and the top rate on the $232 you haven't already paid tax on. In addition to this, everyone gets the tax back on the first $8,061 you earned and a whole bunch of other possible deductions.

Before I get too deep in the number crunching, I want to point out one thing that has gone under-reported. The Liberals in this budget have brought back a measure that will save you money in years ahead. They have brought in bracket-indexing. So, in 2007, you pay taxes at the lowest rate for money up to $33,450. In 2008, that number will increase by the rate of inflation so you will pay the lower rate on more money. This is how it used to be but the Tories, not wanting to raise taxes but needing to do so anyway, undid this measure a few years back and essentially raised taxes through the back door.

So, let's see what effect this has on a variety of incomes. For simplicity sake, I have calculated this for a person filing a single income and having no deductions beyond the basic $8,061 claim.

If you made $30,000 this is how it would work out:
2006 provincial income taxes: $2123.70
2007 provincial income taxes: $2220.23
Increase: $96.53
2006 actual percent of income paid in provincial income tax: 7.08%
2007 actual percent of income paid in provincial income tax: 7.40%
Increase: 0.32%

I did the same for the following levels of income:

• $50,000: +$220.90, +0.44% (10.26% vs. 9.82%)

NOTE: the following numbers were in error in the original post, due to a miscalculation on my part

• $75,000: +$354.72, +0.47% (12.14% vs. 11.67%)


• $100,000: +424.72, +0.42% (13.31% vs. 12.88%)


• $150,000: +494.88, +0.33% (14.79% vs. 14.46%)


• $250,000: +604.88, +0.24% (16.05% vs. 15.81%)


• $500,000: +879.88, +0.18%% (17.00% vs. 16.83%)


• $1,000,000: +$1429.88, +0.14% (17.48% vs. 17.33%)

So what we see here is because the increase in the top tax bracket is the smallest, the more money you make (beyond $109,000) the less of a tax increase you see, which I don't like very much.

Now, according to the budget news release, "even with this measure, New Brunswick still has the lowest personal income tax burden in Atlantic Canada". Is this statement true? Yes and no.

Talking in a simple matter of tax brackets, it is not, but it already wasn't. For the lowest tax bracket, Nova Scotia was already below us at 8.79%. However, New Brunswick has the highest personal exemption of any of the Atlantic Provinces so it may equal out. Let's compare our poor guy who made $75,000 and took a huge hit in this tax hike with an increase of nearly 3% half a percent.

In New Brunswick, at an income of $75,000 you will pay $8753.48 in 2006 and $9108.20
in 2007. Now assuming there are no tax hikes in the other Atlantic Provinces, here is what someone making the same income would pay:

Prince Edward Island: $8784.62
Nova Scotia: $9026.59
Newfoundland & Labrador: $9976.53

So the guy who makes $75,000 goes from being the lowest taxed in Altantic Canada to the highest taxed! second highest taxed.

Not a lot of New Brunswickers make $75,000/year however. So let's compare our guy making the more average $30,000/year. In New Brunswick, in 2006 he'd pay $2123.70 and in 2007 he'll pay $2220.23.

Nova Scotia: $2026.69
Prince Edward Island: $2213.62
Newfoundland & Labrador: $2411.02

So the guy making $30,000/year gets dinged, relatively, too but not as much. He moves from the #2 spot to the #3 spot.

The benchmark that the New Brunswick Department of Finance uses is a family with 2 (I think) dependents and a joint income of $40,000, some of which can be transfered to a spouse if it is a single source. In that regard, we apparently were the lowest and continue to be the lowest but it would be too complicated for me to do the calculations to verify.

Now from coast-to-coast, just looking at tax brackets, this is were we fit in:

In the low bracket we move from fourth lowest to sixth, jumping ahead of PEI (9.8%) and Alberta (10% for all).

In the second bracket, we move from seventh lowest to eighth, jumping ahead of NS (14.95%).

In the third bracket, we move from fifth lowest to severth, jumping ahead of NS (16.67%) and PEI (16.7%).

In the fourth bracket*, we are unchanged, remaining as the ninth lowest.

*Note, not all brackets are the same or as numerous. BC has five brackets, and many provinces have only 3. These brackets match up roughly but not exactly. In the case of the majority of provinces which do not have a fourth bracket, all income above the $60-70,000 range is taxed at the same rate while in New Brunswick, BC and Saskatchewan a higher rate kicks in at around $100,000. Therefore, our fourth bracket compares to many provinces third bracket.

