The Funeral March

The Funeral March

By: Ryan Young

When Education and Early Childhood Development Minister, Dale Kirby, publicly stated that any teacher cuts in this year’s budget would be made “over my dead body,” most people rolled their eyes at the ministers attempt to make it appear like he was finally ready to stand up for the children of Newfoundland and Labrador. The very next day, we learned that Mr. Kirby was already backtracking on that statement, and what he actually meant was that there would be no change to the teacher allocation formula, but that there was still a possibility of more job losses for teachers.

Of course, Kirby was not literally talking about his own dead body, he was talking about the death of his career. As a long -time advocate for education, Dale Kirby became known for being stubborn and voters had assumed that after four years on the opposition side criticizing education policies, that he would be a good man to get our system back on track. Nobody could have predicted that Kirby would quickly cut education in this province to the bone, a term that was a favourite of his when in opposition. He is already feeling the heat, and he knows that further cuts to education will certainly hasten the end of his time in our House of Assembly.

Nothing was spared in education last spring. Teacher cuts, busing cuts, library cuts, and child care cuts were all offered up as part of Cathy’s directive to trim 30% from each budget. The provincial child care budget alone took a 16% cut in funding, just months after Kirby had ridiculed former minister Clyde Jackman at a public child care forum where he promised investment, not cuts. I’m sure that everyone understands that the province is in a tough place, but when you make a career out of advocating for better education and then when you finally have the chance to make a difference, your first act is to make dramatic cuts, people are going to question your credibility. Kirby has continued to defend his actions by blaming the opposition whenever a serious question is asked of him and has refused to take responsibility for any actions or comments he has made. All of this has elevated him to the same level of disdain that people have for the premier and the finance minister.

If you read my last post, you would know that credibility is a big problem for our government. With the House of Assembly open again, the Liberals have continued to dodge questions and dance around the issues, all the while pointing the finger of blame back at the opposition side every single time a serious issue is raised. Dwight Ball continues to throw his own credibility under the bus by maintaining his Ed Martin story, and Cathy Bennett maintains that her fiduciary responsibility to Nalcor, a crown company owned by the people, trumps her responsibility to protect the people of the province by providing pertinent information to government about the corporation. If that was indeed the case legally, then why was Bennett ever appointed as a minister in the first place? How can we have a finance minister that stated publicly that her first responsibility is to the Nalcor board and not the people of this province that she was elected to represent?

Politics is a world built on trust. You don’t always have to make the most popular decisions, as long as the people feel that you are being honest with them. Governments in this province and elsewhere have quite often been able to get themselves out of trouble by coming clean with the people and providing a clear plan of action. For this government, it seems to be more about duck and cover and one-way communication. Trust does not seem to be a matter of concern as the tendency has been to not be honest until evidence is presented that forces them to acknowledge the truth. Even when faced with blatant facts, such as in the recent Auditor General’s report into Ed Martin’s severance, they continue to go with their own story, despite the fact that everyone in the province knows that they are not being honest.

Trust is something that when broken, is very hard to get back. Most governments realize this, and work very hard to ensure that those values shine through in their interaction with the people. In our case, government has failed at every turn to be upfront and honest, or to provide us with a clear plan of what their intentions are. The Way Forward is a lovely document, but one that is very short on details and facts, and even when they make announcements that sound positive, hard facts are always left out in favour of spin and fluff. Even after all of the public outrage and backtracks in the past year, they still can’t manage to come out and have a real conversation with the people about the issues.

Despite the millions spent in communications, it seems like every single time a government member opens their mouth, something comes out wrong. This is a tell-tale sign that the decision makers in this province are not in tune with the wants and the needs of the people of this province. People are tired of the same old political games. They want the real change they were promised and they want their elected officials to listen to them. Kirby’s “over my dead body” quip has been a gold mine for cartoonists, media, and bloggers, but it does raise the issue that there will likely be many “dead bodies” of political careers after the next election. Cue The Funeral March…

#Hashtag Governing

#Hashtag Governing

By: Ryan Young

Just for clarity, the term “hashtag governing” was coined by VOCM Open Line host, Paddy Daly, a couple of weeks ago, and not by this good rogue. It is a good term though, and I thought it would be a good theme for this post, which has been rolling around in my head for a while. The term cuts straight to the heart of why there are so many negative issues within our provincial government right now, with reactionary policy being created on-the-fly, instead of being based on evidence as we were promised in the Liberal 5-Point Plan.

