Roger that

Roger Fitzgerald is between a rock and a hard place.

The MHA for Bonavista South, as Speaker of the House, has to cast a deciding vote.

At issue - should the Opposition parties get more funding for research, policy and administrative needs?

Justice Derek Green, the man who was appointed by the House of Assembly to review MHA spending in the wake of the fridge magnet fiasco, thinks so.

In his report to the House of Assembly, Justic Green noted, "There are certain duties vested in the Official Opposition and, to a lesser extent in the Third Party (NDP), that must be discharged in order to have effective parliamentary democracy.

In fact, Green concluded in his report that funding for all three caucuses was not adequate to meet research, policy and administrative needs; and the needs were judged to be largest in the Official Opposition caucus.

He concluded this after reviewing funding formulas in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

In Nova Scotia, at the time of Green's report, the base allocation for the Official opposition was $400,000 - compared to $100,000 in NL. Saskatchewan provided $314,500 in base funding. Adding up all the funding available to the official opposition party in each of these three provinces, and Green found that the NL opposition was way behind. The total funding for the NL Opposition was $445,000, compared to $519,000 in Saskatchewan and $903,500 in Nova Scotia.

Among his recommendations, Green advised to increase the base funding for the Official Opposition caucus to $250,000 annually.

Three members of the House of Assembly Management Commission (HOAMC) voted against that idea. Not surprisingly, the vote was along party lines, with PC members Trevor Taylor, Elizabeth Marshall and Joan Burke opposing major increases to Opposition funding.

Burke, who is Government House Leader, went one step further,

In a press release she argued that "when you look at the number of caucus members for each party and the corresponding allocation of monies, it is clear that the Liberal party is most certainly not being disadvantaged."

Burke is partly right. The Liberals are getting, per member, more than the PC caucus ($593,000 for 44 members).

But in leaving the impression that this issue is simply a matter of 'per capita' funding formula, she is wrong.

Justice Green says so, in the report that was commissioned specifically by the House of Assembly.

"These responsibilities are fixed in nature and do not depend on the number of members," Justice Green wrote, adding, "The existence of fewer elected members in a caucus may, in fact, increase pressure on research staff since more of the responsibilities for policy and legislative research and analysis must be done at the staff level."

This is about effective democracy.

If one were to follow Burke's logic, with funding being allocated based on the number of members elected by each party, the ability of the Liberals and NDP to research issues and government policy would be impossible.

Effective democracy requires diligence by Opposition parties. It requires research where, in many cases, answers can only be found by pursuing information through the Freedom of Information Act. And that can be costly, given that each step along the way requires payment of fees to file a request and, eventually, cover the cost of photocopying of documents.

Opposition members need sufficient funding - regardless of the size of their caucus - to keep government on the straight and narrow.

The House of Assembly should follow the recommendations of the Green report, and fund Opposition parties accordingly, bringing them closer to the Saskatchewan and Nova Scotian standard.

Judge Green was deemed to be of sufficient intelligence and insight to study the issue and write a report.

He observed the situation from a non-partisan, logical perspective.

Roger Fitzgerald now has to decide whether he will follow the judge's logic, or be judged as a traitor for going against the PC caucus.

His is not an envious position to be in.

He should, however, do what's right - follow logic and know that in doing so he favours democracy over all.

Barbara Dean-Simmons