With provincial election looming, Newfoundland premier asks voters to trust him

“It’s not about what you inherit, it’s really about how you respond,” Ball told Rotary Club members in St. John’s. (Photo: Premier of NL @PremierofNL/Twitter)

JOHN’S, N.L. — With a provincial election set for October, Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier is asking voters to stick with his Liberal government.

Premier Dwight Ball, in an annual state-of-the-province speech, urged voters Thursday to ignore the “noise and fiction” he said was expected from his political opponents.

Despite the “unprecedented fiscal challenges” facing the province, Ball said his government has gone above and beyond in tackling the bleak fiscal outlook that existed when his party was elected to govern in 2015.

“It’s not about what you inherit, it’s really about how you respond,” Ball told Rotary Club members in St. John’s.

Ball said a recent Conference Board of Canada report predicting the province will lead the country in economic growth in 2019 speaks to his government’s accomplishments.

The premier also painted his government as trustworthy, compared with the provincial Conservatives, who sanctioned the controversial Muskrat Falls hydroelectric megaproject — currently the subject of a public inquiry into cost and schedule overruns.

The final report from the inquiry is expected in late December, after voters cast their ballots.

Ball didn’t say how he plans to deal with electricity rates, which are expected to double when Muskrat Falls starts providing full power in 2021.

However, he said the province’s Public Utilities Board and his government are researching “options” to deal with the challenge.

And he asked voters to trust him to handle discussions if the province asks for Ottawa’s help.

“If we exhaust all the options available to us, there’s no doubt that we will need the federal government involved, so I’d ask you this question: who would you want to be talking to your federal government today?” Ball asked the crowd.

Ball also touted his government’s success in developing the mining, offshore oil and aquaculture sectors — though some resource extraction projects have yet to be sanctioned, like the proposed Bay du Nord deepwater drilling project announced last summer.

Stephen Tomblin, a former Memorial University political science professor, said the leaders running in this year’s election are facing an electorate that’s frustrated and fearful of the consequences if the economy doesn’t improve.

While the premier has promised big changes, Tomblin suggested that many of Ball’s big-ticket initiatives represent more-of-the-same for Newfoundland and Labrador’s politics.

“To a great extent, we’re maintaining the status quo in terms of doubling the offshore developments and increasing, continued reliance on natural resources,” he said.

Tomblin said the ongoing Muskrat Falls inquiry has also played a role in the public’s desire for change.

Months of testimony from former government officials and industry players, some implying project risks were intentionally downplayed, has sparked interest in a more open government and changes in the ways decisions are made.

“Muskrat Falls was inherited by this premier, but there’s this kind of sense that this mess that we’re in is the result of premiers having too much influence or too much power, and the public are paying for bad decisions,” he said.