Now I fully acknowledge that this problem is not unique to the current governing party. King Danny was hard to budge on pretty much any issue, but during the Dunderdale-Marshall-Davis reign, we saw plenty of examples of reactionary policy making. This is why we currently have so many wasteful government programs that have no measurable outcomes. As much as people hate to agree with Dwight these days, he was absolutely right when he said we had an outcomes problem in this province. The problem, as usual, was that there was no real communication to explain that statement, or no facts given to explain what our outcomes problem might be, or what plans they may have to fix it.

A couple of quick examples we can look at are the 10 year child care plan and the provincial population growth strategy. With the child care plan, the former government attempted to address the growing issues of affordability, availability, and quality. An voluntary operating grant was brought in as an attempt to subsidize private owners to provide lower rates for parents. The idea was good in theory, but with no real consultation from the industry and no long-term plan to bring all child care providers on board, they have created a two-tier system for childcare that does not meet the needs of the majority of owners or parents. That money would have been much better spent on parent subsidies, to ensure that parents who need the help the most get it. Under the system that has been created by the operating grant, a parent making $200k a year can take advantage of low parent fees under the operating grant, while parents making under $40k are often forced to pay the full price. By reacting to the problem without doing adequate consultation and looking at all the evidence, millions of dollars are being wasted on an ineffective program that is failing to meet any of its objectives.

In the case of the population growth strategy, the former government moved very quickly to present a plan to the public to deal with our declining population. The plan was released shortly after several media stories and public questions of how the government planned to deal with the issue. The focus of the plan was to attract more immigrants to the province. Now I am all for increasing the number of immigrants, especially those with the specific skill sets that our province requires, but immigration alone will not solve our problems. One of the main issues is that without any large international communities in the province, many immigrants only stay in the province for 3-5 years before moving on to bigger centers. immigrant families also have to deal with the same issues that NL families are struggling with, such as; expensive housing, childcare, transportation and food costs, just to name a few. In order to attract new people to the province, we first need to provide a positive environment to make this an attractive place to move and raise a family. Many families here in NL wish they could have larger families, but feel restricted due to the high expense of raising children. By creating a policy that was designed to attract immigrants, without addressing any of these concerns left us with millions more taxpayer dollars spent in a strategy with no underlying plan or measurable outcomes.

When Dwight talks about our outcomes problem, what he is really saying is that his government is finally realizing how much public money is tied up in programs and strategies that are not working. The tough part for the government is that they have already used up all of their political capital dealing with communication blunders, that any cuts to government programs with earn them a ton of grief, even if the cuts are justified. Finance Minister Cathy Bennett has talked several times about zero-based budgeting. If there is any innovation within the bureaucrats that manage the various departments they should be working hard to develop new programs, based on facts and evidence, to replace the ones that should be eliminated. This would not only start putting more of our money to good use, it would start rebuilding some of the trust that this government has worked so hard to lose.

So far into this mandate, that all seems like wishful thinking. Despite his complete opposition to the operating grant, Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Dale Kirby has not only kept the program in place, but he is trying to expand it by getting more child care centers to sign on. This is causing much division within the industry and owners are wondering why they are not seeing action on this issue, as was promised by Mr. Kirby while he was in opposition. I know first hand that he has received more than enough consultation on the issue to know that changes are needed, but at last check there was talk of even more money being funneled into the program. In Kirby’s defense, he did not create the policy, and he has to work with the very people that created the plan. I can understand how that would make it difficult to make meaningful changes to the policy, but when you have an entire industry telling you that a program is not working, the answer should not be to throw more money at it and hope for the best. Minister Kirby certainly has access to plenty of expertise, and in order to move forward he needs to start listening to those experts instead of the bureaucrats.

At “The Way Forward” event earlier this month, the premier talked about bringing in an additional 500 immigrants a year by 2022, moving from 1100 to 1600 annually. While I commend this initiative, I would like to know more about how they plan to achieve this goal, and if they have considered any of the well-known concerns regarding immigration and raising children that I have outlined above. Without addressing these concerns and moving forward with a clear and direct strategy in place, we are just setting ourselves up for more wasted money on ineffective programs. We need to develop a population strategy that is based on evidence and facts, and target funding to programs that have measurable goals and outcomes.