New Brunswick's personal exemption, which will now be indexed to inflation and therefore go up every year, is relatively generous, only BC and Alberta offer a higher excemption. Our lowest tax bracket is also very generous at ~$33,500 (and now increasing every year thanks to indexing) where most provinces are at around $29,000 to $31,000.

After this analysis, I am less pleased with these tax measures than I was before. While I do think that tax increases were the prudent thing to do, I think that the increases in brackets 3 and 4 should have been higher, and the increases in bracket 1 and 2 lower - perhaps non-existent. With Francis McGuire saying the key to our future is to get wages higher - comparable to Ontario - and with the guy making $75,000 seeing a 2.86% tax increase, things don't seem to match up very well. therefore, the guys making wages comparable to the middle class in Ontario - $60,000 to $70,000 - shouldn't be bearing the brunt of this tax increase, which they are. Someone making $50,000 sees their taxes go up 0.44% and someone making $75,000 goes up 0.47% while a millionaire only gets a 0.14% increase.

However, the Liberals did take great pains to say during the campaign that the era of income tax cuts would be over if they took office and they have been warning since they took office and particularly since Decemeber that tax hikes were a serious possibility. I don't think you can fault them for dishonesty in this measure, though I will now officially join the chorus of those who think this was a badly implemented tax increase. Though I will say again hooray from bracket indexing.

UPDATE: The numbers for taxes on income above $66,902 were wrong and have been corrected above and some of my comments adjusted as a result however those in the middle band of income are still the hardest hit - just not as hard as I thought - and most of my criticisms remain unchanged, though I am far more happy than I was yesterday.

Business taxes

The coroporate tax increase to me is not a big deal. It isn't really an increase at all but just a cancellation of the Tory reduction scheduled for 2007. Corporations will now pay the same tax for 2007 as they did in 2006. Moreover, New Brunswick remains a friendly tax environment for business with our rate remaining the fourth lowest in Canada. I have no problem whatsoever with this measure.

Now, when we get to the small business tax rate, I get a little angry. This rate was scheduled to drop to 1% from 1.5% on January 1, 2007 but will now increase to 5% instead. The ceiling from which you are defined as a small business will slip from $475,000 to $400,000. So as a result all small businesses will see their taxes increase 3.5% and for those poor bastards whose businesses make between $400,000 to $475,000 they will see their tax rate jump from the 1.5% small business rate to the 13% corporate rate. That is INSANE. A business that made $425,000 in 2006 and the same in 2007 will see their tax bill skyrocket from $6375 to $55,250. An increase of over 8 and a half times.

Notwithstanding this measure, New Brunswick still has one of the best tax systems for small buiness so this measure won't likely cause samll businesses to move elsewehere. However, the tax regime for small businesses was probably the only thing the Lord government ever did that I was 100% supportive of. It increased the ability of people to be innovative, inventive and entrepreunerial. They have been robbed of that in this budget and I am not very happy about it.

Victor Boudreau's big day

Folks, today is budget day. I will post more when the budget actually comes out this afternoon at 2.

The Liberals have taken great pains to stress that it will be balanced so I suspect it will be, unless they are completely crazy.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, new ideas are in there re: Self-Sufficiency or if they will be holding off on that until the Task Force final report comes out in April - which would mean major changes have to wait until the next budget in 2008. Speaking of which, Eugene at To Be Announced has a cute post about the proposal to sell bonds for economic development guaranteed by NB Liquor Corp.

I'll start updating shortly after 2 when the budget documents are released...

UPDATE 1

You can find all of the budget documents here.

UPDATE 2

There is a surlpus of $37.1 million. Huge economic growth last year thanks in large part to high zinc prices pushed the value of mineral production up 63.8 per cent to a record $1.5 billion. This is how they overcame to the forecast $300 million deficit by Grant Thorton in December along with cutting the HST rebate and cutting administrative costs.

