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A long thread on how public policy gets made in Newfoundland and Labrador and why secrecy is big problem….
Last November, the Department of Finance quietly released new population estimates for the province. It should have gotten more attention at the time. https://www.gov.nl.ca/fin/economics/pop-about/
While Statistics Canada, and their considerable track record in projecting these things, has been forecasting a rapid population decline in the province by 2040 – our demographic and ageing crisis is hard to ignore. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/91-520-x/91-520-x2019001-eng.pdf?st=sSWCwkgh...
NL Finance is now projecting that the population of the province will actually grow by 2040 – most of this growth concentrated in working age populations – people that don’t need expensive healthcare and do pay taxes. Hmmm….
Depending on which projection you compare, the differences are in the neighbourhood of 70,000 people – a very big number for a small province.
I have no idea what the basis for this change is (optimism?), but Finance estimates of these things are IMPORTANT policy inputs. They guide decisions about everything from where new schools might be needed to whether more PET scanners are needed. Wise governments plan.
You'd hate to think this data was seat of your pants type stuff...
It’s also probably important to note that official projections like this are also used politically, to do platform costings – to judge the feasibility of government promises during an election, and may also influence things like what creditors' think of your financial problems.
In this case, normal government mechanisms of transparency and accountability apply. Eg I could ATTIPA information surrounding this and maybe find out what the is up to; but the point here is that this is a nice illustration of the problem of secrecy in government.
The evidence being used by the Premier’s Economic Recovery Task Force to inform Moya Greene’s blueprint for government for the next two decades can’t be scrutinized in the same way, unless they choose to tell us something, nosey checks on their homework aren’t welcome.
Governments don’t always tell us what we need to know to judge the wisdom of their choices. We have lots of evidence of this happening in that past in Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s still happening now.
The End.
The End.