When the Liberal’s said last fall that they would be facilitating a shift towards evidence-based decision making, many people cheered. The thoughts of political decisions being dictated by facts and science and good fiscal practices after more than a decade of perceived mismanagement was one of the things that lead to such a lopsided election last November. That’s what makes examples of reactionary governing such as Kirby’s library blunder, for example, so hard for the public to forget. We were promised that the decisions would be made based on evidence, not on accounting exercises with the evidence part hastily thrown in (at great expense to the taxpayer) after the fact. The same can be said for the levy, or the courthouse closures, or so many other decisions that this government has made during its short tenure that seem to have thrown the evidence-based approach right out the window.

People are mad at the government and they are mad at the premier, and rightly so. They certainly have plenty of fair and legitimate reasons to gripe. But the simple fact is that we need this government to start making some good decisions that will guide this province back in the right direction. That cannot be done while blaming the PC’s for everything on one hand and then embracing all of their past policy decisions with the other. The people are hungry for change and they are very disappointed that the evidence-based approach to governing that they were promised has been seemingly forgotten. What the premier and his government need to do now is take a deep breath and start over with a zero-based approach for Budget 2017 that will see government funding and support directly related to evidence and research. It may be too late already to start making things right in the public eye, but they at least need to try to find their way back to those guiding principals that they ran on last fall or it is going to be a very long 3 years indeed.

Out-Migration 2.0

Out-Migration 2.0

By: Ryan Young

It was just over a year ago that the former PC government announced their strategy to tackle negative population growth in this province. The plan: Live Here, Work Here, Belong Here, certainly lacked measurable goals, which was the major flaw of most PC policy, but it did mean that the government was at least acknowledging that the issue of population growth needed to be addressed.

To get a real accurate look at our population change, we need to go back to the last glory days of rural Newfoundland. In 1992, Newfoundland reached its peak population of 580 000. That same year saw the cod moratorium and the beginning of the largest out-migration in our history. Around the bay, no matter how bad things were, you could always fish. When that birthright was taken away in 1992, the exodus began. Over the next 15 years, the population had dropped by more than 70 000 people to just 509 000 in 2007. Many of the ones who left the province for greener pastures were the young families with children.

Although the population of Newfoundland and Labrador actually grew by 19 000 people between 2008 and 2013, the overall downward trend has led the Conference Board of Canada to predict that our population will decrease by more than 45 000 people, to around 485 000 by 2035. Perhaps even more disturbing is that by 2035, more than 30% of the total population will be made up of seniors. The cumulative effect of all of those young families leaving the province is catching up with us, and we are not ready for this major demographic shift.

Last week it was announced that the provincial population had dropped by 2500 people in 2015. With the measures contained in Budget 2016 and the total abandonment of the population growth strategy, we can expect that the numbers for 2016 will be much larger than 2500. Many have already left in search of better opportunities, and with little opportunity for new, debt-laden graduates, there is not much to entice our young families to stay and contribute to a real stronger tomorrow.

If you are asking yourself why all of this is important to you, I’ll put it in the simple terms that anyone can understand. If our population continues to drop, that means a smaller tax base for the government to collect from. That means that in order to maintain revenue levels, governments will have to continue to raise taxes to provide services. Simply put, it will cost you more money if we don’t find a way to fix the problem. On top of the tax base, an aging population also means increased healthcare costs, which again will have to be paid for by the limited number of tax payers left in the province. It is a dangerous combination, and our government seems quite content to leave the problem for future generations to figure out.

The measures contained in Budget 2016 were short sighted for a number of reasons, but maybe most important of all is the effect that it will have on our population. The Conference Board predictions were based on natural trends and did not take into account the extra financial burdens that would contribute to a new wave of out-migration. With the province in a recession and no relief in sight, it is reasonable to assume that the rate of depopulation will continue to increase. A perfect storm is gathering that has the potential to leave our province in financial ruin, without enough capital to provide adequate services to our aging population.

So how do we turn the trend around? There is no quick fix or magic solution. It will take a combination of new measures and policy shifts that will need to be implemented with long-term, measurable, goals. It will take time, but if we act now we can attempt to reverse the trend and start to grow our population.

Immigration is certainly part of the solution, but I am skeptical of how much long-term growth we can realistically expect from attracting new residents to the province. The biggest problem is that Newfoundland and Labrador does not have any large ethnic communities. While some immigrants come and build a new life here, the vast majority end up moving on to larger centers such as Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver where there are more social and economic opportunities, and often large communities from their native homes, established by previous immigrants. It is unlikely that this trend will change anytime soon, and for that reason, immigration can only act as a partial solution to the population problem.

