Does anyone ever read anymore?
Maybe it's a lingering effect of the lockout, but CBC's story today, concerning the lamentably bad — in the methodological sense — Harris Centre report on federal civil service jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador, is equally unsound.
CBC reports:
The report shows that Newfoundland and Labrador's share of federal jobs is lower than the national average.Well, no.
The report shows the exact opposite of that.
Newfoundland and Labrador's share of federal jobs is not only higher than the national average, it's higher than Ontario's (where most of the national capital is), higher than Quebec's (where the rest of the national capital is), and higher than every other province but for the three Maritimes.
(And yes, the three Maritimes have a significantly larger share of the federal civil service, which is why the jingoes like to compare federal civil service staffing levels in NL to those in PE, NS, and NB, but never to the all-Canada average or to any province west of Edmunston.)
The Harris Centre report says, in black-and-white-and-PDF:
"In regard to employment, the study confirms that Federal employment in the Province, as a share of total Federal employment, has been somewhat higher than the Province’s share of the national population." (p.ii)The conclusion reached in the CBC coverage of the report is totally unsubstantiated by the actual content of the report. This sloppiness is totally unbecoming the usually reliable and well-executed reporting that can usually be expected of CBC-NL.
"This analysis will show that the Province’s share of Federal employment has been historically equal to or greater than its share of the national population..." (p.5)
"The remaining provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba, all have a greater share of Federal employment than they do of the national population." (p.7)
"Newfoundland and Labrador does have a slightly higher proportion of Federal jobs than it has national population..."(p.17)
posted by WJM @ 2:26 AM
9 Comments:
Regardless of how NL stacks up as compared to other provinces, there is a lot more of the federal government that should be moved out of Ottawa and other central locations and into provinces and regions around Canada.
I'd also say that it's unfortunate and unfair to see CFB Goose underfunded and as for the weather office fiasco . . . .
How is CFB Goose Bay "underfunded"?
What I don't understand is why does Quebec get almost 5 BILLION in Equalization payments?
Because when you plug Quebec into the formula, find the gap between its own-source revenues and the equalization threshold, and multiply it by 7.5 million people in the province, that's what you come up with.
What is inherently wrong with Quebec getting the amount of equalization that it does?
By the way, what does GDP have to do with equalization?
I don't suppose you know where I could find this formula, and all of the pertinant data off hand do you?
It just seems alittle extravagent 5 billion? I lived in Quebec and I didn't see any have not status like you see in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Town of Goose Bay has stated time and again that it believes the base has been underfunded by the government and under-promoted. I trust them.
I don't suppose you know where I could find this formula, and all of the pertinant data off hand do you?
The Department of Finance Canada website.
It just seems alittle extravagent 5 billion? I lived in Quebec and I didn't see any have not status like you see in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Where in Quebec?
The Town of Goose Bay has stated time and again that it believes the base has been underfunded by the government and under-promoted. I trust them.
You trust anyone who shits on the federal government.
It isn't even a Base more like a training centre.
The two terms are not opposites.
Not even a Canadian training centre because it caters to foreign militaries and has very few Canadian Troops station there.
Foreign military flight training has been the reason for the base's existence since the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Town of Goose Bay has stated time and again that it believes the base has been underfunded by the government and under-promoted.
The cause of the recent downturn at Goose Bay is neither underfunding nor under-promotion; it's that the low-level flight training that was carried out since the 1960s is now under-needed. If you think there's a way to convince countries with combat fighters that (a) they still need, from a military standpoint, the kinds of LLFT they did for the past four decades, and (b) Goose Bay is the place to do it, go ahead.
However, Gulf War I, and especially Kosovo, put a stake through the heart of low-level as a tactical advantage. That's why Goose Bay has to adapt and change, both its military AND civilian economies. That, in part, is what the threats are for.
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