Governance

This article uncovers how “consultations” in Newfoundland function less as democratic exercises and more as staged performances. Funding streams through ACOA, REDBs, and provincial programs are already aligned with federal agendas, while consultants, dignitaries, and business elites manage the optics. Public surveys and town halls ask not if projects should happen, but how—with dissent delayed or sanitized into minority notes. Petitions stall, reports reframe opposition, and “What We Heard” documents mask predetermined outcomes. The cycle persists because municipalities, underfunded and dependent on external transfers, lack leverage. By exposing this choreography, the piece shows how managed consent substitutes for true debate, leaving communities disempowered under the guise of participation. Read More...

Garden Hill was once promoted as Newfoundland’s next energy frontier — a project that promised jobs, prosperity, and renewal. Instead, it collapsed into rusting tanks and broken promises, leaving behind a scar rather than a legacy. Today, the Environmental Transparency Committee reframes the site as a symbol of heritage and tourism, invoking ancestors and lighthouses to cover decades of failure with the language of pride. This article traces how overlapping interests in Enegi, Investcan, Town of Cape St. George and FFTNL left their mark, how governance capture ensured no accountability, and how even the fence was only repaired once optics demanded it. Garden Hill is not renewal — it is the carousel turning again, with the same interested parties still guiding the ride. Read More...

This article explores how Newfoundland’s weak local governance structure has made it an ideal testing ground for global agendas like the Great Reset and Agenda 2030. Drawing on Van Assche’s “local paradox” concept, it shows how a vacuum of strategic direction enables foreign capital, ESG-driven policies, and top-down transformations to bypass real public accountability. The piece highlights how green colonialism, staged consultation, and technocratic control have redefined development in the province, connecting Newfoundland’s geopolitical vulnerability to broader global patterns of depoliticized governance, simulated consent, and elite-led transitions. Read More...

This article examines the career of consultant Ali Chaisson as a case study in Newfoundland’s recurring cycle of failed megaprojects and governance gaps. From his early shell companies like Cabestan Holdings to roles in Enegi Oil’s Port au Port #1 project, the Bettencourt-linked Investcan Energy, and later pivots through Orion, OPTIONS, and XMi Systems (now Lexa Intelligence), Chaisson exemplifies how consultants survive while projects collapse. The pattern is sustained by Newfoundland’s “soft budget constraints” — a culture of bailouts and weak local governance that enables consultants to outlast the ventures they front. Rather than producing lasting results, Chaisson’s permanence shows how the system rewards continuity over accountability, turning each new initiative into another spin of the carousel. Read More...

Newfoundland keeps cycling back to “the next big project” because of path dependency (how ideas, institutions, goals, and infrastructure lock in repetition) and soft budget constraints (bailouts that reward risk). Muskrat Falls shows the pattern: a 2005 cable promised 2015 power, but delivery came nearly a decade late at double the cost—while dissent like Brad Cabana’s was sidelined. The new Churchill Falls MOU repeats the trap: external leverage, political optics, and deferred accountability, unless governance reforms and hard budget rules break the cycle. Read More...