In order to grow our population, the most important thing we need to do is provide a stable economy and better support for our families and young people. We need to invest in real economic diversification that includes investing in Newfoundlander's. We need to provide better support for small business and to think outside the box to find solutions to renewing our rural economy. We are blessed with an abundance of talent and ingenuity in this province and we need to find ways to tap into that spirit through targeted investments in order to create a stable economy that will encourage our young leaders to stay at home and raise a family.

While we rebuild our economy, we must also do better in supporting our young families. Increased child care supports and subsidies are needed to ensure greater workplace participation, especially by women. We must also work with our federal government to develop better parental leave options that encourage families to have more children. In my work with the provincial child care coalition, one reoccurring theme has been that people want to have more children, but it is just too expensive. When you consider that a family with an infant and a toddler in St. John’s will pay around $25 000 a year for child care, it is easy to see why they don’t consider having a third child. In rural areas of the province, the problem is often lack of any child care supports at all. ¾ of all children in Newfoundland and Labrador have no access to registered child care. If we really want to encourage our young families to stay here and have more children, we need to support them.

Keeping our young graduates in the province is another major issue that needs to be addressed if we are going to grow our population. “Brain Drain” has been an ongoing issue for this province for decades. Many of our best and brightest minds leave the province in search of opportunities that are not available to them here. The first thing we need to do is facilitate more of our young people to receive a post-secondary education. Cancelling tuition grants was another very short-sighted decision by this government. It will lead to lower enrollment numbers and less qualified people in our workforce. We need to encourage our youth to be educated and available for future growth opportunities. In order to keep our youth here we must also continue to invest in research and development and to support our graduates to become entrepreneurs and the new leaders of our economy.

We can do it. We can turn it around. All we need is someone with the political will to realize how big the problem is, and how important it is that we tackle it head on. There are many solutions that we could explore to grow our population but unfortunately none of them can be found in Budget 2016. Unless we want to see another mass out-migration like1992, we need to start working together to build a Newfoundland and Labrador that can support its own people. We have everything we need, except the will to change.

Child Care Key to Population Growth

Child Care Key To Population Growth

By: Ryan Young

(Originally Published in The Telegram, June 13, 2015. See Link at Bottom)

The front page of The Telegram on June 5 proclaimed that “population issues are getting to a crisis point" Over and over in the media we hear about the need for a population growth strategy due to our continued declining population, and according to all indicators we are nowhere close to turning those numbers around.

But what I fail to understand is the reason why, when we discuss population growth in this province, there is no mention of the need for a provincial child-care strategy that encourages residents to have more children.

The Conservatives have tried offering financial incentives to encourage more births, but a thousand dollars and tiny tax incentives have failed to turn the tide on population issues. Most recently there has been a push to attract more immigrants to the province, but that, too, has had limited success as many of these newcomers quickly move on to bigger centres such as Montreal and Toronto where there are more opportunities for them and their families.

Through my work with child care, I have heard from hundreds of parents in this province, many of them professionals, who want to have more children but they are holding off due to lack of accessibility and the high cost of quality, regulated child-care spaces.

Many professionals, most often women, are being forced out of the workforce if they do decide to have children. We know this, yet for some reason we are still not looking at child care as a part of the population growth solution.

There will always be the handful of people who will ask why their tax dollars should pay for child care. The answer to that question could be quite complex if we were to get into all of the social benefits of quality, universal child care, but let’s keep the discussion purely along economic lines.

Study after study, all over the world, has concluded that investing in child care nets a return of $1.50 to $2.50 into the economy for every dollar spent. Even without taking into account that early education has been proven to create a better educated, less incarcerated society, the benefits of putting parents back into the workforce just makes sense.

When you add in the fact that the reason we need to grow our population is to grow our tax base to keep the economy strong, it makes even more sense that we would want our future workers to be highly educated, productive members of society. That is the capitalist dream after all.

Before we start coming up with radical plans and expensive programs to attract a wave of new residents to the province, why don’t we try supporting our own families and try to grow our population from within? All you have to do is listen to the people and remove the barriers that are holding young families back.

Sure, immigration should be part of the plan for our province to grow and diversify, but the real issues that are holding us back need to be addressed if we are going to get back on track. Newfoundland families want to have more children, they just can’t afford it. Remove the child-care barrier and the population will grow.

It really is that easy.

Original Publication:

http://www.thetelegram.com/Opinion/Letter-to-the-editor/2015-06-13/article-4178806/Child-care-key-to-population-growth/1