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PC PARTY BLUEPRINT - 2/10
Strong Governance
Nothing has defined our government's first four years in office more than our province's bold new attitude of confidence in our ability to capitalize on our magnificent opportunities to build a brighter future for our people and our communities. In our approach to intergovernmental relations and our hunt for investment opportunities, we are no longer shy to boast about our strengths and our fierce determination to put those strengths to work effectively to generate opportunity and prosperity here at home. With an entrepreneurial spirit and a can-do attitude, we are ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with partners throughout the world, to compete with the best and to prove our strengths on each and every frontier. Building on our proud heritage, we will be masters of our own house.
When Newfoundlanders and Labradorians entrusted the government of their province to our team in 2003, we discovered a public treasury in serious fiscal trouble. We made it our goal to chart a far more responsible course: to stop overburdening future generations with an ever-increasing burden of debt that was siphoning more and more public money away from programs in order to pay for debt servicing. In cooperation with the people of our province and a dedicated public service, we set to work restoring the government's fiscal integrity and repairing its reputation progressively and responsibly. We found ways to focus government spending away from inefficiencies in order to free up resources and personnel to give new life to vital and effective public programs. We invested considerable revenues from the Atlantic Accord to address unfunded pension plan liabilities to free the province from debt responsibilities that hold us back from investing properly in infrastructure and programs for sustainable growth. By bringing accountability to public sector management, we restored the confidence of the world's financial marketplace and earned valuable credit-rating upgrades from three international bond-rating agencies. Responsible management of the people's precious fiscal resources will continue to be the hallmark of our administration as we work to leave our children a legacy, not of greater of debt, but of greater heights of opportunity.
We remain committed to making our government more responsible, transparent and accountable than any other in our province's history. We brought in the Auditor General to thoroughly examine the books of the House of Assembly and subsequently commissioned a comprehensive overhaul of constituency allowances and related matters. As we proceed to implement our detailed strategic planning and reporting provisions across all government departments and agencies, people will continue to see a new and improved approach to governance that is open and responsive to input and interaction.
A Progressive Conservative government in its second term will:
- continue to implement the recommendations of the Report on the Review Commission on Constituency Allowances and Related Matters [link], authored by Chief Justice J. Derek Green, which included legislation that was enacted in 2007
- develop whistleblower legislation
- recognize the fiscal sacrifices public sector workers have made over the last four years in upcoming collective bargaining with public sector workers
- achieve self-reliance within the federation of Canada
- continue to strive for fairness on the Atlantic Accord and equalization, including the removal of nonrenewable resource revenues from equalization calculations
- demand that the Government of Canada situate more federal offices and jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador, which has fewer per capita than any other province
- work with the Royal Canadian Legion and military families to establish an appropriate memorial in Newfoundland and Labrador to honour our soldiers who have served and sacrificed their lives in the Afghanistan mission
- work to have a Supreme Court of Canada judge appointed from Newfoundland and Labrador
- through the Government Purchasing Agency, implement revisions to reform procurement and capital works tendering policies
- continue to strengthen Newfoundland and Labrador's fiscal autonomy and fiscal capacity to meet our own obligations by diversifying and growing our own economy
- further develop our debt management strategy to continue to eliminate the debt and refinance existing debt with competitive rates
- allocate budget surpluses to pay down the public debt and thereby relieve the fiscal burden of interest payments and free fiscal resources for other initiatives, including tax relief
- survey all Crown agencies with debt and investment portfolios to enforce sound management practices in accordance with the Transparency and Accountability Act
- put in place a plan to enable Newfoundland and Labrador to develop the capacity to manage our own wealth within a decade, in coordination with Memorial University, College of the North Atlantic and the Newfoundland and Labrador investment management community
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