Vivisecting the Living Document (III)

Back during the 2007 provincial election campaign, then-Liberal leader Gerry Reid included in his platform something he called the "Building Labrador Fund", which would be specifically devoted towards a massive infrastructure and public works program in Labrador.

Premier and PC Party leader Danny Williams poo-poo'd the idea, saying Gerry Reid would "bankrupt the province!" Much attaboy-Danny ensued, especially after Reid consciously wore the criticism as a badge:

"He said we were going to bankrupt the province. Well, then, let's bankrupt it, if that's the case," Reid told a rally.

The Building Labrador Fund, according to the then-Liberal platform, called for expenditures in Labrador of $1-billion over a period of ten years.

Danny Williams-Government, on the other hand, is now in year four of its pompously-styled Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador, which, according to officially-sanctioned bumpf, is valued at $250-million over five years.

That is to say, the difference between Gerry Reid's "bankrupting the province", and Danny Williams' whatever it is Danny Williams is doing, is $50-million per year once you annualize the putative Building Labrador Fund and the shell-game Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador over their respective terms.

In other words, the difference between Gerry Reid's "bankruptcy" plan on the one hand, and Danny Williams' "repackage stuff government does or would do anyway" plan on the other, is a knife-edge margin of just 0.67% of the province's entire budgeted gross expenditure for the 2010-11 fiscal year.