The plan

Tom Marshall claims, hilariously, in Tuesday's Telegram:

Our first few years of office saw cuts to the public service and public sector wage freezes, decreases in program spending and a deferral of all non-essential capital expenditures.

To turn things around, we developed a plan and stuck to it. In that short span of eight years, the turnaround that has taken place in Newfoundland and Labrador is remarkable.

The "plan" that Tom Marshall and his Progressive Conservatives Dunderdale2011s developed included:

Approximately 40% of all government expenditures goes towards salaries and employee benefits. Over the next five years, approximately 25% of the public service will be eligible for retirement. A Progressive Conservative government will use this five-year period to reduce the size of the public sector through attrition.

That's straight out of his party's 2003 Blue Sheet. Let's fact-check it, using Statistics Canada Table 183-0002.

Between 2003 and 2005, under Danny Williams-Government, the provincial civil service labour force shrank by 8.6%.

Between 2005 and 2011, it grew by 25.9%.

Employment in the entire provincial public sector, including the civil service and health, education, and crown corporation employees, shrank during the brief "attrition" era by 2.9%.

Since 2005, it has grown by 16.9%.

That's what's happened in the "short span of eight years."

Some turnaround.

Some plan.

Some sticking to it.

If he weren't still hale and hearty, Liam O'Brien would be rolling in his grave.