POLITICAL COVER-UP OR DYSFUNCTIONAL GOVERNMENT?

Premier Tom Marshall says he had no part whatsoever in the decision of the Minister of Transportation and Works, Nick McGrath, to cancel the Humber Valley Paving (HVP) Contract.   He also said he is confident the Minister handled the matter properly.

The Premier is not believable.   

No one should be casual about casting aspersions on the Premier’s integrity.  But if he insists that the public ignore both the historical and the institutional framework within which major governmental decisions are made, taking into account well established limitations on Ministerial latitude, he is inviting expressions of incredulity. 

In order to assess the HVP decision in context, it is important to look at the process of decision making in Government.  On any level, except governmental dysfunction, the Premier’s assertion doesn’t add up.

Why?  The fact that the issue involves a $19 million decision is important; but it isn’t the only reason. 

PREMIER TOM MARSHALL'S MISSED OPPORTUNITY

The appointment of Tom Marshall to head the Tory Administration heralded not just an end to a failed Dunderdale Premiership; it caused an expectation, though a modest one, among an angry and hopeful citizenry of fundamental change in the way the Government operates and communicates. 

That sense of hope might have engendered a belief the new, if temporary, Premier had heard their protests; that he understood why they were angry.  It wasn’t that Tom Marshall had excelled as a Minister.  He had not.  He had bullied critics alongside Kennedy and Dunderdale. He had implemented no oversight procedures for Muskrat, engaged in excessive deficit spending in Finance and asked to be relieved of the Finance job when he found the going too rough.

The public’s optimism was associated less with any prior manifestation of leadership than with a belief that he could not possibly have mistaken the reason Dunderdale was banished.

There was another reason, too. 

The Tory Leadership Convention, delayed until July, implies a five month hiatus before a more permanent successor claims the reins of power. 

That Marshall might use the opportunity to implement immediate and necessary change is not entirely presumptuous.

The Government has been on a joyride since the world price of oil hit $140/barrel; government is in a fiscal mess.  Muskrat Falls is a public relations nightmare and a potential public policy disaster; the Government has chosen secrecy over accountability. There is little talent in the Cabinet including in the important Finance and Natural Resources portfolios.

What was the opportunity given Tom Marshall?