Gauging the Greene report by the numbers

For 23 years, I have attended a weekly luncheon of a service club which has guest speakers. So countless university presidents have come with their annual address to report that “we have gone from 16,000 to 18,000, to 20,000 to 22,000 students.”

Now correct me. We have 500,000 people who live in Newfoundland and Labrador and that hasn’t changed in 10 years. I once went to the graduation ceremony of the Marine Institute and watched graduates receive their two-year diploma certificate. I admit that my ignorant thought was, too bad you couldn’t make it at MUN. Boy, was I wrong! At the reception following the presentation, I asked proud students to tell me their story. The theme was consistent. They had two degrees from MUN, were $40,000 in debt and had no opportunity for work. They came to the MI for technical courses and within six months of enrolling, they were being offered $50,000 positions in industry with a signing bonus.

So, let us look at MUN. Let’s start with the number of children born in the province in 2020. Now add five years to that. We must know almost exactly how many kindergarten teachers we will need. Take a sailing adage and “cut the cloth to fit the sail.” Stop graduating hundreds of education graduates if there is no hope of employment.

I enjoyed it when ministers of finance came to speak, as well. One very refreshing Friday morning, the minister was introduced, looked around the room and confirmed that there was no media present and said, “would you like me to talk to you or read the speech I was given?” Happily, he put the speech in the podium.

He started telling us that the number of government employees had gone from 38,000 to 46,000 and that the right size was probably about 40,000. As the minister, he gets lots of advice. Everyone who came into his office said “fire my neighbour, not me” or “not in my district. I will never be re-elected.”

He also looked at our service club members and asked us a question. “You are automobile dealers, real estate agents, store owners, etc. How fast do you want me to issue 6,000 pink slips? What impact will I have on your business if we take immediate action which we all know we have to take?” His speech was wonderfully refreshing.

We have 500,000 people. Those of us hearing of the growth in the civil service and the enrolment at MUN were trying to figure out the year when every resident of the province would either be working for the government or enrolled at MUN!

The Telegram has already started asking special interest groups their opinion of the Greene report. Of course, they don’t like it and their elected leadership is vocal. But how many kindergarten teachers will we need in 2026 and can we graduate only the teachers to fill that need? Make the tough decisions. Go faculty by faculty and think through which ones we can close completely.

On the medical side, just ask doctors. The first thing they will tell you is to stop the endless duplicate medical tests. And hard decisions need to be made about where we can afford to have services. Yes, more telemedicine.

Get ready, Premier. The lineup is starting outside your door. Your MHAS will come running in waving, “Not in my district.”

And yes, on selling the NLC and Nalcor. Get government out of business. If you want to own shares of the NLC, let’s have a public equity issue and buy the shares yourself.

I’ll never forget Stan Marshall’s slight grin years ago at the shareholders meeting of Fortis. At the Q & A at the end, he was asked if the company would ever invest in Nalcor. His very short answer was, “While I am here, we will never invest in anything where government owns more than 51 per cent.” Who knew what path was ahead for him after his retirement?

Don’t worry. Santa will still come this year but, please, hang a smaller stocking. We are downsizing in the North Pole. Bruce Templeton Outer Cove