If we had Equalization, we’d have a budget surplus. On Friday, 20 Mar 20, Premier Dwight Ball wrote to the Prime minister to say that the financial arse was out of Newfoundland and Labrador. Ball included in the letter not a shred of financial evidence nor did he include any
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The Sir Robert Bond Papers: All around in circles #nlpoli
Going around in circles must be frustrating. Plummeting crude prices have dropped refining margins to negative numbers and so it isn’t surprising that Come by Chance refinery announced Sunday it is shutting down operations for upwards of five months. The official excuse is the pandemic but the real reason is
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Bank of Canada to help GNL make payroll #nlpoli
Bank of Canada234 Wellington St, Ottawa The Bank of Canada announced today that it will purchase up to 40% of money market securities with terms to maturity of 12 months or less that are issued directly by Canadian provinces. The Bank of Canada will make the first purchases on Wednesday,
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Borrowed Money and Borrowed Time #nlpoli
Tom Osborne was in Ottawa on Tuesday with his fellow finance ministers trying to squeeze some extra cash out of the federal government. The wealthiest provinces in Canada – Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador – are looking for some changes to the Fiscal Stabilization Program that would give them
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: No change in the weather? No change in we. #nlpoli
The problem we have is not a lack of options and opportunities to sort out the government finances ourselves. The problem facing Newfoundland and Labrador is that the leading people of the province, not just the politicians but all the leading people, don’t have the stomach for making the kinds
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Osborne whistling past financial graveyard #nlpoli
Moody’s delivered a clear and serious message to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador on Wednesday night by lowering the government’s credit rating. The credit rating action came after a series of consistent warnings by Moody’s since it last lowered the government’s rating of credit-worthiness in 2016. Wednesday’s downgrade suggests
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: More beige than beige #nlpoli
The Premier had a carefully rehearsed message when reporters asked him on Thursday why he had appointed everyone in cabinet back to their old portfolios despite an election that had reduced his party to a minority government. A cabinet of “experience, consistency, and stability,” Dwight Ball called them. He used
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Deficit *is* higher than previously announced #nlpoli
The House of Assembly will have to deliver a budget that keeps access to new public debt for the foreseeable future. The politicians must satisfy the bond-rating agencies, not the voters. Parties don’t matter. Ideologies don’t matter. Voters don’t matter. That is the essence of politics in Newfoundland and Labrador
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Deficit $250 – $300 million higher than announced before election according to Premier #nlpoli
In the episode that aired on 26 May 2019, Premier Dwight Ball told NTV’s Issues and Answers that the deficit for the current budget is between $800 – $900 million. “Are you prepared to make any specific changes to the budget in order to get their support?” asked Mike Connors.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Financial Reality of Election 2019 #nlpoli
The reality confronting any administration after May 16 is the same regardless of which party wins the election. The government is unlikely to balance the budget in 2022, regardless of who wins the 2019 election. In 2019, as in 2015, the last government budget before the election did not accurately
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Budget 2019 – revised trends #nlpoli
Budget 2019 was an election budget in the sense it contained a lot of little goodies, but there was nothing to get overly excited about. While everyone else is focused on the shot-term, the long-term trending contains more interesting tidbits. The following slides update the post from Monday. Income versus
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Budget 2019 Context #nlpoli
Most of the commentary about Budget 2019 on Tuesday will be focused on the short-term. Here are some slides that show longer-term trending. We’ll update them later on with the Budget 2019 figures.This is the sort of stuff that bears watching especially since the announcement of a new federal transfer
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Praying for a miracle #nlpoli
People are talking about austerity but the simple truth is the people talking that way have a vested interest in exaggerating what is going on in the provincial government. Yes, we *are* in a very dangerous financial state. But… the provincial government is doing the bare minimum to keep the
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Things are THAT bad #nlpoli
David Thompson is an independent economist in the same way that Jerry Earle and Wayne Lucas are independent human resource consultants.But the problem isn’t that CBC couldn’t make a factual statement in the first three words of a news story. Nor is…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Newfoundland government finance, 1832 to 1949 #nlpoli
Before Newfoundlanders stopped governing themselves in the early winter of 1934, they’d run a sometimes arduous course.Newfoundland gained a limited form of self-government in 1832 and in 1855 gained Responsible Government. That gave control of…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Endless Supply of Sacred Cows 2015 #nlpoli
On the first day of the session in the House of Assembly, the finance minister tabled an interim supply bill for slightly more than $2.7 billion. Supply is the word the use in the House of Assembly for money the government will use to run things. Interim supply is an
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Elephant in the Room, the Astigmatic Seer, and other horrifying budget tales #nlpoli
Has anyone noticed a small problem in all the discussions about next year’s budget? On Point’s David Cochrane had both NAPE’s Carol Furlong and the Conservative’s pet economist Wade Locke on the show to talk about the next budget. Carol was warning against cuts. Locke was talking about a request
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Double-down Locke #nlpoli
“I didn’t see this coming,” Memorial University economist Wade Locke told the Telegram’s James McLeod the other day. Locke was talking about the dramatic drop in oil prices over the past week and a half. The day before, Locke was on VOCM’s morning talk show dismissing this low oil price
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Whizzo Quality Assortment #nlpoli
On the outside, the spring budget for 2014 looks like a delicious assortment of goodies for everyone. You can tell it is delectable because everyone is shouting for joy and drooling over their good fortune. There is not a single group who have had their hands out for government money
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Vibrant Unsustainable Super Energy Debt Warehouse #nlpoli
The Conservatives used to say that Newfoundland and Labrador was eastern North America’s energy warehouse. Once Danny Williams ran for the hills and left Kathy Dunderdale in charge, she kicked everything up a notch. Energy warehouse was too plain for Kathy, whose party ran on the slogan “New Energy” in
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