After months of speculation — and criticism — Greene report to be released Thursday

A long-awaited — and delayed — report from the premier's economic recovery team will be released Thursday in St. John's.

Committee head Moya Greene will deliver a speech and unveil the report Thursday at noon NT, the provincial government announced in a media release Wednesday.

During his run for the Liberal leadership last summer, Premier Andrew Furey promised to establish a team to examine the Newfoundland and Labrador's economic woes, and appointed Greene, an executive who ran both Canada Post and the U.K.'s Royal Mail, to lead the team in September.

At the time of her appointment, Greene admitted "the province is in a bad patch" and said everything would be looked at for possible savings. As CEO of the Royal Mail, she oversaw the privatization of the British postal service, but she said privatization of N.L. government services is not inevitable.

As the team began its work, criticism came from both without and within, as one member dropped out and critics decried what they called a lack of transparency.

The Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties called for the report to be released before voters cast their ballots in the provincial election earlier this year, with Furey vaguely referring to "misinformation" about the report and claiming that it was being made out as "a boogeyman."

But during the election, an interim version of the report was delayed, with Greene saying at the time that she never thought of the February deadline as a "time-is-of-the-essence thing."

Greene blamed the pandemic and the second COVID-19 lockdown across the province for delaying the interim report and said the delay had nothing to do with the election.

It now appears that there will now be no interim report, with the release announcing that Greene is presenting the finished document on Thursday .

Greene's speech will be streamed live on the government's Facebook and YouTube pages.

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