Big Ideas, Small Ground

Newfoundland and Labrador has seen more resets than most. Resets after bankruptcy. Resets after Confederation. Resets after fish, oil, and whatever comes next. There’s always a panel. There’s always a plan. And there’s always a promise that this time — this time — we’ll finally turn the corner.

But we don’t turn. We spiral.

The 2021 “Big Reset” economic recovery report was just the latest iteration of this pattern, dressed up in World Economic Forum language²³. It mimicked the tone of the Great Reset — modern, progressive, transformative — but like all the others, it missed the foundation.

Because there’s no transformation when the local isn’t even present.

That’s the core of what Van Assche, Greenwood, and Gruezmacher define as the local paradox¹: every bold strategy relies on strong local implementation, but the regions most aggressively targeted for transformation are the ones least equipped to deliver it.

The Reset That Can’t Stick

Top-down plans keep showing up in places that were never built to push back.

To succeed, these schemes would need:

• Local governments with real policy teeth
• Communities with planning infrastructure
• A civic culture that can say no — and mean it

What they usually get instead is:

• Part-time councils and underfunded districts
• Little to no technical or legal capacity
• A public weary from being asked for input that doesn’t matter

In Newfoundland, most communities didn’t ask for the reset. They were told it was happening — and invited to decorate the edges¹³.

Shock, Response, Repeat

This province has always been a land of shocks.

The collapse of the 1930s. Confederation in 1949. The cod moratorium in 1992⁴. The grand ambitions of Churchill Falls and the sobering aftermath of Muskrat Falls⁵. And now, an uncertain future as oil's boom years wane and volatility takes its place.

Each of these moments triggered a new “reset.” Each arrived from the top, expected the bottom to adjust, and left no lasting institutional gain in its wake.

No one asked what real capacity looked like. No one paused to build it.

Resilience was framed as endurance — not agency¹.

Capacity Isn't Cosmetic

Governance isn’t just electing a mayor and hoping for the best. It means knowing how to analyze, when to negotiate, and how to organize beyond potholes and playgrounds.

But here, local governance has been structurally hollowed out — not by accident, but through a long series of policy choices.

Most communities have no full-time planners to review proposals. No legal support to evaluate development agreements. No institutional memory to carry forward lessons from the last failure. And no financial leverage to stand up when it matters.

The province says “develop,” but it never hands over the tools¹⁶.

Projects Aren’t Plans

In Newfoundland, development often arrives in the form of short-term projects, not long-term strategy.

There’s a difference.

Projects come with logos and cut ribbons. They fit neatly into a grant window or a media release. But they don’t build systems, and they don’t transfer power. They’re easy to sell, easy to end, and easier still to forget.

The decisions are usually made before the community ever sees the file.

And so the pattern continues: development as theatre. Something to count, something to display — but rarely something to build from¹⁷.

The Politics of Passive Participation

By now, the choreography is familiar.

There’s a community survey — with pre-approved multiple choice options. There’s a workshop — where “assets” are named but never resourced. There’s a roundtable — where everyone nods but nothing shifts.

We call it engagement, but it’s closer to managed optics.

Even when people show up and speak honestly, the structure doesn’t allow for deviation. Say the wrong thing, and you’re “off topic.” Suggest an alternative frame, and you’re being “difficult.”

The lines are already written. The community’s role is to rehearse them¹⁸.

The Feedback Loop of No

Communities that can’t plan, can’t push back. Communities that can’t push back, get sidelined. And when they’ve been sidelined long enough, the province steps in and says:

“They’re not ready. We’ll do it for them.”

The loop feeds itself.

Even those who want local power start to fear it — because with no capacity, all that’s left is liability. Local governance becomes a risk, not a right.

Why step up when you’ll be blamed for outcomes you can’t control?

Top-down strategies crave transformation — but they land in places too weak to deliver it.

In Newfoundland, local governance has been deliberately underbuilt, leaving communities with no teeth to push back and no tools to lead.

Grand policy schemes like the Great Reset perform the script of inclusion, but without real grassroots capacity, it’s theatre — not governance.

What Needs to Happen (But Won’t)

What might actually shift this?

• Hiring real planners and administrators — not volunteers or grant-funded temps
• Giving towns the legal and political power to say no to bad development
• Funding actual long-term strategy instead of flashy workshops or surveys

But that’s not what’s being offered.

Instead, we get another reset. Another report. Another big idea that doesn’t touch the ground¹³.

Final Reflection: If the Local Isn’t There, Nothing Lands

Newfoundland has cycled through every type of reinvention — economic, industrial, social — but each one has landed in the same hole.

Not because people didn’t care. But because they were structured not to matter.

There is no top-down fix for a bottomed-out foundation.

Not in governance. Not in trust. Not in imagination.

Until we build the base, the resets will keep coming — and they’ll keep failing.

Only the narrative will change. The pattern won’t.

References

[1] Van Assche, K., Greenwood, R., & Gruezmacher, M. (2022). The local paradox in grand policy schemes: Lessons from Newfoundland and Labrador. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 38, 101212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2022.101212 (local download)

[2] Schwab, K., & Malleret, T. (2020). The Great Reset. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset (local download)

[3] Greene, M., et al. (2021). The Big Reset: Report of the Premier’s Economic Recovery Team. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Full report: https://thebigresetnl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PERT-FullReport.pdf. Official release: https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/2021/exec/0506n02/ (local download)

[4] Bavington, D. (2011). Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse. UBC Press. https://www.ubcpress.ca/managed-annihilation

[5] Flyvbjerg, B., & Budzier, A. (2019). Report for the Commission of Inquiry Respecting the Muskrat Falls Project. arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.03698

[6] Greenwood, R. (1991). The Local State and Economic Development in Peripheral Regions: A Comparative Study of Newfoundland and Northern Norway. [Thesis, University of Toronto (available upon request or in library archives)]

[7] Korneski, K. (2016). Conflicted Colony: Critical Episodes in Nineteenth-Century Newfoundland and Labrador. McGill-Queen's University Press. https://www.mqup.ca/conflicted-colony-products-9780773547803.php?page_id=73&

[8] Webb, J. (2014). The Rise and Fall of Memorial University’s Extension Service, 1959–91. Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, 29(1). https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/nflds/2014-v29-n1-nflds04774/1062246ar.pdf (local download)