Sinn Fein
The Premier loves to make the (patently false) comparison between Newfoundland and Newfoundland on the one hand, and Ireland on the other. And he's also determined to "go it alone" on major development projects. (If by "go it alone", you mean "with billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees", of course.)
Call it the Sinn Fein Model of economic development.
Which is why it's not surprising today to learn that the provincial government is going to develop an oil refinery proposal:
Province to explore feasibility of second refinery for the province
Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne, announced today that the province has begun a feasibility study for establishing a new oil refinery in the province in the upper Placentia Bay area.
"We are very excited with this feasibility study which has tremendous economic implications for the province," said Premier Williams. "We committed in our Blueprint to pursue opportunities to expand the refining capacity in the province and, indeed, our government has undertaken a study to determine the potential in this regard. Our announcement to commence a feasibility study signals our confidence in the potential for further capacity and I look forward to the results."
The feasibility study is timely because a shortage of oil refining capacity worldwide has created strong market demand. The study area has been selected on the basis of its strategic location and the efforts of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in encouraging and promoting the building of new oil refining capacity in the province.
The province considers Placentia Bay as a strategic location and a natural choice as the basis for the feasibility study considering its skilled workforce, established ice-free, deepwater shipping lanes and proximity to both potential oil supplies and large markets for refined products along the east coast of North America.
Wait a minute. That's not what Danny announced at all.
What Danny announced was that a private company is exploring the possibility of building a refinery in Placentia Bay. Something that, if you believe the nationalist myth-makers, was forbidden by horrible Ottawa in the 1985 Atlantic Accord.So, Private-Sector Company Considers Development in Province
Good news story, right?
Only if you're Newfoundland and Labrador Refining Corporation, and you're looking to invest in Newfoundland.
If you're Ventus Energy, and you're looking to invest in Labrador, well, it's a different story.
What the Sinn Fein government of Newfoundland and Newfoundland has failed to do, however, is to distinguish between the two projects based on any sound policy reason. Indeed, given Danny's penchant for basking in reflected glory – a sports team that wins a national meet, a musical artist who wins an industry award, a private company that announces something that private companies do all the time – the Premier and Ed Byrne should have been all over the Ventus thing.
Well, "all over" in a good way, not in the vicious way that they were.
If the province wants to maximize its benefits by going it alone on some things that private sector companies are good at, why not go it alone on all? Why not nationalize everything?
As long as there is no clear answer to that question, and as long as a cozy relationship with Sinn Fein is a pre-requisite to a potential investor getting at least a yellow light instead of the full-court political and bureaucratic red one, then the investment that the province needs in order to create a truly sustainable and self-sufficient economy will continue to go elsewhere.
posted by WJM @ 11:54 PM
3 Comments:
While I agree with you that there is no economic reason or sense in "go it alone" nationalizin' approach to these matters -- especially not as some sort of "principle," as some in the govt. see it, I disagree with your assumptions about Ireland.
I think there are many things NL can learn from the Irish model, which actually isn't really the Sinn Fein model.
Danny, if he's interested in the irish model, should remember that some of the most courageous and necessary decisions made in the creation of the "Celtic Tiger" were tax reforms/reductions and a dramatic reduction in the size of the Irish government's footprint on the economy.
Rather than dismiss the irish example, I think it might make more sense to say that Danny isn't following it.
You don't get the linguistic joke, Liam: Irish "Sinn Fein" = "Ourselves Alone" = as in "We'll go it alone", or "We'll develop it ourselves." It's not a reference to Sinn Fein the party.
Your point about tax reform and government involvement in the economy proves my point exactly: the types of economic reforms done in Ireland have not, and likely never will, be done here. What Danny is doing is the exact opposite of everything he supposedly admires about Ireland.
Rather than dismiss the irish example
Liam I wish you'd start responding to what I actually wrote, instead of what you think or hope I wrote.
I'm not dismissing the Irish example; I'm dismissing the phoney-baloney comparison between Ireland and Newfoundland that is so popular with the PWG set and with the current provincial government. Other than the fact that the two are islands, there is almost no point of commonality.
So, Liam, when can we expect you to post something on your blog which distances you from the provincial PC's under Danny Williams?
This guy is so far removed from your economic philosophies that he is actually closer to the New Democrats on a raft of issues.
The same seems to be the case with Stephen harper and Loyola Hearn, his local agent.
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