Here's how to avoid a tough budget with a minority government

Now that Andrew Furey has a seat to call his own in the House of Assembly, he can get to work on the multiple crises he willingly inherited when he put his hand up for the Liberal leadership.

The impossible-to-miss crisis is the urgent and desperate state of the province's finances, which currently carry an operating deficit of $1.84 billion.

Significantly worse than the deficit — in fact, its size is one of the reasons why the deficit is so big — is our debt load, and the exhausting, incessant work of servicing it. Finance Minister Siobhan Coady, in last month's budget, revealed the net debt is now pegged at a whopping $16.4 billion, up substantially from the $13.77 billion reported in the spring of 2019.

Then there are multiple industrial crises. The Come By Chance refinery is effectively being turned off. The oil industry has taken a punch to the gut and is struggling to stand up. Tourism revenues are off significantly. In the fishery, a Grieg project on Newfoundland's south coast hit a wall because of a slump in demand for salmon.

And, oh yes, there's the pandemic. COVID-19 is a factor, if not a cause, in all of the above.

It may not be a full-fledged crisis, but a definite headache for Furey is running the whole enterprise with a minority government.

Following his swearing-in on Thursday, Furey brought the Liberal count to 20 seats — with Scott Reid in the Speaker's chair. The Liberals would need 21 seats to act like a majority.

To double back to the budget, it's important to underscore that what Siobhan Coady brought down last month was not the last word on financial management, but very much a work in progress. Ordinarily, the budget is put together through the winter and unveiled in the spring sitting. COVID-19 blew that schedule — and, more importantly, many of the key budget factors — out of the water.

Still, as my colleague Rob Antle put it, "decisions on potentially painful structural changes to address a deteriorating financial situation [have been] punted to next year."

In part, that's because the economy recovery team that Moya Greene is leading on a voluntary basis (its members were announced Thursday) has to do its work and report back.

But everyone knows that there's also a reckoning coming, sooner or later, and it's assumed in the public service that the next budget could be a tough one. Furey is also more likely to make the painful decisions that Dwight Ball seemed so keen to avoid.

Why election rumours have been rising

Which may explain why there have been a lot more rumours in the last few weeks about a snap election.

Consider this: if Andrew Furey truly wants to tackle the proverbial bull by the horns, he will need as many assets as possible. A minority government, by definition, makes it more difficult to implement a platform — and even more when decisions that need to be made are likely to spark strong reactions. 

So if you want to avoid a tough budget in a minority government, you need to change one of the factors.

Either you don't have that tough budget, and keep kicking the can down the road, or you need to change the status of the minority government.

Hence a need to get an election out of the way, and the possibility that one may come sooner rather than later.

On Thursday afternoon, Furey took his seat in the legislature, and it reminded me of a sort of first day of school.

Furey was seated with his school, er, legislative supplies on his desk: a binder, a pen, his cellphone, a plastic (tut-tut, the environmentalists will likely say) bottle of water, and (yep, it's a pandemic) his mask and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

The talk in the room was on, of course, an election. Furey, outside the house, had brushed aside the question, saying he's merely following the evidently unique provincial law that obliges an incoming premier to call an election within 12 months of being sworn in.

In the legislature, the Opposition Tories — who recently got a private member's bill narrowly passed in the legislature with a push for an October 2021 election — peppered the Liberals with questions about whether there might be a snap election.

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Don't be so foolish, Coady, who is also deputy premier, seemed to say. As she has noted before, the only people asking about an election are the Tories, and "they are constantly, constantly talking about an election, Mr. Speaker."

That comment struck me as curious, given that just four hours before Coady made that taunt, the Liberals announced that three sitting MHAs — Pam Parsons, Derek Bennett and Scott Reid — had been nominated for the next election.

Coady's own nomination for the next election, by the way, was announced Sept. 17. 

The slate, though, has some question marks. Furey cast doubt about whether former cabinet minister Perry Trimper will be running again, soon after Trimper said some homeless people choose the way they live, which struck Indigenous people as particularly tone deaf. (This comes after Trimper was booted from cabinet when he was recorded saying the Innu Nation leadership was playing the "race card" against him.)

And then there's Sherry Gambin-Walsh; Furey said it was "disheartening" to see she had leaked confidential cabinet information. It'll be interesting to see who represents Placentia-St. Mary's for the Liberals in the next election. 

Minority governments and snap elections

And don't think the Tories are counting on a deferred election for the fall of 2021. After all, Crosbie — who successfully dodged a leadership review this month — and his team started nominating candidates before Dwight Ball threw in the towel last winter.

As for what Furey is thinking, he no doubt has been looking west.

In New Brunswick, Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs dealt with a stifling minority government by calling a snap election. He got the majority he wanted in the Sept. 14 election.

That's not the only election in Canada this fall.

Today, in British Columbia, voters there are going to the polls. The reason may sound familiar: NDP Premier John Horgan has a minority government, and is seeking a majority in order to have stability in government. Horgan's snap-election decision — to require voting during a pandemic — has attracted a lot of controversy. All the same, CBC's Poll Tracker has been showing in recent days that Horgan's gambit may well pay off, as the NDP is leading in support, with quite likely enough to form a majority. 

And there's a third election campaign to watch in the next few days. On Monday, in Saskatchewan, the governing Saskatchewan Party will be looking for a fourth straight majority government. Far from a snap election, like in New Brunswick and B.C., Premier Scott Moe is sticking with fixed-date legislation. 

It's more than likely that one of the people closely watching these results will be a premier on the other side of the country.

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