Don’t panic but it’s not OK
Have you read “Is Newfoundland and Labrador headed for bankruptcy? And how much will that cost the rest of Canada?” written by James Mcleod and published in the National Post on Wednesday, July 11?
The downside of Newfoundland and Labrador was exposed for everyone to see across Canada and the world. It was front and centre on the internet for a few days as well as Twitter and Facebook. The article wasn’t about how beautiful it is to live here; the scenery, rugged and powerful. The people, charming, friendly, helpful, caring, passionate. Nothing about how wonderful a place it is to rear one’s family in a quiet and safe place. There was nothing about cultural traditions or the work ethic of a people who survived centuries “on the Rock” to build their homes and families as they fought the environment to make a living from the sea and the land.
This article is bluntly about whether or not Newfoundland and Labrador will survive insolvency in the near future so that it will have a future for generations of families to come. Insolvency is just another word meaning bankrupt, belly-up, financial failure and any other negative that you want to include for economic bust. It’s about the massive amount of dollars it takes to manage health care in an aging population.
Mcleod notes that “Newfoundlanders and Labradorians lead the country when it comes to the rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and alcohol consumption.” Throw in the highest debt per capita, high taxes, high gas prices, high electricity rates (soon to double), low wages, and we have a province in a continuous downward spiral heading for a massive crash. Electricity rate increases in 2019 and 2020 will mean that ratepayers will spend hundreds more dollars per month on keeping their families warm during long, bitter winters, when needed dollars should have otherwise been spent on food, clothing, needed medications, education, holidays and much more.
It’s not like we haven’t been told or haven’t heard it before. Now it’s in the open to be discussed, and therefore, presents greater opportunities to plan strategies that could significantly offset the thousands of dollars that taxpayers and ratepayers will have to pay well into the next generation or two. Bankruptcy may be humiliating but it’s not an option and it should be discussed right now, not in two years, five years or 10 years’ time. It may very well be too late then. Many Newfoundland and Labrador families may already have gone, said their goodbyes to friends and loved ones while slamming the door behind them knowing they won’t be back. A tune of outmigration that we know only too well.
Let’s put it clearly on the table. Please explain how a workforce of approximately 300,000 taxpayers can pay for all the services needed by the 530,000 people who live here, many of whom live offshore and on the coastlines around Newfoundland and Labrador. How do these same limited number of taxpayers and ratepayers pay for Muskcrap Falls and its associated costs of $12.7 billion? It’s quite obvious that this cannot be done going forward. The high cost of living here is oppressive enough without adding $12.7 billion to the deficit.
Tough questions will have to be asked by many families and many individuals in the near future about whether their future resides in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Is this where we want to be if there is a future in Newfoundland and Labrador. Is this where we want our children to grow up, live and work? Where are the opportunities? Where is the hope for the future? Where is the transparency that government promised? Where are government’s plans to foster any hope for any future in Newfoundland and Labrador?
It seems after all, that we have not come too far from the days when we were a “have not” province of Canada. What an absolute shame that we now find ourselves in this terrible financial economic present. Government, Liberal members, Progressive Conservative members, New Democratic members, are you listening at all?