NRPP, It's Alive!

06 Dec 2016

Hey, good news zombie lovers, the project I’ve declared dead (or, at least, doomed) is not only still shambling around, it’s going to get the official political glad-handing treatment tomorrow:

We are excited to share an important Natural Resource Permitting Project (NRPP) milestone. Tomorrow—December 7—NRPP’s first service on the NRS Online Services website will be launched in Williams Lake at FrontCounter BC with Minister of State for Rural Economic Development Donna Barnett.

I always feel sad for the poor politician tasked with the “new website” announcement, because honestly, is there any announcement that feels like more of an empty gesture towards real action? “Yes, I understand you wanted $50M for addiction treatment, but… how about this new web site?”

Anyways, while she’s getting her demonstration of the new NRS Online Services website, here’s some questions Minister Barnett might like to ask:

• Can I drive? Let me use the computer. Why don’t you ever let the Minister use the computer? I’m the Minister, dammit.
• Why is it so slow? Surely for this kind of money it should be fast.

• What are all those buttons across the top? What does the pencil mean? I’ve never seen those icons before. What do you mean “have I ever used ArcView?”, what’s ArcView?

• You really expect me to click all those links to find out what impacts my project? There’s got to 20 of them!

• Does it work on my phone? Ah, kind of, I see. No, I don’t know what a “bootstrap” is.

• Honestly, why is it so slow? Am I clicking it wrong?

• Does this work align with government priorities? Maybe you need to do some more transformation on it.

Congratulations, NRPP on your first step towards transforming the sector, have a great demo!

Addendum: In the press release, Minister Steve Thomson is quoted as “saying” (poor Ministers always sound so stodgy when they “speak” in press releases):

Through the Natural Resource Permitting Project, the Province is making a significant investment in helping communities balance economic development with protecting our natural resources.

My notes:

• The province is surely making a “significant investment” in Deloitte and CGI. Whether that investment ends up “helping communities” is still very much a question in flux.
• The purpose of NRPP is not “balance” between economic development and protected natural resources. The business case makes clear, the purpose of NRPP is to increase natural resource extraction rates, generating a permanent lift in royalties to offset the (significant) costs of NRPP. Sadly, even on those terms it’s likely to fail.

Such a short sentence, yet still so much misdirection.