The new Liberal Government is taking a political shellacking.
Ball is turning fiasco into a phenomenon. If he doesn’t use
his own political instincts, assuming he has any, he won’t last as long as did Kathy Dunderdale.
Such a conclusion, little more than five months into his tenure, seems
ridiculously premature. But it isn’t. That the Government’s first set of decisions
were so strategically ill-chosen, suggests the Premier is quite prone to
stumble.
It is not just the deficit levy or the doubling of the gas
tax, though these measures are the predominant catalysts of dissension. His
public relations capacity seems to mirror his own lack of fire; a relaxed and
passion-less treatment of deeply felt political issues magnifies an incapacity
to connect with a public jolted by their vastly changed financial circumstance.
The April NTV/MQO Poll placed the Liberals at 37% following the
Budget Address by the Finance Minister, 20 points less than the 57.2% of the
popular vote in the general election. While that result is not surprising,
given the budget, the protest movement was then only starting to build.
Ball has not benefited even having co-opted the public service with the promise of lay-offs through attrition. A courageous Premier would have boxed the leadership of NAPE and CUPE about the ears by now, just for pretending the status quo is possible.
Nevertheless, it is the job of politicians, not public
sector unions, to establish the correct context for the Government’s fiscal decisions, and
to “sell” the Budget.
Even if the Premier had sold off the entire Office of Public
Engagement, as proposed in an earlier Post (and still the right thing to do), the
Government’s interface with the public could not have been more vacuous.
That he let himself get tricked into a massive public search
for budget saving tips, when the public lacked a clear idea of the sheer scale of the problem, is
difficult to digest.
Most so-called professionals and the better educated seem not to possess
the knowledge and expertise to interpret the implications of five successive
deficits, or net
debt estimated well in excess of $20 billion by 2022, once Nalcor’s multi-billion dollar fiasco(s) are accounted for. Why would Ball expect more from the general
population?
A fiscal mess cannot be a crisis and an ordinary problem at once; it is one or the other. Crisis demands urgency, an insistent and consistent description of why it deserves such a characterization, a plan of attack, and an appeal for support of the plan. If the message of crisis is confused, why would anyone be concerned?
The appearance by the Premier and the Finance Minister on
the CBC Evening News having preempted the program for the Q&A session, is one example of politics badly practised.
Even if the pair had given the Budget some context a thousand times in previous days, a few introductory remarks were necessary to explain the depth of problem and how those unprecedented tax measures might be expected to assist in its resolution. Instead, the two could have been middle managers out of central casting, given their poor exhibition of both empathy and insight.
Even if the pair had given the Budget some context a thousand times in previous days, a few introductory remarks were necessary to explain the depth of problem and how those unprecedented tax measures might be expected to assist in its resolution. Instead, the two could have been middle managers out of central casting, given their poor exhibition of both empathy and insight.
Ball obviously didn’t learn a thing from Smallwood whose
penchant for repetition was legendary. In
the same vein, Peckford didn’t keep the public on-side and win the Atlantic
Accord just with an occasional mention of offshore resources jurisdiction. They took pains to capture public understanding and support. But let's be clear. Public engagement occurs only after you have earned the public's attention.
Of course, a good PR job on the Budget, alone, would have
been insufficient. It still needed choices that were defensible; ones relevant
to the amount of money saved.
Ball even overlooked the demands of party politics; the Budget
reflects no consideration of a strategic element, one that respected the
Liberals traditional rural base. The Premier forgets he capitulated to Paul Davis far
too easily on a Seat reduction scheme that reduced that base, last year. If he
is calculating the Avalon Peninsula, home to the bulk of public servants, is
the new Liberal bastion he will find those loyalties far more divided and transitory, too.
Library closings disturb people’s sensibilities in areas
where services are scarce. The HST on books, a minuscule revenue source
anyway, is an affront especially to the arts community, an articulate group having
both a stage and a microphone. In place of cancelling full day kindergarten, its
necessity arguable in the circumstances, the Budget chose the very lightning rods of
protest. Even the Premier’s insistence on an allocation of $750,000 to study a
Straits tunnel, when penury beckons, is just proof of tunnel vision.
The oddest part is that the Budget did not accomplish what it
should have; expenditures having gone up, not down.
Now, the Government will have even less courage for the really
tough decisions that await.
Ball has taken a political pounding with little to show for
it.
Being savvy implies getting it right the first time.
It is true the fiscal problem is so large the Government
could not possibly have fixed it within one budget period. But the first cut
should have gone for the big money, the bloat; now the Liberals face death by a
thousand cuts. On top of that, Ball has no idea what Stan Marshall will present
him on the Muskrat Falls project, except that it threatens to be a Hobson’s
choice.
The Government finds itself fought from every quarter.
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| Bay of Islands MHA Eddie Joyce Minister of Municipal Affairs |
For what reason would Gerry Byrne and Eddie Joyce, two
Cabinet Ministers, let it be known that they counselled against the deficit
levy, as CBC'S David Cochrane recently reported? In a place where secrecy, not just loyalty, is badge of honor it is telling
that such a story could be published, and go unrefuted by either of them.
 |
| Corner Brook MHA Gerry Byrne Minister of Advanced Education and Skills |
Ball’s only advantage is that no one else in the Liberal
Caucus has demonstrated a skill-set better than his. But that doesn’t count for
much. For the same reason, the Tories ended up with the Constable Premier.
