OSBORNE'S BUDGET BAKED LONG BEFORE TUESDAY

If prudence was ever a word in Tom Osborne’s lexicon it was likely extracted as a condition of accepting the Finance post. Profligacy, now known in this province as status quo, is a more likely fit when the Minister delivers, on Tuesday, the seventh deficit Budget in a row.

Ask public sector labour. Ask the health care sector. They know there can be no change because their fiscal arrangements — which represent a very high percentage of total budgeted expenditures — have been carved in stone.

Then there are the Polls. When the Premier’s popularity climbs amidst a refusal to acknowledge a fiscal crisis — one that grows each day — it might be right to suggest that the public, too, is content to leave the pain for someone — anyone — else.  

It is possible that other factors are at play; that what is really influencing Ball’s polling gains is a Tory leadership vacuum. But I’m not so sure about that. 

NO GOOSE FOR GOOSE BAY

The Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, in return for five years of disruption, ought to be given a legacy greater than the estimated 100 maintenance jobs attributable to the operation of a commissioned Muskrat Falls. 

If any synergies can be found, from even an unwise megaproject, most people would expect them to enhance Goose Bay’s future growth and development prospects.

As I write, Nalcor is spending several million dollars building a staging area, together with storage and assembly facilities on the Muskrat Falls site.  It will include a fenced compound, one or more very large warehouses whose structures and foundations will be designed for heavy loads; the height of the buildings and access to them will meet demanding requirements. 

Likely the facility will boast a heavy lift crane (and several of smaller tonnage), a large capacity electrical system, industrial grade mechanical ventilation and heating systems, adequate offices and a communications system – facilities that would rival some found at the Bull Arm Site.  Water and sewer services and related civil infrastructure will also be supplied.