New funding for five departments:

• Health gets $127 million more (+6.6%)
  
• Education gets $47 million more (+5.7%)
  
• Family & Community Services gets $67.4 million (+8.4%) + a 3% increase to welfare rates
  
• Elizabeth Weir's Efficiency NB get $15.3 million more (+234%)
  
• Population Growth gets $1.8 million more (+167%)

TAXES GOING UP

Bracket 1 goes up to 10.12% from 9.68%
Bracket 2 goes up to 15.48% from 14.82%
Bracket 3 goes up to 16.80% from 16.52%
Bracket 4 goes up to 17.95% from 17.84%

Click here for the current rates and the unchanged cut-offs. All New Brunswickers pay bracket 1, then if you make more than $33,450 you start paying bracket 2 on the income above and beyond that number and so on.

(edit, I must be dyslexic, if you read this over the course of a few minutes before I corrected my error, I had read the numbers backwards)

UPDATE 3

The tax increase is not all bad and may be negatived by other actions of the government. Our taxes remain the lowest in Atlantic Canada and the bracket rates are being re-indexed, eliminating the bracket creep brought in by the Tories a few years ago which allowed them to raise taxes without technically raising taxes and preventing New Brunswickers from seeing their real income from going down as tax rates will adjust with inflation thus relieving in the tax cycle what New Brunswickers lose through the course of the year thanks to higher cost of living.

Corporate taxes are raised marginally. The coroporate tax cut of 2006 will be a one year affair, as for the 2007 tax year it will return to 2005 levels. However the previous Lord corporate tax cuts are still in effect giving New Brunswick the fourth lowest corporate tax in Canada.

The small business tax is also going up marginally. I am not too upset about the first two tax increases, but this is a bad idea.

UPDATE 4

The province is following the federal government's lead and axing the program that allows foreigners to send in their receipts and get the sales tax that they paid while here back. I have no problem with this.

UPDATE 5

Spinks should be happy, a form of income splitting is coming. New Brunswick is following Ottawa's lead and allowing pension income to be split.

What of the federal NDP?

I found a brief news piece I saw today very interesting, I'll quote it in its entirety:

NDP MP Pat Martin says his party must make significant gains in the next federal election or be forced to admit it may never be anything more than a fringe player and end its 46-year existence. Despite a recent rise in fortunes for the NDP, the Winnipeg MP admitted his party has led a tenuous existence, allowing bold policies -- such as calling for free first degrees for college and university students -- to be hidden behind timid language. "So, the result has been to bore people into some kind of a stupor where nobody has any idea what we stand for anymore." A poor electoral result could leave the NDP with few options, Mr. Martin said, including, in the case of a minority government, a merger or coalition with the Liberals.

As I wrote back in December, I don't think the NDP are doing very well at all. Layton was lauded for his "success" of winning 19 seats in 2004 and 29 seats in 2006. However, Alexa McDonough was considered a lackluster leader when she won 21 seats in 1997. That is 21 seats out of 301, while Layton's best has been 29 out of 308 very marginally better.

I tend to blame the NDP's failure on Layton's all style, no substance appraoch but Martin seems to be saying the NDP needs to be bold in presenting its alternative positions rather than timid in fear of appearing too far to the left. He may be right, I am not sure.

The fact remains that the NDP has won seats in every province in Canada except for PEI. Yes, that includes in Quebec and in Alberta. Since 1979, they have represented 76 different ridings. Historical trends show that 2004 and 2006 were "perfect storm" scenarios for NDP gains, yet they managed to return only to their average rather than to the top tier of election results.

Everyone knows that Jack Layton is no Ed Broadbent, but the NDP has been shut out of Saskatchewan two elections in a row while Saskatchewan, as recently as 1997, housed over half of the federal NDP caucus. There is a complete disconnect between the NDP and its traditional supporters and base. The NDP of Jack Layton has one base: bleeding hearted silverspooned socialists and acedemics from urban centres. However, history has proved over and over that these are finnicky voters. They will jump to the Liberals - and have in the past - when the electoral situation is one that could see the Liberals take power in place of the Conservatives. It is these elections which kill the NDP and cut it back to its rural agrarian base. Oh wait, they don't have one anymore. Thanks Jack!

If the NDP don't come up with some bold ideas, it is only a matter of time until they are completely wiped out by a good Liberal election year. I thought that the NDP would be done in the next election but Dion's missteps and seeming inability to connect with voters may have been the NDP's reprieve, but it is only a temporary one.

The NDP, though a party I have never voted for and would not want to take power, has served a very useful purpose in being the conscience for parliament and the incubator of some of Canada's best progressive social programs. I do not want to see it die, but it is in dire straights.

New Democrats should be encouraged that one of their MPs is willing to admit this and they should act.