Your voice matters. That’s the promise on the posters, the websites, the ads that invite you to a “consultation.” But by the time the chairs are set up and the PowerPoints begin, the outcome is already written. What looks like democracy is closer to theater: a ritual designed to legitimize decisions that were made somewhere else, long before the public was invited to speak.

These are the Faux Consultation Files—a record of how governments, development boards, business magnates, and consultants have turned participation into performance. The process collects signatures, produces glossy reports, and presents “consensus.” But the consensus is staged. The result is a system that mimics democracy while carefully steering it toward the same outcomes every time.

The Playbook

The choreography is familiar.

First, monies become available—federal green funds, DEI subsidies, or other earmarked pools—and agencies like ACOA, the REDBs (CBDC), or provincial departments step in to administer them. On paper, this is about helping entrepreneurs and communities. In practice, the criteria are already aligned with federal or global priorities, and the “consultation” process is used to make those priorities appear community-driven.¹²³

Next, a consulting firm is hired to stage the engagement—especially in government and the broader public sector, where the consequences are most far-reaching (Muskrat Falls, The Rothschild Report, Education Accord, The Green Reset). Their job isn’t to open the floor but to manage it. They select who gets a seat at the table, schedule meetings at times that exclude most working people, and craft survey questions that channel answers toward a narrow set of options. From the start, the public is asked not whether they support a project but how they prefer to see it implemented.⁴⁵

Government dignitaries are brought in to speak. Business elites—the John Risleys of the world, arriving with big promises and international headlines—take the stage, signaling inevitability and momentum for mega-projects like wind-to-hydrogen.⁶⁷⁸

By the time the report is drafted, the data looks clean, the charts look scientific, and the recommendations line up neatly with the sponsor’s objectives. Dissent is softened into footnotes. Critical voices become “minority positions.” Entire petitions are delayed, slowed until they lose force, or filed into appendices. The message to the public is simple: you were heard, but the decision was already made.

Case Examples

When residents organized petitions to challenge development projects, those petitions were not so much dismissed as delayed—acknowledged, slowed, and quietly buried under “further review.” Reports still declared that “public concerns were noted,” but the recommendations went forward unchanged.

Town hall meetings followed the same pattern. A microphone passed around, residents spoke passionately about local risks, yet the “summary of feedback” reduced hours of testimony to a handful of bullet points. Instead of capturing the substance of opposition, the documents emphasized “interest in future opportunities” or “concern over timelines.”

Even provincial surveys—marketed as democratic exercises—were engineered with leading questions. Instead of asking whether communities supported a project at all, they asked how it should be implemented, assuming agreement from the outset. Participants could only choose from the narrow menu provided. Meetings like this were held by RDÉE TNL circa 2016—sold as participation, but structured around implementation rather than consent.⁹¹⁰

Each time, the choreography was the same: invite, record, delay, sanitize, publish. And each time, the report circulated as proof that “the people were consulted,” even though the people had no real influence on the outcome.

Why It Works

The system thrives because it fills a gap. Newfoundland’s municipalities are chronically underfunded, with limited staff and little leverage against provincial or federal designs. Consultants step into that vacuum as the “experts,” producing documents officials can point to as a basis for action. Government dignitaries and business elites then reinforce the appearance of legitimacy.

Recent research on municipal finance highlights how Newfoundland municipalities’ narrow tax bases and high fixed costs create structural dependency on external transfers—making them more susceptible to top-down funding conditions and pre-set priorities.¹¹

Professionals enforce the script, too. Those with titles and credentials set the bounds of acceptable opinion. Anyone who challenges the process is framed as emotional, uninformed, or out of step with the consensus. And because the consultation itself produces the appearance of consent, dissenters are further marginalized as outliers.

The myth of unity does the rest. By reframing dissent as a “minority view,” the system creates the illusion that the community agrees, even when it doesn’t.

Consequences

The result is a governance model built on simulation. Policies move forward with the sheen of democratic legitimacy, but the actual decisions come from elsewhere. Communities pour time and energy into participation, only to discover that their involvement changes nothing.

Over time, this erodes trust. Surveys in Canada show that citizens who feel the political system does not let people like them have a say are far less likely to trust governments.¹² In Newfoundland, the dynamic is sharper: locals watch projects presented as “community-led” while the policy direction clearly tracks federal climate plans², Canada’s hydrogen strategy³, and investor-facing ESG narratives¹⁴.

