Tony Tremblay: The hardening of N.B.'s political narrative

Pity the political newcomer to New Brunswick. And pity new Premier Brian Gallant,who was not yet in office when the insistent and very public lobbying started.

Pity also the New Brunswick citizen whose opposition to shale gas fracturing contributed,at least in part, to puttingGallant in the premier's seat.

Lest those citizens get too smug with the idea of a working democracy, reminders are constant in the provincial press that what really matters is industry, energy developmentand policy reform that serves both.

In the wake of the recent provincial election, one could be forgiven for thinking of MarkTwain's view of democracy: If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

So appears to be the situation in New Brunswick: regardless of the election outcome,powerful members of the province's political class are refusing to allow Gallant hisposition on shale gasand, by extension, refusing to acknowledge the choice that NewBrunswick voters made.

Given the abundance of problems we have in this province, that isvery, very troubling.

It is troubling because it treats democracy as an inconvenienceand troubling because itwill be citizens of diverse interests and perspectives who will have to be part of solutionsif our province is to move forward.

It is also troubling because New Brunswick citizensare ready as never before to be part of the change.What they are being told by Liberalsand ProgressiveConservatives alike, however, is that their choice at the ballot box didn't matter.

Is itany wonder that cynicism is rampant, that young people have mostly absented themselvesfrom the democratic processandthat, when viewed from the outside, New Brunswickersappear to be disinterested in steering their own course?

Province in a 'death spiral,' warns McKenna

So said former premier Frank McKenna in a speech at the Atlantic Canada and NortheastU.S. Energy Summit in Saint John on 24 October 2014.

The story was on the front pageof the provincial edition of the next day's Telegraph-Journal. And the message wasconsistent with what we've been hearing, and continue to hear: "We're in an endlesscycle of high deficits, declining population, higher interest rates and payments, an agingpopulation, higher cost of services, less equalization, less personal income, higher taxes andconsumption taxes. It's a death spiral that we're in if we don't do something about it."

What followed the "warning" int he articlewas McKenna's "strident" view of the need to developresources such as natural gas, which he described as "a moral choice."

How should we read such stridency and sermonizing? Does it matter that these "moral"imperatives are appearing in a paper affiliated with the province's largest energycorporationor that McKenna sits on the board of Canadian Natural, one of the world'sbiggest natural gas and crude oil producers?

Perhaps those things would matter less ifthere were not so much thematic consistency around them. It is curious, for example, thatthe Telegraph-Journal did not give as much coverage or profile to Maude Barlow's talk inSaint John five days later.

Her talk opposed the Energy East Pipeline project. The day afterher talk, the Telegraph-Journal's leading headline read "Potashcorp Needs Natural Gas."The story of Ms. Barlow's talk was on B5.

Provincial challenges

The logic we are being asked to accept is very clear: that royalties from energydevelopment will pave the way to provincial prosperity.

The consequence of not acceptingthat logic is also very clear: failure to do so will result in "death." In other words, toavoid "death" we must start fracking. Put another way, we have no choice!

Lest my own view in writing this is misunderstood (or misconstrued), I am not denyingthat New Brunswick has serious demographic and fiscal challenges.

Those have been welldocumented and are clear for all to see. But what about the province's other challenges?What about health-care delivery, climate change, public education, linguistic differences,uneven income and service distribution, rural/urban and geographic divides, andaboriginal self-determination, to name just a few?

The logic that McKenna and otherspresent us with is that those challenges are fixable by the anticipated revenues that willaccrue from shale gas royalties. It is a logic that they are working very hard to instill.

But does that logic stand up to what we know from history? Does it stand up to the factthat New Brunswick has had largely the same industrial and resource-based focus for thepast 50 yearsand that focus has not created the wealth that we are now promised.

Doesit stand up to the fact that the last few provincial governments (including McKenna'sown) oversaw the deindustrialization of large parts of New Brunswick and the provincialeconomy?

And how does the logic square with the long history of concessions to major industrialplayers in the province concessions on taxation, water rates, energy consumption?

Whatwould the difference have been in New Brunswick if those concessions had not been inplaceand what sort of concessions are in play today with shale gas and other energydevelopments? Is prosperity calculated before or after concessions?

Finally, what is the more nuanced view of our demographic and fiscal impoverishment? Arewe the first generation of New Brunswickers to experience out-migration?

Is 'death' imminent?

A more studiedview of history shows that we are not. So what, then, is at the root of what has been a 150-year-old problem?

Likewise, how does our per capita debt in New Brunswick compare withother parts of Canada? Cast in broader perspective, is our "death" as imminent as somewould have us believe?

No doubt there are many on Bay Street who wish to end the wealthtransfers that come our way, but are the bond traders in New York really that close toforeclosing on us?

Those questions point to an irrefutable fact: what we really and urgently need in NewBrunswick is a balanced, calm, and informed discussion a discussion, ironically, thatis characterized by exactly the "more light and less heat" kind of deliberation that McKenna calls for.

Contrary to what he claims, however, it is not New Brunswickers who areturning up the heat. Rather, it is New Brunswickers who want (and have voted for) morelight, by which I mean more opportunity to be part of multi-faceted solutions instead ofbeing cast, as always, in the role of naysayers and impediments to progress.

What is happening is ahardening of vision: an aggressive and quite unprecedented lobby aimed at shaping andnormalizing the discourse of New Brunswick.

Is there a conspiracy going on in New Brunswick? A conspiracy crafted in the boardroomsof the province's largest industries?

I seriously doubt it. But what is happening is ahardening of vision: an aggressive and quite unprecedented lobby aimed at shaping andnormalizing the discourse of New Brunswick so that themes of austerity and financialcalamity make rapid energy development loom large and insistent.

What is positive aboutthat is that it reflects the vision of committed industrialists (and their ideological loyalists)working hard to bring opportunity to the province.

What is negative is that that hardeningof vision also works to exclude other perspectives. In fact, it works very hard to excludeother perspectives, other solutions, and other ways of defining problems.

And when theprint media in the province is so closely aligned with these same committed industrialistsand their interests find a way into circulation (as Jacques Poitras' recent book Irving vs.Irving illustrates), then the hardening of vision is especially problematic, for the sheerrepetition of its mantras acquires a status akin to truth.

That, of course, is the point of such narrowing of vision, which blunts the voice, vote, andagency of citizens. The disenfranchisement that results, however, is counter to what thatnarrowing ultimately serves. In other words, such tactics rarely work in the ways intended.

The challenge, as many citizens see it, is to conceive of New Brunswick as larger than anyone set of industries or interests, no matter how strong their lobby.

In meeting this multi-dimensional challenge atop what appears to be his less-than-friendly welcome to office, ournew premier will need a kind of Herculean strength.

I know I am not alone in wishing himwelland not alone in hoping that he remembers that New Brunswickers from all regionsand persuasions are ready to roll up their sleeves and help.