'I know how it feels': Former premier Brian Tobin remembers 1990s cuts
Says $50M for The Rooms was justified to protect culture
Former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Brian Tobin says his government hesitated to spend $50 million on The Rooms during a time of fiscal restraint in the 1990s, but a persuasive argument from his wife helped change his mind.
- The Rooms gets $1M boost from BMO for WWI education program
- $3.2-million donation to help create Canada's largest WW I exhibit
Tobin, now vice-chair of BMO Capital Markets, was at The Rooms Monday to announce the bank's financial support for a First World War exhibit.
"My wife [Jodean] said to me, 'You need to think again because of this notion that you have to do difficult things like cut, you can't do a necessary thing like spend, when what is at stake is the cultural heritage of the province,' said Tobin.
"So I want to do a public nod to Jodean for really making a powerful case for this facility," he told the audience.
Fiscal flashback
Having presided over tough financial time 20 years ago, Tobin reached out to the current premier, Dwight Ball.
"I want to tell him I know how it feels to come into office and discover that you have challenges to deal with," said Tobin.
"We spent most of our time in office doing things that weren't always popular, but were necessary."
When Tobin became as premier in January 1996, he inherited a struggling economy that had been hit hard by the cod moratorium.
First oil from Hibernia was still a year away, there was fiscal restraint in Ottawa, and the province was projecting a $290-million deficit.
"It was a time of cutting. It was also a time of constraining the wage spend in the province," said Tobin, whose government eliminated about 1,000 public sector jobs during its first budget, and increased fees on many government services.
In 1997, it announced a three-year-plan to lay off another 1,100 civil servants.
"You recall, at least I recall — I've got the scars — some of the strikes that occurred in the public service, notably and God bless them, and I salute them, the nurses who fought hard at that time," said Tobin.
"But all that was done in the interest of getting our financial house in order."
The Liberal government under Tobin also ended the denominational education system, reduced the number of school boards, consolidated hospitals, dismantled agencies and sold off assets.
"Things like selling off some of our parks and privatizing them because we couldn't maintain them all against the budget backdrop of the day," he said.
"Selling off Elizabeth Towers because we couldn't figure out why we owned it anyway...selling off properties and apartments and buildings in Churchill Park."
Hard Sell
According to Tobin, the proposal to spend money to consolidate the provincial archives, art gallery and museum in one space was a hard sell.
"The initial response of me and members of cabinet, the minister of finance of the day Paul Dicks, was, 'You just can't do it,' — it's too much money, it's $50 million to talk about doing that."
Tobin said things changed when his wife, Jodean, was taken on a tour of the facilities, which were scattered over several locations in downtown St. John's, Memorial University and the Colonial Building.
He said she told him the exhibits were at risk because of improper storage and lack of space.
"And the message was that culture, heritage is not something you can invent on the run. It's not replaceable," he said.
"And if you lose it, you've lost it forever."
The decision to build The Rooms was made in February 2000, just a few months before Tobin resigned to return to federal politics.