Edward G Hollett
Ed Hollett is a public policy and public relations professional with more than 25 years experience in both the public and private sector.
From 1989 to 1996, Ed served as special assistant to Premier Clyde Wells. He was a Canadian Army public affairs officer from 1994 to 2000. In the private sector, Ed has represented clients in the aerospace, fishing, agriculture and health sectors.
Ed studied political science, history and policy development at Memorial University and as a civilian graduate student at the Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston.
He is an experienced executive public relations coach and a commentator on public relations and public policy in the conventional media both for local and national outlets.
Since January 2005, Ed has been writing The Sir Robert Bond Papers, the longest-running and most widely-read blog on politics and public policy in Newfoundland and Labrador. Readers voted SRBP the best political blog in Canada in 2010 and 2011.
Phone: 709-691-3072
Address: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
From 1989 to 1996, Ed served as special assistant to Premier Clyde Wells. He was a Canadian Army public affairs officer from 1994 to 2000. In the private sector, Ed has represented clients in the aerospace, fishing, agriculture and health sectors.
Ed studied political science, history and policy development at Memorial University and as a civilian graduate student at the Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston.
He is an experienced executive public relations coach and a commentator on public relations and public policy in the conventional media both for local and national outlets.
Since January 2005, Ed has been writing The Sir Robert Bond Papers, the longest-running and most widely-read blog on politics and public policy in Newfoundland and Labrador. Readers voted SRBP the best political blog in Canada in 2010 and 2011.
Phone: 709-691-3072
Address: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
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Since the “the new middle class [could] only maintain its material base during periods of state expansion and state-directed growth, the nationalist emphasis is on resource development and on the supposed struggle for control of that development.
The struggle is a supposed one because in the discussion about development of resources on land, the Newfoundland government has had exclusive control since the granting of Responsible Government in 1855. As much as nationalist rhetoric has demanded, as in the 2008 budget speech, that Newfoundlanders ought to be “masters of our domain,” the nationalist grievances over resource development are, with one exception, about decisions made by the government in St. John’s.
Even in the exception, Newfoundland gained de facto control over offshore oil and gas in 1985. The government at St. John’s set the rules for development. As the oil wealth flowed in, it was the provincial government alone that decided to spend it all in a massive expansion of the provincial state and its role in the local economy. And when oil prices plummeted, the government continued to spend beyond its means while it and local elites predictably blamed the financial mess on the loss of Equalization hand-outs from Ottawa.
The threat from Muskrat Falls can only be removed by concerted action that addresses the project’s financial burden, restores integrity to the system of electricity regulation, and that breaks, once and for all time, the fundamentally corrupt relationship between the provincial hydro-electric corporation and the provincial government. This is the only way to restore power to the province’s people so that they may control their own future.
"Newfoundland and Canada, separate countries for so long, exist as two solitudes within the bosom of a single country more than 65 years after Confederation. They do not understand each other very well. Canadians can be forgiven if they do not know much about Newfoundlanders beyond caricatures in popular media, let alone understand them. But Newfoundlanders do not know themselves. They must grapple daily with the gap between their own history as it was and the history as other Newfoundlanders tell it to them, wrongly, repeatedly."
Since the “the new middle class [could] only maintain its material base during periods of state expansion and state-directed growth, the nationalist emphasis is on resource development and on the supposed struggle for control of that development.
The struggle is a supposed one because in the discussion about development of resources on land, the Newfoundland government has had exclusive control since the granting of Responsible Government in 1855. As much as nationalist rhetoric has demanded, as in the 2008 budget speech, that Newfoundlanders ought to be “masters of our domain,” the nationalist grievances over resource development are, with one exception, about decisions made by the government in St. John’s.
Even in the exception, Newfoundland gained de facto control over offshore oil and gas in 1985. The government at St. John’s set the rules for development. As the oil wealth flowed in, it was the provincial government alone that decided to spend it all in a massive expansion of the provincial state and its role in the local economy. And when oil prices plummeted, the government continued to spend beyond its means while it and local elites predictably blamed the financial mess on the loss of Equalization hand-outs from Ottawa.
The threat from Muskrat Falls can only be removed by concerted action that addresses the project’s financial burden, restores integrity to the system of electricity regulation, and that breaks, once and for all time, the fundamentally corrupt relationship between the provincial hydro-electric corporation and the provincial government. This is the only way to restore power to the province’s people so that they may control their own future.
"Newfoundland and Canada, separate countries for so long, exist as two solitudes within the bosom of a single country more than 65 years after Confederation. They do not understand each other very well. Canadians can be forgiven if they do not know much about Newfoundlanders beyond caricatures in popular media, let alone understand them. But Newfoundlanders do not know themselves. They must grapple daily with the gap between their own history as it was and the history as other Newfoundlanders tell it to them, wrongly, repeatedly."