Memorial University's Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development today released the final report on its study of the federal government's presence in Newfoundland and Labrador. This study complements and completes an earlier report issued by the Harris Centre on Nov. 22, 2005.

The earlier report, which was made possible with the help of a contribution from the Crosbie Group of Companies, examined changes in federal government employ­ment, wages and salaries, spending, and military personnel over the past 25 years. The final report includes these findings and adds information related to the number of federal offices in the province, examines the presence of crown corporations and busi­ness enterprises and the wages and salaries paid by them, reviews federal government capital expenditures, takes a more focused look at current expenditures, and includes information on subsidies to business

According to the final report, many federal offices in Newfoundland and Labrador were either downgraded or closed during the past 10 years. In addition, there are no Atlantic Canada head offices located in the province for any department or crown corpo­ration, save for Marine Atlantic; other than for Marine Atlantic, all federal offices in Newfoundland and Labrador report to a head office in either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. There are no headquarters or major offices with national mandates in the province, as there is in Prince Edward Island, where the Department of Veterans' Affairs is based

The November 2005 report showed that the federal government's current expen­ditures (exclusive of wages and salaries) are substantial, but that the province's share of the national budget had dropped in the latter half of the 1990s. The situation is dif­ferent in regards to capital expenditures, where the province's share of the budget has exceeded its share of the national population by a modest margin. However, capital expenditures are less than half the value of current expenditures and the capital budget has generally been lower since 1995.

The federal government also provides grants and subsidies to businesses, inclu­ding government business enterprises. These include grants for research and deve­lopment, market development and operations; the gulf ferry subsidy to Marine Atlantic is an example of an operating grant to a government business enterprise. The percentage of federal government subsidies to businesses in this province is, for most years, somewhat higher than the province's share of the national population.

At times, capital transfers from the federal government to corporations with acti­vities in

this province have been quite large, notably with regard to the construction of the gravity-based structure for the Hibernia off-shore oil field. They have not, however, been substantial since 1996.

This report was prepared by Dr. James Feehan, professor of Economics at Me­morial University, and Ms. Alison Coffin, a research assistant with the Harris Centre.

Dr. Robert Greenwood, director of the Harris Centre, stated that the original report, released in November, “played a crucial role locally in the most recent federal election”. The report was the subject of a ministerial statement in the House of Assembly, it was included in a letter from Premier Danny Williams to the federal party leaders and was a major topic of discussion in the candidates' debate held in St. John's in January.

Copies of the report can be found on the Harris Centre's website at www.mun.ca/harriscentre. The Harris Centre has a mandate to facilitate and coordinate the university's activities related to regional policy and development.