Speech From the Throne Commentary

Ahh. It's that time of year again when our political leaders stick their heads out of the ground and try to predict whether they're going to do anything for the next 12 months. That's right, it's time for Newfoundland's Speech from the Throne 2010 and I decided that I would break it down into bite sized pieces for the benefit of myself and my dear readers. Whoever you are.

Like any good throne speech, this one was a mix of government patting itself on the back and dropping little nuggets of information about what to expect from the year ahead. If you subscribe to the idea that they put all the big news up front this year is going to be about Child Care and Child Services. The key point in this section was an update that they are still working on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. They gave some projects that the department would be working on including a new "Early Learning and Child Care Strategy" and addressing the lack of foster homes.

Rounding this section of the speech out they wove in updates on Newfoundland's Poverty Reduction Strategy, which has apparently raised us to only third poorest province, and reiterated that they're working to stop violence against women with the "Respect Women" campaign. They also want to update the Human Rights Code (that's right the one from the United Nations which is apparently law here) to be a little more modern. Seeing as it's from 1948 (made law in 1971) a review might be in order.

So the section is called "Caring For Our Children" and they used it as a mashup of children's issues, poverty issues, women's issues and a policy rewrite. Maybe they could have picked a better header. Regardless, it's good that they're still making progress on the new department and they've got some strategies ready for it when it's finished.

Next was a litany of development updates. Tenders are still being used to stimulate the economy to the tune of 1.3 billion last year. Experts in certain money related fields, ocean tech and R&D are being cultivated. Work continues on mining development, Lower/Upper Churchill, oil exploration and extension. There was also some talk of improving access to services like the ferry, online access to registering certain documents, and some talk of improving air service within the province. Not sure what improving air service really means. Here's hoping it translates to lower flight costs. Aside from the air service thing, nothing really boat rocking here, though, it is good to hear where they're going with attracting industry.

Students might be interested to hear that Grenfell Campus is going to get some more autonomy from Memorial's main body. There's also a series of programs mentioned that focus on extending access of youth, women and disabled individuals to job opportunities. The Youth Retention and Attraction Strategy was a big one which has so far included a new Minister responsible for youth engagement and resources for employers and job seekers alike (jobsinNL.ca).

The environment even got a nod (but not much more than that) with some talk of sustainability, the "Newfoundland and Labrador Green Fund" and the upcoming Environment Canada review of the Assessment Act. The content of this section was pretty underwhelming to me. Maybe next year, Earth.

That's pretty much it as far as I can read into it. They're still working on the tourism strategy and some areas of the province are getting new medical equipment and mental illness/addictions treatment options (though they usually do). Maybe you could call this expectedly reserved, or at least a very business like approach to development. The primary industries got the most attention, as they usually do, but there were some plans for developing industries of expertise and making them appeal to younger employees. The social development stuff also felt like more of the same but I also can't really fault them for sticking with it if there's still a lot of work to be done and not overestimating what they can do in the span of a year.

Until next year,
May Divine Providence guide you in your deliberation.