This is the quiet brilliance of staged democracy. Instead of confronting communities directly, the system launders federal and global priorities through the language of local consultation. A Paris-aligned emissions goal arrives as a “regional energy transition strategy.” An ACOA fund flows through a consultant and returns as a glossy report that says “the people support this.”¹⁵

Local councils learn the lesson quickly. Funding depends on compliance, not genuine pushback. Those who resist risk being cut out of future grants or labeled as hostile to progress. The longer this continues, the harder it becomes to imagine an alternative.

Breaking the Cycle

The first step is recognizing the theatre for what it is. Consultations that hide predetermined outcomes are not democracy—they’re management tools.

Breaking the cycle requires transparency: publishing contracts, raw survey data, and the criteria that shape reports before a single word of “public input” is recorded. It requires removing consultants from the role of gatekeepers and replacing them with independent facilitators who answer to the public, not the funder. And it requires building citizen oversight mechanisms strong enough to prevent petitions and dissent from being delayed into irrelevance.

Until then, participation will remain a ritual. And democracy in Newfoundland will continue to be staged.

References

[1] Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). “Evaluations (2018–2022 EDP and more).” 2023–24. https://www.canada.ca/en/atlantic-canada-opportunities/corporate/transparency/evaluations.html

[2] Government of Canada. “2030 Emissions Reduction Plan: Clean Air, Strong Economy.” Overview portal (Dec 12, 2024). https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/climate-plan-overview/emissions-reduction-2030.html

[3] Natural Resources Canada. “Hydrogen Strategy for Canada (Dec 2020).” https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-sources/clean-fuels/hydrogen-strategy and PDF https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/nrcan/files/environment/hydrogen/NRCan_Hydrogen-Strategy-Canada-na-en-v3.pdf

[4] Government of NL (Digital Government & Service NL). “Consultations / EngageNL participation opportunities & ‘What We Heard’ processes.” https://www.gov.nl.ca/dgsnl/consultation/ and example: https://www.engagenl.ca/en/participation-opportunities

[5] Government of NL (Municipal and Provincial Affairs). “Public Consultation and Documentation Guidelines.” 2022. https://www.gov.nl.ca/mpa/public-consultation-and-documentation-guidelines/

[6] The Energy Mix. “‘Renewables Campus’ in Newfoundland Pivots from Hydrogen Exports to Data Centres.” Dec 29, 2024. https://www.theenergymix.com/renewables-campus-in-newfoundland-pivots-from-hydrogen-exports-to-data-centres/

[7] Reuters. “Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador approves World Energy’s hydrogen project.” Apr 9, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/canadian-province-newfoundland-labrador-approves-world-energys-hydrogen-project-2024-04-09/

[8] Offshore Energy. “Canada’s province clears World Energy GH2’s green hydrogen project.” Apr 12, 2024. https://www.offshore-energy.biz/canadas-province-clears-world-energy-gh2s-green-hydrogen-project/

[9] RDÉE TNL. “Annual Report 2015–2016.” https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/54532e87/files/uploaded/Annual%20Report%202015-2016%20-%20RD%C3%89E%20TNL-web.pdf

[10] RDÉE TNL. “Annual Report 2018–2019.” https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/54532e87/files/uploaded/Annual%20Report%202018-2019%20-%20RD%C3%89E%20TNL-web.pdf

[11] Xinli Guo. “Optimal Transfer Mechanism for Municipal Soft-Budget Constraints in Newfoundland.”, Aug 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02171

[12] OECD. “Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2024: Country Notes — Canada.” Jul 10, 2024. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/06/oecd-survey-on-drivers-of-trust-in-public-institutions-2024-results-country-notes_33192204/canada_1769aff6.html

[13] Government of Canada. “2030 Emissions Reduction Plan” (PDF). https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2022/eccc/En4-460-2022-eng.pdf

[14] Bennett Jones. “Canada’s Hydrogen Strategy.” Dec 16, 2020. https://www.bennettjones.com/Insights/Blogs/Canadas-Hydrogen-Strategy/

[15] ACOA. “Evaluation of ACOA’s Economic Development Programs (2018–2022).” Nov 20, 2023 (PDF). https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/acoa-apeca/documents/EDP%202023%20EVALUATION_EN.pdf